gljjt wrote:BigBangSmallBucks wrote:I'm disappointed to see that Texas is number 3 on the list of citizen with CHL's.
Even worse, Texas is 35th in percent of population with a CHL. Texas should be number 1 in both measures.
Well, here is one of his conclusions:
-- Each $10 increase in fees reduces the percent of adults with permits by about a half a percentage point.
So let's compare:
Pennsylvania: 872,277 license to carry firearms, population 12,773,801. Percent of population with license = 6.8%
Texas: 708,048 license to carry firearms, population 26,448,193. Percent of population with license = 2.7%
Pennsylvania is WAY, WAY easier to get a license than Texas.
First of all, they are issued by the
elected county sheriff (i.e., accountable to voters), not a large, unresponsive state bureaucracy made of of unelected civil servants. For example, most PA Sheriff's will run the background check while the person waits, then a person with a clean background check walks out in 20 minutes with their license to carry. If there is a question on someone's background, they get the license in the mail within a week. Here, we are asking people why they are whining about their license if the sixty days are not expired yet.
Second, a PA license costs $20, no training required. Texas is $140 plus cost of training. By Lott's estimates, if we dropped the price to $20 with no training, we could expect 8.7% of the population with 2,300,000 CHL's.

Now, I could get excited about those numbers!
BTW, there is no evidence that PA licensees are any less law-abiding than Texas licensees, regardless of the training or cost differences.