Appearance on the Steve Malzberg Show: How guns help stop terrorism and the New York Times makes embarrassing mistakes

I was on the Steve Malzberg TV show on NewsMaxTV today.  The video of the show is available here.

Founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of "More Guns, Less Crime" joins Steve to discuss how guns are helping to stop terrorists and how The New York Times is making up anti-gun information as well as whether or not the ATF is trying to neuter certain ammunitions in the U.S.

Pharmacist uses permitted concealed handgun to defend a store full of workers and customers

From WCHS ABC TV in Kanawha County, West Virginia on Thursday, February 19th:

. . . Eight people were inside the pharmacy in Pinch when the suspect came through the door about 9:45 a.m.
Kanawha deputies said the man, identified by Kanawha deputies as Terry Gillenwater, 25, of Quick, was wearing a mask over his face. He stood in line for a few moments before producing a handgun and pointing it directly at the counter workers.
Radcliff said he was standing just a few feet away. He drew his own weapon, firing three times, hitting the suspect twice and one shot actually hit the man's gun as he was aiming to fire back.
On Thursday, he is back on the job, shaken, but trying to move forward. . . .

Newest piece at Fox News: "Let’s not be so quick to believe gun-control rhetoric"

My newest piece at Fox News on the New York Times reporting the latest Violence Policy Center claims starts this way:

People walking the streets with guns pose a danger to others, right? With 12 million Americans across all 50 states now having concealed handgun permits, one would think that this question would have been settled one way or another.
In fact, contrary to the rhetoric by gun-control organizations, permit holders almost never use their guns to commit violent crimes.
Last Wednesday, The New York Times claimed “there should be no disputing” a new report, which claims there were 722 gun deaths nationwide from May 2007 to February 2015 that were not self-defense. The Times asserts: “The full death toll attributable to concealed carry is undoubtedly larger.”
The Times was too quick to trust the Violence Policy Center report.  A cursory Google search would have shown the Violence Policy Center has a history of making up numbers.
The VPC keeps a record of permit holder abuses in each state. Take the claimed worst state, Michigan. The VPC cites state police and media reports indicating that permit holders committed 277 suicides or murders during the period from 2007 through 2015 (217 suicides and 60 murders). If accurate, a 38 percent share of all 722 deaths nationwide that the VPC attributed to permitted concealed handguns occurred in Michigan.
But suicides are not in any meaningful way linked to the act of carrying a permitted concealed handgun . . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.

UPDATE: AWR Hawkins extensively discusses of our analysis at Breitbart.com.  His discussion starts this way:

The Crime Prevention Research Center’s John Lott explains that the VPC study is written in a way that heightens crime numbers among concealed carry permit holders by lumping suicides and murders together in the states studied. . . .

Leading anti-gun attorney arrested after airport security found handgun in carry-on bag

His explanation for why he has a gun in his carry-on bag seems very credible.  It is interesting that he appears to have been in the process of getting a concealed handgun permit.  From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A prominent Cleveland civil rights attorney was arrested Saturday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in connection with carrying a concealed weapon. 

David Malik was arrested about 4:15 p.m. after airport security found an unloaded .22 caliber handgun and a box of ammunition in his carry-on bag, records show. 

"I participated in a target shooting class recently with a certified CCW instructor and I simply forgot to remove it from my bag," Malik said in a statement. "I used the bag to pack for my trip. It was a stupid mistake." 

Malik spent Saturday night in jail and was released on bond Sunday morning, according to Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association.  

He is scheduled to appear at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Cleveland Municipal Court. 

"What's interesting about David is he is such an anti-gun person," Loomis said.  . . .

UPDATE:  From today.  He seems to be agreeing that he accidentally carried the gun in his carry-on bad, so it isn't clear why he is pleading not guilty.  From the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

A prominent civil rights attorney based in Cleveland pleaded not guilty to a felony gun charge Tuesday after police said he brought a gun and ammunition in a carry-on bag at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Saturday. . . .  

So how cold have the last couple of winters been?: One measure looking at the percent of the Great Lakes that are frozen over

(Click on figure to enlarge.)

The percent of the Great Lakes that have frozen over provides one measure of how consistently cold the winter has been.  The Great Lakes also cover a very large area of North America so colder temperatures in just Chicago won't get you into the 80 or 90 percent range of the lakes that are frozen over.  The NOAA data used in the top graph only go back to 2009 (which is very similar to 2010).

Currently, the percent of the Great Lakes that are frozen over is the second highest this decade.  The new blast of arctic air headed down this week will surely increase the percent of the Great Lakes frozen above 80 percent and is likely to put the percent frozen over the level in 2014.

Help the person helping run Students for Concealed Carry replace her laptop

I met Crayle Vanest this past summer at the Students for Concealed Carry convention in August.  She was extremely important in getting the convention going and she is still working to get the organization going.  In any case, her laptop broke and she is trying to get people to help her replace it.  You can go here to help.

If all the Democrats who previously voted for Concealed Carry Reciprocity vote for it again, it would be one vote short in the Senate

In 2013, Senator Cornyn's Concealed Carry Reciprocity bill received 57 votes, three short of the 60 it needed for passage.  Thirteen Democrats voted for it, though seven of them have been defeated.  With 53 Republican votes (assuming that all the new Republicans vote "yes" and Mark Kirk from Illinois continues to vote "no"), that would give 59 votes for the bill.  Can the bill pick up Kirk or one more Democrat? The only new Democrat is Gary Peters for Michigan, but he seems to be a very unlikely vote.

The votes in 2013 are shown below.