What I was trying to say is that businesses may look at the 3% and find it acceptable. But if we can provide evidence to a business owner that their customer base is actually higher than 3%, then the business owner has a much tougher time accepting the possible loss. IMHO, the number of CHLs out there is not nearly as important as the purchasing power of the CHLs. After all money talks.Charles L. Cotton wrote:It's highly relevant; it gives business owners a clear picture of the customer population that may be alienated by an anti-CHL/anti-gun business policy. There is no basis for saying that 3% of the Texas population comprises 10% of a businesses customer base, but even using those numbers, it's still an easy business decision. Does a prudent businessman risk alienating 10% of his customer base, or 90%?txflyer wrote: I don't think the 3% number is relevant. What is more relevant is that the 3% may be 10% of a business owners customer base. At that point a business owner is hard pressed to want to alienate that much business.
I don't see any possible way to research this issue, since CHL records are confidential. I think the best that could be done is estimate income levels by zip code and then do some very very rough calculations based upon the DPS demographic information published on their website. Such open-ended guessing and unscientific method would not likely be impressive to businesses. But what good would it do anyway? Whatever percentage that would come out of such research, even if it were possible to conduct, would be only a fraction of the potential business loss if the business owner alienated a significant portion of the remaining 90% of the population. We have to remember, we CHLs are out numbered 62 to 1! Only the 300 Spartans had worse odds. (Based upon 2006 population age 21 and older and approx. 256,000 CHLs. (See Allison's Research.)txflyer wrote:What is missing is the demographics of the CHL holder regarding disposable income, homeowner, movie goer, etc.
Perhaps the TSRA should do some research in that area to give us a stronger position to argue from when we inform business owners of what they will be missing by alienating CHL holders.
Chas.
My gut tells me the purchasing power of the CHL is more than 3% of the Texas purchasing capability given the expense and time expended by holders of a CHL.
I agree the task may not be easy, but I placed it out there as food for thought hoping others may have an idea of how to legitimately bump our visibility and keep business owners from wanting to post 30.06 signs.