TexasCHLforum.com

It worked with Taco Cabana, and you might want to point out that Starbuck's has no problem with legal open or concealed carry in however many thousands of stores they have.

I wish we could say that no one ever had a problem that would have been prevented by a "no guns" sign. Unfortunately, there have been a few CHL holders who messed up.

There have been situations where a customer with a weapon probably saved the life of store personnel or other customers, but these morons don't want to hear that.

- Jim

Please note that assault versus aggravated assault is a big difference. Assault can be something as trivial as grabbing a person's clothing. Aggravated assault requires serious injury or use of a weapon and is always a felony.

This bit of trivia is often used to inflate crime statistics by those who have an interest in doing so. A shoving match or bar fight really is not in the same category with attempted murder, shooting, or stabbing.

For other offenses, such as kidnapping, sexual assault, and robbery, the "plain vanilla" and aggravated categories are all serious and mostly felonies.

- Jim

This kind of data always trails real life by years.

Reporting is not a priority for law-enforcement agencies, and probably we are not willing to pay for making it a priority.

- Jim

Ashlar wrote:Any idea when the 2008 numbers will be out?

Probably with budget cuts, I would rather see DPS processing license applications than crunching numbers.

Of course, I have no idea who does what. The statistics might not be processed by CHL Division employees.

- Jim

No one who knows how that came about is talking. Most likely it is a result of coding errors or plea bargains.

The topic has been discussed before:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=38706" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11348" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

patriot76 wrote:Sorry. I meant unlawful carrying of a weapon. There were 29 cases. What does that mean?

I don't know. No one seems to know.

- Jim

Huh? In 2007, the last year reported, FOUR CHL holders were convicted of illegal weapons violations. That would be things like switchblades and brass knuckles.

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administra ... rt2007.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Probably as many Catholic nuns were convicted of some offense, and there aren't that many Catholic nuns these days.

- Jim

Charles L. Cotton wrote:It doesn't help CHL's ...

I agree that it wouldn't be helpful.

The important figures, IMHO, are how many crimes are prevented by armed citizens versus how many crimes are committed by armed citizens (non-LEOs). The antis won't accept those numbers, either.

These arguments are never settled by using facts, because they're all about emotion in the first place.

- Jim

As far as I know, no one compiles data on crimes committed by profession.

LEOs commit plenty of crimes, but they tend to be in the areas of official misconduct or domestic abuse. Anyone who is interested can easily come up with a list of LEO offenses that are currently in the news, like this: http://www.texaschlforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=32878" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Every profession has a degree of crime that is related to the privileges and risks of that profession. I could probably alienate everybody by coming up with another list.

- Jim

Armybrat is referring to these two reports:

• Licenses suspended by county, FY 2008: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administra ... pended.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
• Licenses revoked by county, FY 2008: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administra ... evoked.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Harris County had about 18% of the suspensions and 25% of the revocations.

These number are percentages of the total number of suspensions or revocations for the state.

Harris has about 1/5 of the population of Texas, so these numbers are not too much out of line. Being an urban county with a large number of police agencies, a resident of Harris County is much more likely to have a LEO encounter than someone in a rural county, and much less likely to get a break from police or prosecutors.

Mr. Rosenthal did not like CHL and he liked unlicensed car carry even less.

- Jim

You say that you are fairly new to these issues.

In every state where concealed carry has been legalized in the last 20 years, the same old clichés have been repeated endlessly: blood in the streets, wild west, shootout at the O.K. Corral.

These fears have been proven false every time, but we need to keep fighting. The antis periodically issue some warped statistics claiming that CHL holders have committed a huge number of crimes, which they can show only by including traffic offenses and that sort of thing.

We have to defend the ground that we hold in addition to making progress. There was a time when "any gun anywhere" was the law. We lost that because of fear of crime. We have be sure that history is not repeated.

- Jim