Finding Truth: Guns in Texas, and the Numbers Behind the Arguments

Before the coffee gets cold, remember that "gun rights" and "gun safety" are not opposites for everyone, and the loudest version of each argument usually skips the data both sides share.

Day 13 of our fifteen-day series, and today we take on guns. This is one of the issues where values run deepest. Texans include hunters, sport shooters, licensed carriers, crime victims, and families who have lost someone to gun violence, sometimes in the same household.

Here's my promise, the same as Day 11. Both sides' best arguments rest on real evidence, and both sides' weakest arguments rest on statistics used out of context. I'll sort documented facts from contested readings and leave the values question to you.

So pour a cup, and let's start with what the law says.

What Texas Gun Law Actually Says

• Permitless ("constitutional") carry. Since September 1, 2021, Texans 21 and older who can lawfully own a handgun may carry one in public without a license, according to the Texas State Law Library. People barred from owning guns, such as those with felony convictions, still can't carry. A visible handgun must be in a holster, and carry remains prohibited in places like schools and some government buildings. The Law Library also notes that, following court rulings, 18-to-20-year-olds can't be prosecuted for carrying a handgun solely because of their age. The optional License to Carry still exists, with a fee and training requirements.

• Private sales. Federal law requires background checks for sales by licensed dealers. According to the references I found, Texas doesn't require them for private sales, though I'd confirm that against the State Law Library's background check guide.

• No red flag law. Texas has no law letting a court temporarily remove guns from someone found to be a danger to themselves or others.

• Local rules. Texas generally preempts cities and counties from passing stricter gun regulations than the state's.

• After Uvalde. House Bill 3 (2023) requires an armed security officer on every public school campus, with a renewable good-cause exception and alternatives like a trained school marshal, plus active-shooter and mental health training. I couldn't verify how many districts are fully compliant.

How Texas Compares: Crime

Day 12 covered Texas's falling crime. This table compares Texas's 2025 rates, from the state's own report, with the FBI's national rates for the same offenses (per 100,000 people):

Offense	Texas	United States	Texas vs. national
Violent crime	348.8	327.6	+6.5%
Murder	4.62	4.1	+12.7%
Robbery	52.4	49.4	+6.1%
Aggravated assault	242.6	238.0	+1.9%
Property crime	1,829	1,535	+19.2%

A few points matter for the gun debate. Texas is above the national average, modestly on violent crime and more on murder. But Texas isn't an outlier: the murder gap is about 13%, not double. And since 2021, the year permitless carry began, Texas's murder rate fell about 35% (7.16 to 4.62), while the FBI's national estimate fell about 37% (6.5 to 4.1). Texas tracked the nation. I'll come back to what that does and doesn't prove. One caution: the state's rates and the FBI's national estimates aren't calculated identically, so treat the percentages as approximate.

How Texas Compares: Gun Deaths

The CDC's 2024 data, age-adjusted per 100,000 people:

	Rate	Deaths
Texas	13.9	4,389
United States	about 12.8	44,447
Florida	12.7	3,191
California	7.0	2,853
New York	4.4	896
Oklahoma	19.1	794
Louisiana	22.9	1,031
New Mexico	26.6	563
Mississippi (highest)	28.0	810
Hawaii (lowest)	3.7	56

Texas ranks 26th of 50 states, almost exactly at the median, and about 9% above the national rate. Two things stand out.

First, "Texas has the loosest gun laws" and "guns make Texas safe" both need this table. Texas's laws are permissive, yet its gun death rate sits in the middle of the pack, above the nation and well below several neighbors. It's also about double California's rate and over three times New York's, though differences between states reflect many factors beyond laws, as the CDC itself cautions.

Second, most gun deaths are suicides, not homicides. Johns Hopkins's gun violence research center counts 2,779 suicides (63%), 1,450 homicides (33%), and 160 other deaths in Texas in 2024. Nationally, Pew reports about 62% suicides and 35% homicides. Anyone discussing "gun deaths" without saying which kind is blurring the most important distinction in the data. (One caution on the national figure: Pew's article gives two national rates, 12.8 and 13.2, so I used the age-adjusted 12.8. Confirm it before quoting.)

Guns in Texas crime. From the state's 2025 report, among violent offenses where weapon type was recorded, firearms were involved in about 32% overall: 74% of murders (1,025 of 1,391), 42% of robberies, and 36% of aggravated assaults. The Hopkins center also reports that firearms are the leading cause of death for Texans ages 1 to 17, and that 70% of domestic violence homicides involve firearms. That center focuses on gun violence prevention, so weigh its framing accordingly, though the underlying counts come from public data.

Mass shootings. Counts vary enormously depending on the definition, which is itself a source of misinformation. I'm not quoting any totals here. What can be said is that mass shootings account for a small share of all gun deaths while dominating public attention, and Uvalde is the Texas example that shapes much of the current debate.

What the Evidence Says About Permitless Carry

This is the part where both sides tend to overclaim, so I'll be careful.

• The RAND Corporation's reviews of gun policy research (covering studies through 2024) found the evidence inconclusive for most outcomes of concealed-carry laws, with supportive evidence that laws making permits easier to get are associated with more violent crime. That research is about permit systems, not permitless carry specifically, which is newer and less studied.

• The Trace, a news outlet focused on gun violence, found that 16 of 20 states with permitless carry saw shooting deaths rise after enactment. That's descriptive, not a controlled study, and it doesn't separate the law's effect from other trends.

• I found no rigorous study isolating the effect of permitless carry in Texas. The crude comparison above, Texas's murder rate falling at nearly the national pace since 2021, is consistent with permitless carry having no large effect. It can't prove that, because we don't know what would have happened otherwise.

So the honest position is that the claim "permitless carry caused more shootings in Texas" isn't established, and neither is the claim "it had no effect."

What Texans Say

The University of Texas/Texas Politics Project has asked about gun policy repeatedly. Reading from the poll's chart data:

• April 2025: asked whether Texas gun laws should be more strict, less strict, or left as they are, 52% said more strict, 13% less strict, 31% left as they are, and 4% didn't know. The party split is revealing: 83% of Democrats said more strict, while Republicans were evenly divided, 23% more strict and 22% less strict, with 53% saying leave them as they are. Independents leaned toward stricter laws (54%).

• February 2024: 73% supported raising the legal age to buy any firearm from 18 to 21, and 20% opposed.

• April 2023: 72% supported allowing courts to require someone found to be a risk to themselves or others to temporarily surrender guns, with 18% opposed.

• June 2022, after Uvalde: reporting on the same poll series put support for background checks on all gun sales at 78%.

Two cautions. The older polls reflect a particular moment, and wording matters: "temporarily surrender guns" polls differently than "red flag law." Also, the text summaries on that poll's site were garbled for two of these, so I read the percentages from the charts. The consistent pattern is that majorities support specific measures even when the Legislature has not passed them. That's a finding about polling, not a verdict on whether the measures would work.

Litigation Is a Real Lever Here

Gun law is shaped heavily by courts.

• The federal National Firearms Act. On August 5, 2026, a federal judge in Texas, James Wesley Hendrix, ruled in Jensen v. ATF that registration and prior-approval requirements for suppressors and short-barreled rifles exceeded Congress's authority after Congress eliminated the $200 tax on those items. His reasoning rested on Congress's taxing power, not the Second Amendment. Reporting says the Justice Department then said it would not enforce registration for those items, with standard background checks still required. Sources describe the ruling's scope differently, with some saying it protects only the parties and others reporting broader effects, so confirm the details before quoting.

• Carry age. Texas's ban on 18-to-20-year-olds carrying handguns was struck down in federal litigation, and the state's attorney general fought that ruling. The current status is reflected in the Law Library's note above.

• Uvalde. A Texas jury acquitted former school district officer Adrian Gonzales on all 29 counts of child endangerment in his response to the May 2022 attack, in which 19 children and 2 teachers were killed and 77 minutes passed before officers confronted the shooter. It was a rare criminal case against an officer for inaction. Victims' families expressed frustration with the verdict. I didn't confirm the status of other cases arising from the response.

Courts can strike or uphold laws and decide what the Constitution allows, but they can't write new ones. The Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision, which requires gun restrictions to fit the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation, now shapes many of these cases.

Where the Rhetoric and the Record Part Ways

Both sides have claims that go further than the evidence.

• "Texas has the loosest gun laws in the country." The laws are permissive, but "loosest" isn't a measurable ranking, and Texas's gun death rate is mid-pack among states.

• "Guns make Texas safe." Texas's murder and violent crime rates are above the national average.

• "Permitless carry caused more shootings." Not established for Texas, as above.

• "Permitless carry had no effect." Also not established.

• "Most gun deaths are murders." In Texas and nationally, most are suicides.

• "Red flag laws take guns without due process," versus "red flag laws would have stopped these shootings." Both are arguments about design and evidence that I haven't tested here. The polling shows broad support in Texas for the concept, and Texas has no such law to evaluate.

• Candidate claims. The NRA says Talarico would "gut" Second Amendment rights. Talarico's own site calls for "commonsense gun safety laws," background checks, and safe storage, and a conservative outlet reports he says he would break with Democratic leaders on guns but offered few specifics. The NRA is an advocacy group, so weigh that claim accordingly.

Who Actually Has Authority Here

Governor (Abbott vs. Hinojosa): can sign or veto gun legislation, call special sessions, and direct school safety funding. Cannot change statute alone. Abbott signed permitless carry in 2021, and in 2019, after mass shootings, proposed voluntary background checks for private sales, a position that differed from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's push at the time for mandatory ones. I didn't find a gun-specific statement from Hinojosa.

Lieutenant Governor and Legislature (Patrick vs. Goodwin): write the laws, with the Lieutenant Governor controlling the Senate calendar. Vikki Goodwin has advocated universal background checks for gun purchases.

Attorney General (Johnson vs. Middleton): defends state gun laws in court and can challenge federal rules, but doesn't write laws. I found no gun-specific statements from either candidate. Ken Paxton's office, as current attorney general, has defended Texas gun laws, though I didn't verify the specific cases.

Local officials: school boards and districts decide how to meet campus safety requirements, and local prosecutors decide how to charge gun offenses, but cities and counties are limited by state preemption from setting stricter gun rules.

U.S. Senate (Paxton vs. Talarico): this is a topic where the office has real power: federal background check law, the National Firearms Act, oversight of the ATF, and confirmation of the judges who decide Second Amendment cases. A senator would need to build a coalition and clear the 60-vote threshold for most legislation. Paxton is a staunch defender of gun rights. Talarico says he supports the Second Amendment alongside background checks and safe storage.

A Student of Truth's Approach

• Does a gun death number include suicides, and does the claim say so?

• Does a "mass shooting" count state its definition?

• Is a claim about permitless carry citing a controlled study, or just a before-and-after comparison?

• Does a poll question name a specific measure, or just a broad principle?

• When comparing Texas with other states, do the comparison rates use the same method?

• Is a proposed law one the office can actually pass or enforce?

A Call to Action

This week, before the coffee gets cold, read the actual statute text on the Texas Legislature's website instead of relying on a label like "pro-gun" or "anti-gun." Look up the CDC's state data and the state's crime report, and check a candidate's voting record on specific bills. A person can be for background checks and for the right to carry, and a label rarely captures that.

Tomorrow, Day 14, we turn to voting rights and election administration.

A Student of Truth Is Now Available

A Student of Truth: Think Clearly in a World of Misinformation, Outrage, and AI is now live on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback. If separating a statistic from the argument it's recruited for is the kind of thinking you value, I'd be grateful if you picked up a copy and left an honest review once you've finished it.

I'm also deep into writing the next book in the series, The Ledger and the Lie: Government, Economics, and the Stories We're Sold, targeted for completion by year end. A topic where the same set of numbers gets counted differently depending on the argument is exactly the kind of story-versus-ledger problem that book is built to examine.

As always, I'd love to hear from you, and privately is fine on a topic like this. What shaped your view on guns, and what evidence would you find persuasive if it pointed the other way? Send your thoughts to hello@cletustaylor.com, or leave a comment wherever you're reading this.

Author note: Cletus Taylor writes the Finding Truth series to encourage thoughtful citizenship, moral courage, and the lifelong work of seeking truth with humility, especially on the issues where each side already owns half the evidence.

Cletus Taylor, keeping the coffee hot and the ledger honest for tomorrow.