Another great article by John R. Lott, the patron scholar
of gun owners, as published in Newsday. He debunks the media
misinformation on Gov. Bush’s record in Texas:

http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/tuesday/nd

3.htm

Bush Is Not a Trigger-Happy Cowboy

By John R. Lott, Jr. John R. Lott Jr., a senior research
scholar at the Yale University Law School, is the author of
“More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control
Laws.”

NO DOUBT gun control is a central issue in the presidential
campaign. For a year now, Vice President Al Gore has painted
Texas Gov. George Bush as an extremist, a pawn of the
National Rifle Association who recklessly endangered people
by signing a concealed handgun law. Gore has gone as far as
linking Bush’s signing that legislation to last year’s fatal
shooting at a Fort Worth church. Gore’s use of type-casting
is made easier by the stereotypical view held of Texas. But
what few realize is that with about 42,000 words worth of
state gun laws, Texas’ regulations are actually quite
average. Those accusing Bush of flip-flops-to position
himself as a moderate-are, to put it charitably, unfamiliar
with his record. Texas’ concealed-handgun laws have a lot of
company. Thirty other states have similar so-call- ed
shall-issue laws, which set up objective rules allowing
people permits once they pass certain criteria: a criminal
background check, a minimum age, payment of required fees
and any necessary training. Twelve more states have more
restrictive “discretionary” rules, where local officials can
use their discretion to determine whether an applicant has
demonstrated sufficient need for protection. Only seven
states totally forbid the carrying of concealed handguns.
Yet even this does not give the complete picture, because
Texas has one of the most restrictive shall-issue laws, with
the third-longest training requirement-10 hours. (Half the
other states require no training whatsoever and another
quarter require three to five hours.) Texas also has the
highest fee, $140, compared with the average of $60.

Background checks in Texas are also among the strictest.
Bush makes no apologies for signing the law that went into
effect in January, 1996, and states, “I believe the law we
passed in Texas has made Texas a safer place.” Indeed,
murder rates in Texas fell by 25 percent between 1995 and
1997, much faster than the 16-percent decline in states
without shall- issue laws. Texas’s rape rates fell twice as
fast. The most emotional attack against Bush is that he
signed a 1997 law allowing people to carry concealed
handguns in churches.

But this charge is completely misleading. Churches are still
listed as an area where permit holders are forbidden to
carry their weapons. What the 1997 law did was create a
uniform warning sign requirement for permit holders across
all public buildings, including churches. The change was
strongly supported by ministers in the state. After the
concealed-handgun law took effect in 1996, owners of public
buildings had the right to post a sign stating that
concealed handguns were not allowed on thei property.
Churches were initially exempt from this warning requirement
because concealed handguns were never permitted in churches.

But since it is not always obvious which buildings are
church property, the 1997 law, in order to avoid confusion,
explicitly made the rule the same across all public
buildings. The law was also motivated by issues of fairness
and ease of prosecution, since many thought that permit
holders ought to be warned before entering a building where
guns were prohibited.

Some media pundits expressed surprise when Bush said that,
if passed, he would sign a law mandating that trigger locks
be sold with guns. Leaving aside whether such legislation is
wise, this is in line with what he has done as governor. He
signed legislation in 1995 that made it a crime to store
firearms in a way that a reasonable person would know that
someone under 18 could gain access to a weapon.

Indeed, while 17 states have similar laws, Texas is one of
only four states that sets the age limit for access as high
as 18. The other states set it between 12 and 16.

Bush has made liability reform a cornerstone of his
governorship, and he signed into law major tort reform early
during his first term as governor. He has long been
unwilling to “subcontract out public policy to the trial
lawyers” and the legal assault on the gun is no different.

His decision to support this legislation, which restricts
city suits against gun makers, was courageous. After the
Columbine attack, politicians in many other states, fearing
public reaction, delayed or quietly buried reform
legislation. But Bush held firm, signing legislation only
weeks after Columbine.

While Bush has supported NRA-backed legislation involving
concealed handguns and restraining suits against gun makers,
he has opposed the group on trigger locks and background
checks at gun shows.

His consistency stands in sharp contrast to the changes in
Gore’s positions on guns and abortion when he first tried to
make the move from Tennessee to the Democratic presidential
primaries in 1988. Bush is not the trigger-happy cowboy Gore
is portraying him to be.