Free Republic

The number of concealed carry permits in the United States has topped 15 million over the last year, according to data collected by the Crime Prevention Research Center. That’s the largest one-year increase ever in the number of permits issued, according to the research center. In July 2016, the center reported that 14.5 million people had concealed handgun permits. As of May of this year, the number is already 15.7 million. John Lott, founder of the group and a Fox News columnist, said several states, including Arizona, Florida, Michigan and Texas, have seen a big jump in the number of...

Ohio State University is still reeling from the attack last week. A terrorist followed the Islamic State playbook as he drove his car into a crowd of students and slashed others with a knife — 12 people were injured. Fortunately, a campus police officer was able to shoot the attacker in a record time of less than two minutes. University President Michael Drake took this as evidence that only campus police should be armed on campus. Police are very important, but they virtually always arrive after the attack has occurred and they have an extremely difficult job stopping terrorists —...

Macon, Georgia, December 26, 2015: A Warner Robins man told police that he shot and killed a man who tried to rob him. According to police, it happened around 8:10 p.m. on Christmas night on the 100 block of Oakridge Drive. . . . Antonio Bagley, 29, told [police] Jerrell Walker tried to rob him so he fired his pistol at him. Walker later died from a gunshot wound to the torso. Bagley has not been charged, and the case is still under investigation. . . .

Calumet City, Illinois, December 17, 2015 A Calumet City resident prevented a gunmen from robbing him by pulling out his gun and firing it at the would-be robber, Midlothian police reported. The 68-year-old man, who has a concealed-carry gun permit, told police that a man tried to rob him and his 9-year-old son Dec. 5 in the 3300 block of 147th Street. A witness said he heard people arguing outside, heard four or five gunshots and saw a man running through back yards heading south on Turner Avenue, according to police. . . . Salt Lake City, Utah, December 15,...

The paper can be downloaded here (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2524729). The more downloads of this paper, the higher the paper’s ranking and the more difficult it will be for critics to ignore it. Not All Right-to-Carry Laws Are the Same, Yet Much of the Literature Keeps Ignoring the Differences John R. Lott Jr. Crime Prevention Research Center September 5, 2014 Econ Journal Watch, Vol 12(3), September 2015 Abstract: Unfortunately, many who have examined the impact of so-called "shall-issue" or "right-to-carry" laws assume that the adoption of such laws causes a large, immediate increase in the number of permits. But that is often not...

This past Friday, an Uber driver with a permitted concealed handgun stopped what likely would have been a mass public shooting. Police arrived on the scene quickly, but the Uber driver had still already taken care of the situation before they arrived. From Mitch Dudek in the Chicago Sun-Times: . . . 20 other cases are also listed.

Yesterday’s “Nationwide Day of Rage for Ferguson,” demonstrations that were planned to protest police violence against blacks for the 51 cities across the U.S., was a bust. Is it possible that most blacks believe that violent crime, not the threat of police, is the real danger that threatens black Americans, particularly young black males? The high point of protests was a mere 40 people showing up outside the White House. Some 20 to 30 people showed up in cities such as Boston, Denver, and Des Moines. In places such as St. Louis and Oakland, virtually no one seemed to turn...

During Christmas week, a registered sex offender with a conviction for attempted murder used a gun to take three hostages at a Wytheville, Va., post office. Not too surprisingly, the national media gave the crime extensive news coverage. Such sensationalism leaves a distorted image about what happens with guns every day in the United States. When guns work to stop crime, there's not nearly as much drama to sensationalize and, as a result, that much less coverage. In Oklahoma City the previous week, an armed citizen singlehandedly stopped an attack that surely would have resulted in a multiple-victim public shooting....

There's a world that exists outside of myopic Chicagoland and beyond the view of the Daley "political machine" that runs it. There are actually normal, sane, thinking people in the heartland of Illinois and the rest of America away from the "Chicago Machine" that aren't like Mayor Daley, Rod Blogojevitch, Roland Burris, and Barak Obama. It also defies logic to believe that many Chicagoans, who live with violence daily, don't agree with Chicago's gun laws and the "machine mentality." There are also people outside the Windy City machine who have the unmitigated gall to believe that they can run their...

The National Rifle Association and other gun advocates Friday urged state lawmakers to force Nebraska towns and cities to allow concealed handguns. The 2006 state law permitting licensed Nebraskans to carry concealed handguns allows cities and towns to adopt their own ordinances regulating those weapons. At least 16 Nebraska cities and towns ban concealed weapons. Christensen would like to establish a uniform requirement for where guns can be legally stored out of sight in a vehicle, such as in the glove compartment, trunk or other locked area. Otherwise, he said, travelers with concealed weapons permits could be required to constantly...

One is a fifth-grade teacher, another a stroke victim who walks with a cane. Not exactly the folks you would expect to be packing heat. But both recently took firearms training so they can become eligible to carry a concealed weapon come April. That's when Ohio's new ``concealed carry'' law takes effect -- for those who qualify and are trained. It's not surprising that some Ohioans want to carry guns. But it is surprising to shooting instructors just who some of those people are. Bob Campbell is one of the unlikely students. The 64-year-old Mantua man suffered a stroke five...

The Feb. 13 Point of View column by Dr. Greg Bachhuber -- "Concealed-carry laws place guns into hands of unskilled people" -- (and your newspaper's editorial as well) contains all the misinformation and mistrust that every opponent of concealed-carry believe. The problem is it just isn't true. The fact that concealed-carry laws have a 10-plus-year record that is open and available to the public in most states refutes the worries he expressed. The consensus is that at worst there is no harm done by these laws, and at best crime decreases, up to 8 percent in a few studies. Let's...