WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After laying dormant for several years, the debate over carrying concealed handguns has resurfaced in state legislatures.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), the prime sponsor of such measures, has began a new push in Michigan where, after the November elections, legislators voted in a lame duck session to pass a law making it easier for citizens to carry hidden handguns in public.

It is not surprising that the legislature and Governor Engler waited until after the elections. A June 1999 Detroit News poll showed that 80 percent of Michigan residents opposed this law. This is consistent with other polls - the public just does not like the idea of people walking around with pistols in their pockets.

According to an April University of Cincinnati Ohio Poll, 69 percent of Ohioans oppose legislation that would make it easier for people to get permits to carry concealed weapons.

The public's views on such proposals are exemplified by the gun lobby's experience in Missouri. The NRA put concealed carry on the ballot, picked the election day, spent more than $4,000,000 - almost five times their opponents' expenditures - and still lost.

Public disapproval and law enforcement opposition have been the predictable response whenever carry concealed legislation has been considered. So what is the driving force?

In a word: money. Concealed carry results in increased handgun sales for the industry. Both the NRA and industry organizations readily acknowledge the marketing and sales benefits of the carrying concealed handguns campaign.

Handgun sales are at an all-time low. Just pick up any gun fanzine to see the emphasis placed on concealable handguns and their accessories. And the potential for these new gun owners to turn into gun advocates is never lost on the NRA.

The gun lobby claims that "an armed society is a polite society" - not if Texas' experience is any gauge. The Texas law is considered the strictest concealed carry law in the nation. In October 2000, The Los Angeles Times reported that since the law took effect in January 1996, the state had licensed more than 400 criminals with prior convictions, and that more than 3,000 other licensees had been arrested.

An August 2000 study by the Violence Policy Center (VPC), License to Kill III: The Texas Concealed Handgun Law's Legacy of Crime and Violence, detailed arrests of concealed handgun license holders for homicide, attempted homicide, aggravated kidnapping, rape, child molestation, and numerous other serious crimes. The VPC found that since the license law went into effect-an average more than two license holders a day were arrested.

When Texas enacted its concealed handgun law in 1996, then-Governor Bush promised his fellow Texans that it would make the state a "safer place." The gun lobby promised that only law?abiding citizens would be allowed to carry concealed guns. But The Los Angeles Times and the VPC reports show that, instead of stopping crimes, Texas license holders are, in fact, committing them.

Not surprisingly, the same problem exists in other states. The Salt Lake Tribune reported last month that there has been a 241 percent increase in carrying concealed handgun license revocations in Utah and that "scores of Utahns are having their concealed-gun licenses revoked for criminal violations - including felonies and firearms offenses."

In Michigan, the debate is far from over. In fact, opponents of the law have gathered more than 260,000 signatures to force the measure to a referendum on the November 2002 ballot. The NRA is trying desperately to thwart this public vote. Experience shows that legislators may buy the gun lobby's pretzel logic, but the public won't.

Joseph P. Sudbay is Public Policy Director of the Violence Policy Center, a nonpartisan organization working to stem the tide of firearms violence. Readers may write him at VPC, 1140 19th Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036 or E-mail him at jsudbay@vpc.org.