http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/564084

May 26, 2000, 9:47PM

Supporters mark fifth anniversary of handgun law
Verbal warfare aimed at opponents
By KATHY WALT
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — Robert James Eichelberg remembered as if it were yesterday the morning in 1997 when a
would-be carjacker pointed a gun at him through the passenger window of his pickup at a Houston
intersection.

“(It was) early morning. No sun, no moon, no lights,” Eichelberg said Friday. “I had stopped at
a busy intersection and the guy ran up … and put a gun up to the window. I looked at him and
all I could see was his face and the end of a gun, the barrel. … I felt trapped. I drew a gun
that I carry in my truck and I fired … through the window.”

His comments came during a capital press conference marking the fifth anniversary of the
controversial law that gives Texans the right to carry concealed handguns.

“That’s the only reason I’m alive today,” Eichelberg said of the law.

The press conference was called by supporters of the legislation as they ratcheted up their
verbal warfare with opponents, accusing groups such as Texans Against Gun Violence and the
Violence Policy Center of “walking over the bodies of the dead to further their cause.”

Former state Sen. Jerry Patterson of Pasadena, the chief sponsor of the concealed handgun law
during the 1995 legislative session, said all of the doomsday predictions about the law have
failed to materialize, yet opponents continue to misrepresent data about crimes allegedly
committed by those licensed to carry concealed weapons.

As proof, he offered a study analyzing data collected by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

William Sturdevant, a Navasota engineer who conducted the analysis, said: “Your average Joe
down the street is eight times more likely to assault you than” someone licensed to carry a
handgun.

Sturdevant said his analysis of DPS arrest data from 1996 through 1998, the first three years
the law was in effect, is the most detailed to date on arrest records of those who have permits
to carry handguns.

He said he conducted the study in response to a report earlier this year by the Violence Policy
Center, a national nonprofit organization working to fight firearms violence, and Texans
Against Gun Violence. The study claimed that the arrest rate of Texans with handgun permits is
more than twice the arrest rate of the general population.

Sturdevant contended that opponents of the law have inaccurately analyzed data, using
methodology that could just as easily show that having a Texas driver’s license increases the
violent crime rate and threatens public safety.

“Our strength is we tell the truth,” added Patterson, shortly before proponents sliced into a
birthday cake decorated like the Texas flag and bearing a banner that read, “Happy Birthday
Concealed Hand Gun law.”

Nina Butts of Texans Against Gun Violence, however, said her group used the same data source as
Patterson’s — DPS arrest figures.

“Senator Patterson’s assertion that far more people in the general population are arrested than
concealed handgun licensees are arrested is not impressive to me,” she said. “Certainly, we
would expect persons licensed to carry a loaded handgun would be highly responsible,
law-abiding citizens. … The state was not supposed to be licensing murderers and rapists.”

She cited a recent national news magazine story that stated that 27 Texans licensed to carry
handguns have been arrested for murder, 49 for sexual assault and eight for kidnapping.

Sturdevant, however, argued that arrest records are misleading because “any time a concealed
handgun licensee uses a handgun in self-defense he pretty much gets arrested.” Most of those
arrests do not result in indictments or convictions, he added.

But Butts insisted that arrest records do tell a story.

“They’re trying to make the case it has enhanced public safety and prevented crime,” she said.
“I don’t see it. They trotted out one guy with one story. They had one anecdote. It’s true
crime is down in Texas but you would be hard-pressed to attribute it to” the concealed-carry
law.

Eichelberg, meanwhile, said he would never recommend his course of action to anyone else.

“You are instantly blinded and deafened” by the gun blast, he said. After he shot at his
assailant, James Earl Turner, Eichelberg ran down the street with Turner in pursuit.

They fired five times at each other, Eichelberg said. Turner missed with all five of his shots,
but Eichelberg hit his target each time.

Turner survived the shooting and was eventually sentenced to 50 years in prison on aggravated
robbery and aggravated assault charges under the state’s habitual criminal law.