Posted on 12/30/2002 8:03:32 AM PST by Theodore R.
League City ZIP code has highest number of concealed guns
LEAGUE CITY (AP) — This Galveston County burg of about 45,000 people is the gun-totingest town in a famously gun-toting state, according to an analysis showing residents in the League City ZIP code hold the highest number of concealed weapons licenses in Texas.
In some ways, the suburb southeast of Houston epitomizes the image of a state known for its allegiance to the Second Amendment. But the serene, relatively peaceful suburb contradicts the rough-and-tumble stereotype of areas with high gun ownership.
A Houston Chronicle analysis of state records shows that three Houston-area counties have the most licensed gun holders per capita among Texas' most populous counties.
Galveston, Montgomery and Brazoria counties lead the brigade among those with at least 100,000 residents.
Since Texas began allowing residents to obtain licenses to carry concealed guns in 1995, the Department of Public Safety has issued more than 220,000 permits.
Slightly more than one in every 100 adults in Texas can legally carry a pistol. But that ratio is three in every 100 adults in Galveston, Montgomery and Brazoria counties.
Smith County in East Texas and McClennan County, of which Waco is the county seat, round out the top five.
The prototypical license holder is a middle-age suburban or rural white man. White men hold 165,000, or 74 percent, of all the licenses, followed by white women with 37,766. Combined, whites, who make up 52 percent of the state's population, own 91 percent of the gun licenses.
Half of the state's 20 most-armed — or, at least, legally most armed — ZIP codes are in the suburbs of Houston.
The League City ZIP code, with 843 permit holders, outpaces any other place in the state. Alvin, Cypress, Friendswood, Deer Park, Sugar Land, Baytown, Pearland and La Porte are other communities with high numbers of concealed license holders.
Galveston County sheriff's Capt. B.J. Miller said he supports residents' right to protect their property, but he expressed the concern that neighborhoods and law officers have with heavily armed residents.
"If we have 500 people licensed to carry guns, does that just mean we have 500 upstanding citizens clean enough to pass the stringent background check?" Miller said in Sunday's Chronicle. "Or does it mean we have a bunch of people running around putting justice in their own hands instead of where it should be?
"On the other hand, if we don't allow legal guns, only the criminals will have guns."
The relatively low violent crime totals in those areas raises the question of whether guns are making the cities safer or whether they were safe before concealed guns were allowed.
"If you ask a gun owner why they carry, they will tell you it's for protection," said Dave Smith, founder and president of Texans for Gun Safety. "Protection from whom? I'm not quite sure what we're afraid of in our mid- to upper-class neighborhoods."
Kendal Hemphill, a Hill Country outdoors writer, said residents in the safe neighborhoods are not overprotective, but rather, those in more violent neighborhoods are foolishly underprotected.
"A great many American citizens who live in high-crime areas, and may actually need to defend themselves don't carry guns, legally or otherwise," Hemphill said. "There seems to be an unreasonable fear of guns among many.
Concealed-gun permit holders have generally followed gun laws, though, in the seven years since the permits were offered, the state revoked 2,023 licenses because their holders committed certain crimes, such as felony driving while intoxicated. Others used their guns to commit crimes.
Gun country tends to encompass the most predominantly white areas of the state, according to the geographic distribution of handgun licenses. A number of pro-gun Web sites — not including the National Rifle Association's — also take on issues of race, homosexuality and immigration.
Gun shows and gun-rights literature often feature Confederate flags and language tying the need for gun ownership to the movement of ethnic minorities into neighborhoods.
"Carrying a concealed handgun is primarily a white male thing," Smith, the antigun activist, who is white. "A lot of white males feel threatened by modern society because they see minority groups getting equal treatment along with them. Being a white male doesn't mean you automatically have the position in society or respect that it used to. Carrying a gun does."
Whatever questions it might raise, it also presents an answer: arming citizens does not lead to shootouts and blood in the streets, as foretold by the gun grabbers.
Good one!
"Carrying a concealed handgun is primarily a white male thing," Smith, the antigun activist,[said]
Carrying a conceled handgun legally, he should have said. Other ethnics in the city carry concealed guns without permits.
No, a lot of white males feel pi$$ed off at modern society because they see minority groups getting preferential treatment. And this has nothing to do with carrying a concealed weapon.
He hasn't walked through Harlem, or Wats, after dark.
Which of the above statements is the more racist?
Horsepuckey. If it's concealed as it should be, how they gonna know that they should 'respect' one? Carrying is a civic responsibility, not a cry for respect.
Carrying a gun is racist. White people who carry want their white skin privilege back. Black people who carry want to be white. They are uncle toms. This is all pretty obvious. I mean, why else would someone want to carry a gun, when it is 43 times as likely to jump out of your hand and shoot you instead of the burgular trying to break into your house? </massive sarcasm>
It is well documented (WSJ) that England now has the highest crime rate in the western world....this after confiscating all firearms from it's citizens.
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