KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Tom Beiting was heading for work one day when, realizing he had left something at home, he returned to his apartment and found a stranger walking out.

The man held a portable television in one arm and a case of beer in the other.

The intruder dropped the items and reached for a knife tucked in his pants pocket. Beiting, a criminal-defense lawyer, also packed a weapon - a .380-caliber pistol clipped to his belt under his suit jacket.

Pointing the gun at the man's face, Beiting yelled, "Freeze!" The man froze.

"His eyes got huge. … Then he actually wet his pants," said Beiting, of Newport, Ky.

Every day in America, a civilian brandishes a gun to stop a crime. But, you wonder, just how often?

OFCC PAC Commentary:
Isn't it the anti-gun, anti-self-defense bunch who are always touting new gun control laws on the idea that it's worth it if it saves even one life?

So what difference does it make to them if the annual number of defensive gun uses is Gary Kleck's 2.5 million, or the NRA's "over 2 million", or even an ridiculously low 60,000 per year, as the anti-self-defense extremists claim?

Concealed carry reform saves lives. Hundreds of thousands of lives? Millions of lives? One life? To use the anti-self-defense extremists' own logic, it shouldn't much matter.

(Again, from the news article):
"Still, the debate matters a lot to Beiting, the Kentucky lawyer who pulled his gun on the knife-toting burglar.

Beiting, who had a state permit to carry the pistol, held the frightened man at bay until police came.

Toledo, Ohio is one of the most difficult places in the state to own a firearm. At least, for law-abiding citizens...

The following headlines all appeared in the August 27 issue of the Toledo Blade:

2 holdups reported at convenience stores
Two convenience stores in northwest Toledo were robbed late Monday, and the culprits fled with an undisclosed amount of money in both cases.

Gunman wearing wig robs fast-food eatery
A man wearing a dreadlock wig and a straw hat robbed the McDonald’s at 1225 Collingwood Blvd. late Monday.

Robber hits bank branch on South Reynolds Road

A man claiming to have a gun robbed the National City Bank branch at 4 South Reynolds Rd. and fled with an undisclosed amount of money, authorities said.

Meanwhile, Toledo City Council has enacted a city-wide smoking ban in all public places (including private property like restaurants and bars), and is spending precious city resources to enforce it. According to Toledo's chief counsel, John Madigan, there will be "an army that includes more than 700 police officers and 500 firefighters empowered to issue citations for illegally smoking in bars and restaurants."

Three more dead, two more who were shot in their car, and could not "drive off" when attacked, as OSHP Capt. John Born suggests citizens should do in lieu of the right to bear ares for self-defense in a personal vehicle. Columbus homicides far out-pacing last year.

August 24, 2003
Columbus Dispatch

Hilltop stabbing, 2 shootings on North and Far East sides raise homicide tally to 77

At midday yesterday, the ground was still damp around Robert May’s front porch, where hours earlier he had hosed away the blood of his best friend.

Gregory C. Allman, 27, was stabbed several times in the chest just outside the front door of May’s Hilltop home. A group of men had chased Allman from a bar around the corner and apparently caught up with him on the porch.

"He’d gotten into something with some guys at the bar, I don’t know what," May said. "He ran here as a safe haven. He was banging on the door, yelling ‘Please, somebody, help me!’ "

Allman died, as did two other men, during a bloody six-hour stretch between Friday night and yesterday morning, continuing what has been a year of deadly violence in Columbus.

Two shootings and a stabbing on the North, West and Far East sides brought to 77 the number of homicides in Columbus so far this year.

Unfortunately, "this isn’t the first time this summer we’ve had three homicides overnight," Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis said.

"We’re now way ahead of where we were last year."

Last year, 81 people were killed.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.

August 26, 2003
Cincinnati Post

Frustrated pilots are calling today for a speedup in training and screening so they can take guns into the cockpits.
Two pilot groups were scheduled to hold a press conference today at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in conjunction with similar conferences at five other U.S. airports. They will call for the acceleration of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program that was enacted last year as part of legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security.

"Air Marshals and increased screening provide necessary layers of security, but armed pilots provide the first line of deterrence and the last line of defense to acts of terrorism with airplanes," said U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who will take part in the press conference.

Bunning and the pilots accuse the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees airport security, of deliberately stalling the process of arming pilots.

The TSA "must do better to implement the program," Bunning said. "In the nearly two years since 9-11, America has taken great strides to better protect herself from terrorist threats. But there are still holes in our homeland defense that must be filled."

Leon Laylagian, representing the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association, which represents more than 21,000 pilots, said it was compelled to act publicly by reports that al-Qaida terrorists are continuing to target commercial jets.

Click on the "Read More..." link below for more.