The Texas Department of Public Safety’s Concealed Handgun Licensing Bureau (CHL) has released stats for 2009 permit holders. [Download the pdf here.] As Kraftwerk would say, I’m the operator with my pocket calculator. Y’all. Total number of active CHL licenses (including instructors): 404,795 souls, or roughly 2.25% of all [documented] Lone Star State residents. That’s up by 138,768 CHL licenses (33 percent) since last year. Black and other minority permit holders account for 7.2 percent (29,145) of the total, compared to 86.97 percent white (352,050). According to MSNBC, minorities comprise about 50.2 percent of Texas’ total population.

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Your headline is salacious (which I applaud you for) and misleading (which I don't). That's not to say that minorities licensed to pack concealed heat are not under-represented; they are. But the difference in the rate of new CHL permit is not 10:1. Not even close.

    According to the US Census bureau, in 2008, whites (including white Hispanics) comprise 82.4% of the population of Texas (about 20 million of 24.8 million people), and blacks account for about 12% of Texans (about 3 million) [see: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/48000.htm…. Thus, in Texas whites outnumber blacks 7:1. As such, a 10:1 ratio of CHLs is not completely out in left field.

    But back to the original point, one in every 169 whites and one in every 337 blacks are getting CHLs. Therefore, whites are obtaining CHLs at about twice the rate of blacks, not by a factor of 10 as the headline might lead one to believe.

    NOTE: "white persons not Hispanic" compromise 47.4% of total Texans according to the Census Bureau. The MSNBC report that says that minorities comprise 50.2% of Texans must exclude white Hispanics from total whites. The TDPS demographic statistics for new CHLs does not make this distinction.

  3. Think this might be affected by minorities not even realizing they can own guns? Seriously, some of my family friends who’ve lived there for their whole lives were shocked you didn’t need a permission slip to buy guns. Imports from the east coast, Cali, and Mexico are probably even worse off after being brought up with the idea that guns attack people and should only belong to their betters.

    • might be affected by minorities not even realizing they can legally own guns )or at least the nonfelons.)

      Fixed it for you,

      Good bet the felons did not admit to “owning” a gun.

  4. Along with what the other comments, which I agree with, I’d add the that actual proportions would need to be drawn from the proportion of Texas residents that can legally obtain a CHL license or buy a gun legally. Once we take that into account the proportional differences likely drop significantly. For example, in 2005 the incarceration rates for each group in Texas was around (http://www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0008.htm):
    Non-Hispanic Whites: 667 (14%)
    Blacks: 3162 (68%)
    Non-White Hispanics: 830 (18%)

    At the Dallas gun ranges that I frequent, there are generally a high proportion of Blacks there, and since it’s Texas, at least half Hispanic. People forget that Texas was the first majority minority state. In the South Texas town I grew up in non-Hispanic Whites were about 3% of the population.

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