AUSTIN, Tex. (Reuters) – Security is newly tightened at the Texas Capitol, but plenty of gun-toting visitors can breeze right through.

Concealed handgun license holders walk through a special lane marked "CHL Access" around, and not through, the metal detectors put in place last year after a man fired shots outside the statehouse.

Schoolchildren and tourists, meanwhile, have to walk through metal detectors and put their bags and keys through scanners. One of the busiest times is now, when the legislature, which meets biennially, is convened.

Richard Robertson, a concealed handgun license holder who visited the Capitol on Saturday, is glad guns are allowed in the statehouse.

"It's not the Wild West mentality where I'm hoping to get into a fight, but if some lunatic tries something, I'd feel better having the means to put an end to it," said Robertson, general manager of a construction company in Austin.

"Around here, it's not that big of a deal (to have a gun at the Capitol). Someone from out of state may think we're a bunch of yahoos."

Texas officials said that state troopers stationed at the checkpoints look at concealed handgun licenses to make sure they are valid.

"It's not like they just whoosh on through," said Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Permit holders must undergo criminal background checks and take classes to get the licenses.

But they do move through quickly enough that lobbyists, and even some journalists, have signed up in droves for the $140 licenses, even if they have no intention of carrying a weapon into the statehouse.

The fear of getting stuck in line behind hundreds of schoolchildren led Carrie Kroll, director of advocacy and health policy for the Texas Pediatric Society, to get her concealed handgun license ahead of the legislative session.

"Do I think it's silly?" Kroll asked. "Yes."

She proposed that frequent visitors to the Capitol should have quicker access rather than using the CHL lanes.

State Sen. Dan Patrick, a Houston Republican and one of the state's more than 460,000 concealed handgun license holders, said he carries his gun at the Capitol nearly all the time.

It was Patrick's office that gunman Fausto Cardenas visited before firing several shots on the Capitol steps last year. No one was injured, and Patrick was not there at the time.

"I don't ever want to be in a situation where I don't have the chance to defend myself, my family or my friends," said Patrick, who is pushing legislation to allow concealed handguns on college campuses. "We live in a world where you can encounter danger at home or work or on the street."

Carrying a license and a gun "tends to make you a little more aware, more alert," he said.

Last year, Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who opposed the metal detectors at the Capitol entrances, had his .380 pistol with him while jogging in the Austin area and has said when he came across a coyote, he shot it dead.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Greg McCune)

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) – A man who filmed the speedometer of his car while driving more than 140 miles per hour so he could post it on YouTube, ended up in jail on Saturday and the video confiscated, police said.

Stanislav Vadimovich Bakanov was pulled over by police on Oregon Interstate 5 after he was clocked driving his black 2005 BMW at 118 mph. He filmed Sheriff's Deputy Ryan Postlewait as he approached the car.

When Postlewait asked why he was videotaping, Bakanov said he was filming his speedometer, and his arrest, to post on Youtube. The video later revealed that Bakanov had attained speeds in excess of 140 mph.

He was arrested and confined in Marion County jail Saturday night, charged with reckless driving and speeding. It was his third speeding incident in the past year. The video was confiscated and will be used as evidence against him.

Marion County Police spokesman Don Thompson said winds were gusting at up to 50 mph during the day.

"There were tree branches down on the freeway. To be driving at these speeds today was just plain crazy," he said.

(Reporting by Dan Cook; Editing by Greg McCune)

BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) – A Mississippi proposal to issue a state license plate honoring a Confederate general believed to be a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan has stirred protest and resurrected the state's ugly racial past.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans proposed that Mississippi issue a specialty plate honoring General Nathan Bedford Forrest, who many historians say was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist group that terrorized blacks in the South after the Civil War.

Forrest is the only individual they want to commemorate. All the other plates would be in remembrance of battles that took place in Mississippi or Confederate veterans as a whole.

The proposal must be approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Haley Barbour.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent a letter to Barbour on Friday saying it would be immoral and unconstitutional to honor a KKK leader.

"We are asking the governor to stop this action immediately. Every fair-minded southerner knows that the Civil War was a negative time in history and having a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan on the back of vehicles will only tarnish the state's image," NAACP state president Derrick Johnson said.

The KKK was a secret racist group active after the Civil War and well into the 20th century. Wearing White robes and masks, KKK mobs sometimes lynched blacks without trial.

This license plate controversy comes just months after Barbour, a Republican, told a weekly magazine that he does not remember the 1960s civil rights struggle in his hometown in Yazoo City as being "that bad." Barbour later clarified that he had not intended to condone segregation in the South.

Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that honors Confederate heritage, wants the state to issue the series of license plates to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Mississippi Democratic Rep. Willie Bailey, who handles license plate requests in the state House, said he has no problem with the organization creating any design it wants.

"If they want a tag commemorating veterans of the Confederacy, I don't have a problem with it," said Bailey, who is black. "As long as it's not offensive to anybody, then they have the same rights as anybody else has."

Mississippi has allowed over 100 different specialty license plates, which range from the innocuous -- such as wildlife conservation and NASCAR auto racing -- to more controversial such as one opposing abortion. Specialty plates are available to anyone in the state, usually for a fee of $30 to $50 per year. All designs have to be approved by the state government.

(Reporting by Leigh Coleman; Editing by Greg McCune)