Officials in Texas have received so many applications for a license to carry a handgun in recent weeks that they had to work overtime and hire more workers just to keep up with the paperwork.
Over the past three months the number of applications have skyrocketed 140 percent, according to a Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledges in a press release. And the number of gun licenses over the past decade has grown by more than 700,000, reports the Texas Rifle Association.
But that also matches the state’s population growth over that time.
“There’s 27 million people (in Texas), and the population is increasing something like 11-hundred new people a day,” Alice Tripp, legislative director for TSRA told Houston News Radio.
The recent spikes come following a year where the state legislature passed new laws on open carry and campus carry. That in combination with the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California and a heightened political climate, could all be playing a role, many have speculated.
“From December 2015 through February 2016, DPS has received approximately 136,000 LTC application submissions compared to approximately 57,000 over the same time period the year prior –representing a 139 percent increase,” the public safety office reports.
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