More Americans Are Starting to Carry Concealed Weapons

By Ready to Fire News Last updated Oct 21, 2019

According to a report done by the Crime Prevention Research Center, the number of people having a concealed carry permit has gone up since 2018. That’s up 8 percent, which includes almost 19 million people that have a concealed carry license.

Let’s look at some of the most significant statistics that this study has provided, other than the fact that concealed carry is definitely on the rise.

A Major Increase in the Past Ten Years

When you look over the stats from 2007, it’s actually an even bigger increase of 304 percent. The concealed carry report includes all of the states that require a permit for gun owners. There are 16 states that are considered constitutional carry, and those states don’t require a gun owner to have a permit for concealed carry. Some of those states include, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, and Maine.

The Total Number of Americans With a Concealed Carry Permit

It’s also a part of the study to include data on the total number of adults in America that have a concealed carry permit. That’s 7.3 percent of the population. Alabama has the highest percentage state wide of adults that have a concealed carry permit at 26.3 percent.

When you look at how permit carriers are divided by gender, it’s estimated that women make up 26.5 percent of permit holders. They are the category that’s increasing the fastest though with more women taking charge of their safety by carrying a concealed weapon with them when they go out.

Overall, the people that have concealed carry permits are very law-abiding. The revocation rates are very low, and in most states they are less than 1 percent. Even the highest revocation rate in Connecticut is only at 0.72 percent. So clearly once a person has a concealed carry permit they aren’t doing anything wrong which would cause their gun rights to be taken away.

States With the Largest Number of Concealed Carry Citizens

The states with the largest number of permits overall are Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Florida. Florida is the highest number with over 2 million permits given out. Sometimes, Florida has been referred to in the media as the “Gunshine State.” The other three states on this list hover around the 1 million mark.

John R. Lott, a gun rights advocate and author, completed the work on this study for the Crime Prevention Research Center. His books have been best-sellers including, “More Guns, Less Crime” and “The Bias Against Guns.” Newsweek actually nicknamed him in a recent article, the “Gun Crowds’ Guru” because of his support and depth of knowledge on gun issues. He’s definitely the right person to report on a study of this magnitude regarding gun ownership and concealed carry rates.