Dear Battalion Staff,
Please consider publishing the enclosed response to Mr. Brandon Hausenfluck's editorial entitled "'Right to carry' law opens door to criminals" that appeared in the Opinion section of the Friday, February 7, 1997 edition of the Battalion. I have tried to keep the length of the response to a minimum, without sacrificing accurate explanations of the salient issues. If you must change the content, length, or form of the response, please allow me to examine the final draft before publishing. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Regards,
Michael Russell Grimaila E.T.,B.S.E.E.,M.S.E.E.
Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical Engineering
AME/ECE UNIX System Administrator
Texas A&M; University, College Station, Texas 77843-3128
EMAIL: [email protected]
Telephone:(409) 845-7162
I disagree with Brandon Hausenfluck's column entitled "'Right to carry' law opens door to criminals" in the Opinion section of the Friday, February 7, 1997 edition of the Battalion. The problem with firearms in the US is who owns them illegally, not who carries them legally! It is the unlawful ownership, carry, and use of firearms by the criminal element of society that is the real problem. By definition, a criminal is a person who does not obey the laws of our society. Criminals who choose to illegally carry concealed firearms will do so regardless of the law. Conversely, a person who has been issued a Concealed Handgun License (CHL) is as far from being a criminal as one can be. For example, to qualify for a CHL in Texas you must attend a 15 hour training class, pass a ninety day state and federal background check, pass a written and practical test, and demonstrate safe handling and use of a firearm. These guidelines are in place to insure only those who are qualified receive a permit.
It is important to note that a CHL holder cannot carry a firearm in certain prohibited places such as schools, sporting events, hospitals, public meetings, polling places, bars, airports, etc. Hausenfluck's illustration of the 1995 UT vs. Texas A&M; Football game where an angry Aggie draws a concealed firearm is simply ridiculous. Law abiding citizens, CHL holders included, do not carry firearms on Texas A&M; University property. In the little over a year the Texas CHL has been in effect, the Texas Department of Public Safety has issued 114,665 CHLs and we have seen none of the gunfights predicted by Hausenfluck. For more information on the Texas Concealed Handgun Law, check out https://www.pobox.com/~barnett/txchl/.
Why do people want to obtain a CHL ? We call upon the police whenever possible to take care of the trouble of dealing with any criminals we encounter in our daily life. Unfortunately, the police can not be everywhere all of the time. Most people believe that it is the right of every law-abiding citizen of the United States to be able to protect themselves and their family from violent criminals. A CHL allows the law-abiding citizen to carry a concealed firearm for lawful purposes only. The required training for the Texas CHL includes extensive discussions about the intricacies of Texas laws concerning the justifiable use of deadly force in self-defense as well as instruction on safe gun handling and storage of firearms in the home or while traveling. These are important topics for anyone who owns a firearm. As the number of CHL holders increases, so does the probability that a violent criminal will encounter an armed victim. This deterrence benefits all law-abiding citizens. A CHL identifies an individual as someone that has never been convicted of a serious crime, or minor crimes in the past 5 years.
Hausenfluck incorrectly states that US Representative Cliff Sterns introduced a bill to allow any citizen to carry a firearm in any state. He fails to mention the fact that one must first hold a valid CHL in their home state to be allowed to carry outside their home state.
Last month, John Lott and David Mustard published their research in a paper entitled "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns" which appeared in the January 1997 issue of the Journal of Legal Studies. Lott and Mustard examined cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992 and found that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. For more information, check out the University of Chicago's Law Web Site at https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS/lott.pdf.(Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
I believe our founding fathers secured our right to self-defense. I believe that a state which issues CHL's to qualified individuals is a safer place for everyone to live. CHL holders help reduce crime by acting as a deterrent to potential violent criminals who prey on law-abiding citizens.
Michael Grimaila
Ph.D. Graduate Student in Electrical Engineering
Class of 1999