By Michelle Mittelstadt / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON – Since Texas' concealed-handgun law became effective four years ago, permit holders have been arrested on 3,370 charges ranging from drunken driving to murder, a group that advocates stricter gun laws says in a new report.

That statistic, says the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, contradicts the pledge by proponents of the law that only the most law-abiding of citizens would be permitted to carry concealed weapons.

"The NRA promised all of us that concealed-carry license holders were the cream of the crop of gun owners, so we decided to take a look at how this law actually operated," Violence Policy Center director Josh Sugarmann said Wednesday at a Washington news conference. "What we found was this: Concealed-carry license holders weren't stopping crimes, they were committing crimes – thousands of crimes."

Gun-rights advocates countered with statistics suggesting concealed-handgun permit holders commit serious crimes at lower rates than the average citizen.

As of July, 212,969 Texans held concealed-handgun permits, according to figures from the state Department of Public Safety.

"What we have said from the beginning is absolutely true: The people who have a license to carry are by far the people that you want to meet walking down the street," said state Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, who was asked by the National Rifle Association to comment on the policy center's report. "Somebody with a concealed-carry license is eight times less likely to be arrested for a violent crime than the general population of Texas age 21 or older."

An NRA member, Mrs. Hupp has been a vocal gun-rights advocate since 1991, when a gunman entered a Luby's cafeteria in Killeen and killed 23 people, including her parents.

The Violence Policy Center report marks the third time that the group has examined the concealed-handgun law in Texas, which requires more stringent reporting of permit holders' arrests than any other state.

Between January 1996 and this April, concealed-handgun permit holders were arrested on 3,370 charges, the group said. That figure includes 23 arrests for murder or attempted murder; 527 assault arrests; 227 drug-related offenses; and 207 theft, burglary, larcency or robbery arrests.

The group said its examination of Texas Department of Public Safety data found that concealed-handgun holders were charged with weapon-related offenses at a rate 66 percent higher than the general population, with 873 weapon-related arrests during the period surveyed.

But Mrs. Hupp and other gun-rights advocates said the weapons-related category is the only one where permit holders outpace the average citizen. Most of those offenses, they say, occur because the permit holder didn't fully conceal the weapon or inadvertently walked into a place where such weapons are not permitted.

Gun-control proponents "wouldn't accept anything but angels," said Sterling Burnett, author of a recent study that concluded concealed-carry permit holders are 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for a violent offense.

"The relevant question is not 'Does any concealed-carry holder commit a crime?' because no subsection of the population could meet that standard," said Mr. Burnett, a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank based in Dallas. "The question is, 'By and large, are they law-abiding?' And it turns out they are far less likely to commit a serious crime."

DPS figures reflect that 29 percent of the charges, felony and misdemeanor, against permit holders resulted in convictions. Twenty-six percent of the cases were dismissed, and 38 percent have yet to be resolved.

Public debate over the concealed-handgun law has died down, Texans Against Gun Violence lobbyist Nina Butts acknowledged, "because there haven't been Wild West shootouts in the streets."

But, she added, the arrests data "show there's sort of a hidden, seamy underside of this law in Texas."

She did praise DPS for performing "a good, thorough background check" on applicants.

Since the law took effect in January 1996, DPS has revoked 1,134 licenses, suspended 404 others, and denied permits to 3,035 applicants.

"It is a difficult piece of paper to get, and it is a difficult piece of paper to keep," said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger.