As of early May 2016, Texas has reached more than one million citizens licensed to carry a gun – or 1,017,618 to be exact.
Leon Dudley is one of those in the million. He became licensed to carry in January, and said he did it for protection.
“I have been shot, stabbed and robbed,” said Dudley.
Dudley says it happened at work. He is a plumber, and believes thieves were trying to get copper from his truck.
Eagle Gun Range owner David Prince believes people are looking for self protection. He often sees spikes in sales after mass shootings. For example, his sales went up an average of 70 percent after the December attack in San Bernardino.
“I can’t tell you the people that were so angry when they were coming in our store in December and all they could talk about was San Bernardino and how they need to protect themselves,” said Prince.
There was a big spike in gun sales back in 2009 when a former Army psychiatrist shot 43 people at Fort Hood. That was also a year after President Barack Obama was elected and pushed for stricter gun laws in Washington, D.C.
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There was also another spike after the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
Open carry went into effect in Texas in 2016, but Prince does not believe the December and January spike had anything to do with that.
“Since that open carry law passed, we have seen three people coming into the store open carry. I have seen none when I was out in public,” said Prince.
