1. Proposals to loosen Texas gun laws get early Senate hearing

The fundamental idea behind Sen. John Cornyn’s bill that would make “concealed carry” reciprocal throughout all 50 states is that the government doesn’t grant rights — it recognizes them.

Sen. Cornyn was in Tyler on Saturday to discuss his bill.

“The good news is the Texas Legislature has already done their good work, now we need to get the federal government to step up,” Cornyn said at Lock and Loaded Indoor Gun Range.

Currently, 15 states have a reciprocity agreement with Texas — meaning, if you are certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas, you can legally carry it in those states, as well. It also means that in 34 states, carrying that handgun is a crime.

The arguments against reciprocity are predictable. The Daily Beast (Newsweek’s online persona) declared last month that such a bill would “make a million George Zimmermans.”

“Concealed carry reciprocity legislation is really a race to the bottom — forcing states to override their own public safety laws and accept a lowest common denominator standard for determining who is eligible to carry loaded guns,” the website claimed.

First, let’s talk about safety, then the principle behind the law. What the Daily Beast implies is that Americans will be less safe — particularly if their own state’s laws are more strict than Florida’s when it comes to granting concealed carry permits.

But George Zimmerman had no convictions on his record at the time of the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin. Under even more stringent laws in other states, Zimmerman likely would have been granted a permit.

Second, the Daily Beast also implies that more legally held concealed handguns will result in more violent crime. That’s demonstrably untrue in the broad sense, because as the number of concealed carry permits have risen nationwide, we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in murders and violent crime. That’s not a claim of causality; it’s merely a notable correlation.

In a more specific sense, the claim that more legally carried guns means more violent confrontations is also false. In fact, the Texas Department of Public Safety itself refuted the notion. It studied violent crime rates for all Texans, and broke out the rates for concealed carry permit holders, for all of 2011. There were 2,210 aggravated robbery convictions, for example — and two of those convicted were permit holders. Out of 2,675 convictions for assault with a deadly weapon, three were permit holders. Overall, permit holders accounted for less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the violent crimes committed in Texas.

Now about the principle behind the proposed reciprocity bill — Cornyn has it right. The government doesn’t grant rights — it recognizes them. The Second Amendment, to be specific, doesn’t allow citizens to do anything. Rather, it prevents government from restricting rights.

“The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government — even the Third Branch of Government — the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon,” the Supreme Court ruled in 2008.

Sen. Cornyn’s bill deserves support and passage.