Concealed handgun licenses

Yesterday, my wife, my 21-year-old daughter and I endured the ten-hour class that one must take in order to obtain a license to carry a concealed handgun in Texas.  We all easily passed the shooting proficiency exam and the written exam.  Frankly, we could have passed both exams at the beginning of the day and saved valuable time for each of us, and the instructor.  That said, we would have missed out on the opportunity to spend the day together.

I agree generally in John Lott's thesis "More Guns, Less Crime" (see http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/), because the correlations between states' concealed-carry laws and rates of crime are impressive, but I have not spent enough time in his statistics to know whether he is using correlation  to suggest causation without an adequate basis.  Nonetheless, it seems natural to me that a person intent on shooting many people would be less inclined to choose a venue at which he knew there would be persons lawfully carrying concealed weapons.

As long as we are on the topic, our instructor pointed to statistics showing that the conviction rates for concealed-carry license holders are much lower than those for the population at large.  This is, on its face good (the opposite would be terrible), but, it probably proves very little.  My guess is that the universe of license holders will be more law-abiding for any number of reasons: (i) convicted felons (persons with a proclivity to commit crimes in the first place) are not eligible for concealed-carry licenses; (ii) applicants must submit themselves to fingerprinting and a background check; and (iii) applicants must pass a written exam and pay hundreds in fees.  My guess is that the set of persons that have never been convicted of a felony, are willing to submit to fingerprinting and a background check, and who can afford to pay the fees and can pass the written exam, is likely to have a very low rate of convictions.  In this sense, the low rate of convictions for concealed-carry licensees is a consequence of self-selection.

Chris (Father)