My colleague Leah Barkoukis wrote about some great news over the weekend regarding concealed carry permits. The Crime Prevention Center reported that the number of permits has increased since 2007–and the murder rate has dropped. The main reason is that President Obama has possibly become the greatest gun salesmen of all time (I may be exaggerating).

“The researchers found that the change in trends with regard to permits and gun sales is directly related to Barack Obama’s presidency. Simply put, the greater the push for gun control in the wake of several mass shootings, the more Americans head to the gun shop,” wrote Leah.

Before Noah Rothman went to Hot Air–he’s now with Commentary–he was at Mediaite where he reported on a 2014 Applied Economics Letters’ study that showed between 1980-2009, “the results of the present study suggest that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder rates at the state level.”

Of course, liberals disagree, but regarding women and firearms the Crime Prevention Center noted another interesting find: women obtaining concealed carry permits rose 270 percent since 2007. Additionally, some findings found that minorities lining up for their concealed carry permit is increasing twice the rate of whites.

The number of concealed handgun permits is increasing at an ever- increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million additional new permits have been issued – a 15.4% increase in just one single year. This is the largest ever single-year increase in the number of concealed handgun permits.

5.2% of the total adult population has a permit.

Five states now have more than 10% of their adult population withconcealed handgun permits.

In ten states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing somuch faster than the number of permits.

Since 2007, permits for women has increased by 270% and for men by 156%.

Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.

Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per 100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 178%. Overall violent crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.

It’s confirmation of what’s been reported already; that women are lining up across the country for their concealed carry permits­–and now we have a percentage of that increase. They’re the next frontier in the gun industry, and even liberals are noticing that these ladies exercising their constitutional right to bear arms often “defy stereotypes.” Fancy that.