TexasCHLforum.com

ScrapMetal wrote: I could NEVER support giving a license without a background check. Then you run the risk of letting convicted felons carry, even if only for 30-60 days. Bad Idea IMO.

I'm pretty sure that convicted felons who decide they want to carry, assuming they still tend towards criminal behaviour (the only ones we really *don't* want licensed to carry) aren't concerned about licensing restrictions, and how to circumvent them to get an illicit license. I'm pretty sure most of them are just going to stick a pistol in the ol' waistband and carry regardless. I don't really think we need to worry about how a change in licensing would affect that situation, because it isn't going to.

Purplehood wrote:I respectfully disagree.

The hands-on demonstration that you can at least shoot should be a MINIMUM requirement. As it is, there are still alot of folks that have had "training" and I wouldn't trust them with a dull butter-knife.

And I disagree with that. That's just a watered-down version of the anti-gun position that CHLers can't be trusted with guns, and it can be refuted with exactly the same facts, which are that states that don't have shooting requirements for licensed carry (like New Hampshire) don't have a higher rate of problems with CHLers than states that do.

Personally, from a philosophical view, I'm in favor of the Alaskan model. No license needed to carry concealed at all. New Hampshire isn't *too* terribly bad either...Fill in the form, give them $10, presto-change-o you have a license.

I also wouldn't be opposed to a two-tier system, where one tier was based on one of the above systems, and the other tier worked the same way as the current system (with no under-21 exceptions, like the active military exception we have now) for NCIS and reciprocity purposes.