Why would you not carry a gun in Church?

[GreenStormCloud]

153. The process has enough rigor to weed out most of the undesirables.

One again, thank you for a return to civility.

I will instantly admit that some few undesirables do get through, but very few.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Generally, a person who would use his gun to bully and intimidate others will have already displayed such behavior and will have gotten into trouble with the law. The FBI background investigation searches to see how a person has behaved. How long it takes you to fill out the form is immaterial. It is a test of how you have lived your life so far.

Further, only a small percentage of Texas CHLers are still young enough that they are testosterone driven. The percentage of first-time CHLs issued rises with age until it peaks at age 52. The greatest concentration of CHLs is among senior citizens (As defined by AARP, 50+ years of age). By then maturity and decreasing testosterone have calmed a lot of men down. The women, such as my wife who get them, are generally much calmer to begin with.

The group of those who apply for CCW is going to be self-selecting. People who know that they can't pass aren't going to bother trying in the first place.

Money also plays a signifigant part. A CHL and gun isn't cheap. People who have serious anger problems have a tendency to make really bad life decisions that badly damage their ability to make money. Fighting, drinking, wife beating, and hell-raising is expensive, even if you don't end up in jail. Such people tend not to have the money for a CHL. (Yes, there will be exceptions.)

I don't trust the NYT when it comes to guns. I have seen them push and anti-gun agenda using distortions and outright lies before. In those cases they were writing about some area of guns that I was already knowledgable about or had access the data, so I do know that the NYT lied. Therefore, since I can't check the NC data for myself, I consider anything they have to say as being suspect.

The Texas data shows that CHLers have a much lower conviction rate that the general public. I assure you that having a CHL isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. That lower conviction rate is because far fewer of us commit crimes, especially violent crimes.