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A graduate student at the University of Houston recently uncorked the Armed Citizen Project, which may be a first-in-the-nation program, with the goal of distributing free guns to people in Dallas, Houston, and Tucson, Arizona (where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot, 13 bystanders injured, and six killed in a 2011 assassination attempt).

The group, which is applying for nonprofit status, has already handed out at least 10 shotguns and will probably enjoy profile-building support when Wayne LaPierre and the National Rifle Association alight in Houston for the NRA’s national convention in May.

But the gun-giving group appears to have already achieved a side goal: unquestioning media coverage of its suggestion that the giveaway is designed to allow the group to “analyze” what happens to crime rates when guns are injected into Texas communities.

From the website: “The Armed Citizen Project is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to training and arming residents in mid-high crime areas with defensive shotguns, for free! In training and arming law-abiding residents, we are saturating neighborhoods with defensive weapons and measuring the effect that a heavily armed society has on crime rates. We are an organization that is not simply content to hold the line on guns. We are also training and arming single women in high crime areas, competing against gun buybacks, calling out anti-gun politicians as being pro-crime, and fighting the anti-gun establishment in general.”

When the organization launched earlier this year, several news venues quickly ran with the story. Houston’s CBS affiliate did a generally upbeat piece anchored by the assertion that the gun giveaway is really all about sociology and criminology: “A University of Houston graduate student says he’s conducting a study to hopefully answer the question being debated across the country, ‘Do more guns reduce crime or not?’’’

Dallas’ CBS station concentrated a good portion of its feature report on an elderly black resident of South Dallas who endorsed the distribution of free guns, which are apparently paid for through donations to the group. The story went on to consider the attributes of the 20-gauge shotguns being handed out. Gun aficionados claimed that shotguns are “the most effective” weapons for home protection, no matter the shooter’s competence.

“Even if you are off, you’re still likely to have something in your target,” a Dallas gun promoter told the station. Almost as an afterthought, there was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it 10-second soundbite glued to the end of the report from a resident who said she just doesn’t like guns at all.

Then, in March, the group sent out another press release: “It is with great pride that we announce our new Anti-Rape Kit Initiative, in which we will be providing shotguns, ammunition, and training to vulnerable women in high crime areas free of charge… With our Anti-Rape Kit Initiative, we will aid in the reduction of the backlog of untested rape kits, by providing clear, direct, severe, and permanent consequences for the crime of rape.”

Almost instantly, Houston radio station KTRH posted a link: “If you are interested in signing up to get a free shotgun and training or want to donate click here.”

Finally, the Dallas Observer invoked a bit of healthy skepticism when it wondered whether the organization was really more interested in “trolling liberals” than arming citizens, and suggested that the group’s website hints at the giveaway’s real aim. The Observer’s piece noted that the group’s site says, “We are pissing off all of the right (left) people,” and “having a blast doing it.”

And to date, it doesn’t appear that any news accounts in Texas have explored the online endorsements the group has received from survivalist forums, or the founder’s LinkedIn page, which indicates he’s worked with the Houston Young Republicans, Ted Cruz’s Senate campaign, and Win Florida 2012 (a group dispatched from Texas to Florida to get out the vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan).

Bottom line: Kyle Coplen, the 29-year-old student who started the whole thing, seems to be having fun messing with the Texas media. In an interview later scooped up by Stephen Colbert, Coplen told Current TV (the only news outlet that has seriously tried to grill the group) that he’s having a ball.

“It makes me feel great. I get up every morning with a pep in my step, giving out guns . . . living the dream.”

A week after the Senate voted to reduce standardized testing in high school, the Senate Education Committee took up a proposal to eliminate the STAAR writing test for 4th and 7th graders as well.

They also hinted at an interim study on the state’s process for developing the standards those tests are based on.

Most witnesses supported House Bill 2836 and said lawmakers should scale back testing even further, to decrease stress on kids and give teachers more time to get into detailed lessons. The bill also limits the time dedicated to the tests, and the number of benchmark tests schools can be give before the state test.

Laura Yeager, a parent and member of Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment, said the writing test isn’t an accurate measure of students’ writing skills, and used her son as an example. He’s in the top of his high school class, she said, but scored low on the writing test. Yeager said the test developer, Pearson, told her good writers often do poorly because they write more than the 26-line limit.

“We don’t think extra tests mean extra teaching,” Yeager said. “They lead to formulaic writing.”

Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, disagreed, as he has all session, arguing state tests are an important way to evaluate what students are learning across the state.

In a twist, Hammond agreed when Sen. Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) suggested that lawmakers should study the TEKS, the state standards the tests are based on, after the legislative session wraps up. Hammond said teachers are spread thin trying to cover too many TEKS before the tests, and worried about the state’s process for adopting the standards.

“Let’s solve these problems, not eliminate the tests,” Hammond said.

Developing the TEKS is the State Board of Education’s biggest responsibility, and their once-a-decade revisions are typically a contentious process. Van de Putte said she expected a “very vivd interim” discussing the TEKS, and committee chair Dan Patrick (R-Houston) agreed it could mean “a battle royale” over the process.

Highland Park ISD Superintendent Dawson Orr said that both testing and the vast number of TEKS teachers must cover create problems. “There’s simply too many standards to be addressed in a reasonable way in-depth,” he said.

Orr said teachers don’t know which TEKS to focus on because they don’t know which ones will actually be tested, a problem across many subjects, not just writing. He recalled the case of a teacher who said she felt pressure to cover all the TEKS, leaving little time for students to work through the concepts in detail.

“She essentially taught the lunar phase in one day, as opposed to student keeping journals, observing, using the scientific process to draw conclusions,” Orr said. “It was force-fed in one day.”

The Senate Education committee left the bill pending.

The Lead:

The Legislature went after mucus yesterday.

That would be Michael Quinn Sullivan (often referred to as MQS—or mucus) who leads the tea party group Empower Texans dedicated to electing more conservative Republicans to office. Sullivan, who fashions himself as a Texas version of Grover Norquist, and his group have poured money into campaigns of tea party challengers to Republican incumbents, including Speaker Joe Straus and his leadership team.

The Texas House took on Sullivan yesterday, giving initial approval to SB 346 that would require politically active nonprofits to disclose donors who give $1,000 or more. The bill would increase transparency for all political nonprofits, but there’s no doubt who House members had in mind—bill sponsor Charlie Geren even mentioned Sullivan by name during the floor debate.  True to form, Sullivan responded on Twitter.

As the Observer‘s Liz Farmer reports, Geren managed to fend off all amendments. Keeping the bill “clean” would steer it away from the Senate, where Sen. Dan Patrick famously tried to have a do-over after the Senate passed the bill earlier in the session and tried to take the bill back from the House (and the House refused).

If Geren can keep the bill identical to the Senate’s version, it would go straight to Gov. Rick Perry. The House must pass the measure on third reading today. Then the attention shifts to Perry, who’s been close with Sullivan. We could soon find out exactly how much pull Sullivan has with the governor.

Yesterday’s Headlines:

1. The House approved the Michael Morton Act and a companion bill aimed at reducing wrongful convictions and holding prosecutors accountable for misconduct. The package was backed by Morton, who spent 25 years in prison wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. The Tribune‘s Brandi Grissom has more.

2. Budget conferees agreed yesterday to restore funding for CPRIT, the troubled cancer-fighting agency, which has proved that in Texas even cancer research isn’t immune from cronyism. The Statesman has the story (you need a subscription now).

3. Speaking of the budget conference committee, the Tribune reports that conferees could include a rider in the budget that would lay out a framework for Medicaid expansion.

Line of the Day:

“I think that’s what the problem is when you’ve got people running around giving millions of dollars, spending millions of dollars and keeping their contributors a secret.” —Rep. Charlie Geren during yesterday’s debate on SB 346 that would force political nonprofits to disclose major donors.

What We’re Watching Today:

1. The House will vote on several high-profile bills on third reading, including the Michael Morton Act to prevent wrongful convictions and SB 346, MQS’s favorite transparency bill.

2. The Senate Criminal Justice Committee will hear HB 166, which would establish the Tim Cole Exoneration Review Committee to investigate wrongful convictions.