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Carrying illegally is a misdemeanor in most cases, so a grand jury would not have seen the case.

I suspect that most DAs would have dropped the charge if the woman was not doing anything else illegal, like driving drunk. I can't prove that, of course, but people have told me that the police had much more relaxed attitudes about firearms, especially outside the big cities, back in the day.

- Jim

The "traveling" exception used to be decided at the discretion of police officers. That is why it is intentionally vague.

Also, before the "war on drugs," it was extremely rare for a woman to have her vehicle searched.

- Jim

Several women have confided to me that they carried illegally before CHLs were available in Texas; and because it was illegal anyway, they carried everywhere.

I have no way of knowing how widespread the practice was.

- Jim

The figures that you quoted appear to have come from this site:

http://www.utdallas.edu/ospa/stats/Spri ... allas.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If the average age of all students is 27.17 and the standard deviation is 7.94, that means that about 2/3 of the students are between 19 and 35. Few are younger, of course.

If you look at the demographics of licenses issue in 2008, about 10% are issued to people under 35 (I'm too lazy to do the precise calculation).

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administra ... Issued.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We could argue all day about whether the college demographic would have "few" or "some" or "not many" armed CHL holders. I'm confident that there would be fewer than you find at a meeting of the rod and gun club. That's why psychopaths rarely if ever shoot up rod and gun clubs or police conventions.

If you look at mass murders that occur at places other than "gun-free zones," places where it is legal to carry and the age distribution is the same as the general population, they are rarely stopped by non-LEOs.

That's why I think it's futile to speculate about mass murders.

The rights of the individual student or school employee who chooses to arm himself or herself for personal self-protection are the issue here, IMHO.

And while I'm on the soapbox, college-age women are frequently the targets of rapists, robbers, and jilted "boyfriends." They need to protect themselves more than adult men do.

- Jim

I'm going to play the devil's advocate here.

Many people in this forum have pointed out that discussing mass murders on campus is not an effective argument. Though horrendous, mass murders are stastically rare. Furthermore, with only about 2% of the adult population having a CHL, and most of those past the average college age, it is unlikely that an armed CHL holder would be present at an attempted mass murder.

For every mass murder, there are hundreds of rapes, robberies, and assaults on college campuses or on people traveling to or from these "gun free" zones. Students and school staff members deserve the right to defend themselves as they see fit from those threats.

However, to someone who has not looked at this issue rationally (including most legislators) that argument sounds selfish.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with looking out for your self-interest first, but it has a bad reputation.

- Jim