NRA survey: Most concealed gun holders mainstream, victimized by crime

By JAY JORDEN
Associated Press

DALLAS - A car dealer shot during a heist, a woman savagely beaten in the face, a retired police officer: all have seen crime close up and armed themselves.

Texas applicants and holders of concealed handgun permits are "mainstream America," with more than half of them crime victims, the National Rifle Association said Thursday on the eve of its annual convention here.

Focusing on the modern right-to-carry movement that the NRA said began with Florida's law in 1987, it released a California pollster's survey that also showed a majority of permit applicants and holders had owned a gun before.

"Here are some of the people who get carry permits: common, ordinary and maybe not-so-ordinary Texans," said the NRA's chief lobbyist, Tanya K. Metaksa.

"What we've seen from here is a whole wide range of occupations that are distributed throughout the whole state, in fact throughout the whole nation," said Gary C. Lawrence, president of Santa Ana, Calif.-based Lawrence Research.

"We had such a variety of occupations represented that it was just absolutely mainstream America and mainstream Texas," he said.

The survey of 257 applicants taking Texas' required certification classes as part of their concealed handgun permit applications was taken between March 15 and April 7. It has a margin of error of
plus or minus 6.3 percent.

"The people applying for permits are already familiar with firearms; 93 percent had already fired a handgun at some point before the law went into effect on Jan. 1," Lawrence said.

He said 97 percent of respondents already owned a handgun and 84 percent of the applicants had practiced on a firing range within the previous 12 months.

"The motivation for many is that either they or someone in their immediate family has been a victim of a crime against their personal safety," Lawrence said.

He said three in five applicants had been a victim of a property crime and almost one in five, or 18 percent, had experienced a crime against them personally.

Matt Morgan of Dallas was shot once in the back and his father sustained four gunshot wounds last year in an attack by four assailants at the family dealership.

"Despite his wounds, my father emptied his gun at them," he said. "A Dallas police detective said that if my father had not been armed, we would both have been killed."

Martha Hayden, who required 300 stitches on her face and lost six teeth when she was attacked in 1993, was among six others at an NRA press conference who had testified for or supported Texas' concealed carry law.

"As a victim of a brutal attack, I had the right to defend myself," she said, recalling that she threw her purse to the ground to distract the assailant and then ran. "That is why I chose to support the right to carry."

Alvin V. Young Sr. who retired from the Houston Police Department after 40 years, said he supported the law as a way to continue carrying a weapon as a retiree.

Ms. Metaksa said the poll was commissioned "to put to rest the myths regarding permit holders and responsibility."

The NRA, which commissioned the survey, said it expects about 30,000 people to attend the annual meeting on its 125th anniversary Friday through Sunday at the Dallas Convention Center.

The Texas Department of Public Safety in a monthly report said it had issued 41,175 concealed gun permits as of April 1. A Dallas County grand jury last month declined to indict the first Texan who used his legally concealed handgun in a fatal shooting.

The Dallas convention was expected to be the first with an address by a woman president, Marion P. Hammer, who has held the post since December.

"Our new president, Marion Hammer, the first woman president of the 125-year-old NRA, was in many words and ideas the mother of right-to-carry in Florida," said Ms. Metaksa. "She worked five years to pass it and she's been working on it ever since."

Ten states passed right-to-carry laws last year, with Kentucky the 29th state in 1996 and Louisiana likely to become the 30th with South Carolina also on tap, she said.

Entertainment for the NRA's 125th anniversary celebration Friday night was to be hosted by actor
Robert Conrad and include country music stars Mark Chesnutt and Toby Keith.

Actor and civil rights advocate Charlton Heston was scheduled to be keynote speaker at the NRA members' banquet Saturday.