On Tuesday afternoon, as news about the Virginia Tech murders filtered out, the staff of a hamburger restaurant in downtown Austin gathered in front of a television suspended over the bar. A boyish-looking waiter speculated that if the gunman had really used a 9mm handgun, he must have had an plice. That handgun can hold a fair number of bullets, he said, but the gunman would have had to stop to reload. It is not unusual for a Texan to be casually conversant about firearms. A state resident does not need a permit to buy a gun and guns do not have to be registered. Police are, as a result, not sure how many guns there are in the state. But the number is substantial. In a 2001 poll by the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, 36% of respondents said that their household had at least one. The state's gun laws are lax, and ing more so all the time. In March Governor Rick Perry signed a bill into law that gives increased discretion to open fire. Previously, Texans were justified in killing someone only if “a reasonable person in the actor's situation would not have retreated”. The new law, which takes effect in September, eliminates the need for escape attempts. It assumes that the otherwise law-abiding citizen had a good reason for standing their ground. It also gives shooters immunity from civil suits. The law has plenty of critics. Law-enforcement officials say the duty to retreat saves lives because it discourages people from escalating conflicts. The new law seems to protect hysterical trigger-fingers who feel themselves genuinely threatened when no real threat exists. The law was probably not necessary anyway. There is no carjacking crisis in the state. And juries have never been sticklers about the duty to retreat. There is widespread sympathy for the idea that, as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in 1921, “Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife.” Still, the bill flew through the legislature with broad support. In
