USA Today chided Texas for “lax” concealed carry laws after the Sutherland Springs church shooting but the attacker, Devin Kelley, was denied such a permit.

Governor Greg Abbott (R) says the attacker was denied a Texas concealed carry permit.

USA Today criticized Texas concealed carry laws nonetheless. They pointed to the reduced fees for a permit, effective this year, whereby the price dropped from $14o to $40. The paper reported that a portion of the concealed carry safety course can be done online and that possession of a permit lets the holder carry openly or concealed.

The flagship Gannett Company outlet added, “The open carry law allows licensed gun owners to carry their weapons in most public spaces.”

None of these laws have anything to do with Sunday’s incident, as the attacker was denied a Texas carry permit. In fact, the purpose behind the lower cost and online simplicity of a permit application is to lessen the burdensome process for self-defense.

The USA Today column quotes a 2013 American Journal of Public Health which says that “states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.” This overlooks recent work by LaGrange College professor John A. Tures, who cross-examined various figures on gun crime and found that homicide rates are not markedly different for states with gun control for private sales versus states without.

On October 27, 2017, the Ledger-Enquirer reported that Tures was initially persuaded that “the average gun-related homicide rate per 100,000 people among gun control states (3.31) was lower than those with no regulation of private gun sales (4.28).” Then he realized that an error exists in the way figures from certain states were tallied in certain studies. “Two gun control states, and nine gun rights states, had too few gun homicides to calculate a rate, and were left out of the study.” Tures and his students created an extra table to compile the figures originally left out and the result was “little to no difference” between states with relaxed or stricter gun laws.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.