I received this reply today from the Houston Chronicle reporter, Melanie Markley:
Thanks for the email. The Department of Public Safety emailed me on the Friday before my story was scheduled to run to tell me that the numbers on the Web site are actually cumulative numbers, meaning there are nearly a quarter million people between 1995 and Dec. 2005 who got permits in Texas. DPS statisticians sent me an Excel file with updated numbers for the end of December that showed 72,345 current permit holders. They also informed me that the Web site information had inaccuracies. It has caused a lot of confusion. We have double-checked the data with DPS since the story ran, and they stand by the figures they gave me. Hopefully, they will soon make the correction on their Web site.
So it sounds like the reporter really did do due diligence. But as many of us have noted here, if the DPS "cumulative" numbers are anywhere near accurate, then the math to arrive at 72,345 CHLs
currently active is still all but impossible, even if
no CHL holder ever renewed a license.
Some other things to consider when thinking about the veracity of that 72,345 number:
Statistics reported by the state of Florida show a total of 551,785 active permits as of last December. The U.S. Census Bureau shows the estimated 2005 population of Florida to be 17,789,864; Texas is 22,859,968. Admittedly, Florida's licensing program has been going on longer than ours, but after 10 years in Texas to think we could have such a disparity (550K to 72K) is unthinkable.
But wait, there's more.
Michigan State Police reports that, as of December 4, the state has a total of 132,538 active CCW permits. Michigan's 2005 population? Less than half of Texas's: 10,120,860. And when did Michigan's program begin? June 2001!
The Seattle Times reported October 2006 that Washigton State had "about 239,000 active concealed-pistol licenses." The effective date of Washington's statute was 1994, close to ours. But Washington has a population of 6,287,759...only about one-fourth of Texas.
I don't have references for other states, and I don't want to keep kickin' this poor, dead, horse, but I show 290,000 active licenses in Indiana (population 6,271,973), and a whopping 600,000 in Pennsylvania (population 12,429,616).
So I still believe the DPS Website numbers of a quarter million as of a year ago. I just wish I knew how such a distorted number could have been relayed by DPS to the Chronicle reporter. And I hate that such a lower-than-reality number was then circulated by the Associated Press and picked up by at least four Texas newspapers, if not more.
