This letter to the Wall Street Journal"s Texas Edition was prompted by a post to tx.guns quoting the Texas Edition "Winners and Losers" column. In this column, the editors claim that Public Safety in Texas is a "loser" because traffic deaths have gone up. The increase in traffic deaths is blamed on the concealed handgun law, because DPS had to take troopers off the streets to process applications. The letter was published, with minor edits, as follows: The number of shootings by gun-toting citizens with permits has been remarkably small, according to Texas Journal, perhaps because so many establishments have banned the carrying of weapons on their premises ("Winners and Losers of 1996, Dec 18, 1996). Your assertion that the "no guns" signs found in some establishments has somehow reduced the number of shootings by permit holders is complete speculation. The primary reason that the number of shootings by permit holders has been low is simple: Those getting permits have no history of violent activity (a clean criminal record), and the training they have received as part of the required course emphasizes threat awareness, conflict avoidance, dispute resolution and non-lethal-force options. They are aware of when use of deadly force is justified, and in most cases are able to avoid a potential conflict by other means before a firearm is needed. Research by University of Florida criminologist Gary Kleck indicates that in 98% of all defensive usage of firearms, no shots are fired, no one is injured, and no police report is filed. Your dismissal of the value of the handgun law conveniently ignores the possibility that the 110,000 permit holders may have benefitted from the new law. Because they had both the training and the tools with which to avoid becoming a victim of violent crime, we will never know how many citizens avoided becoming a crime victim without using force of any kind. You cannot measure the effectiveness of the new law simply by body count. The real winners under the new law are those who never show up on the crime statistics, because they avoid becoming victims of violent crime. Incidentally, the crime reports for 1996 show that the average rate of violent crime is 325 for each 100,000 residents. In comparison, only seven permit holders out of 110,000 have had permits revoked for any criminal offense (violent or not). This means that the average permit holder is as much as 50 times less likely to commit a violent crime as the average citizen selected at random. The record of permit holders is good because, they are, by definition, more law-abiding, less likely to have substance-abuse and mental problems, and better trained in self-defense than the average citizen. Perhaps next time, instead of publishing implausible theories you should consider doing additional research. Intelligent analysis is based on scientific data, not personal bias.