Packin' Heavy

More than 10 percent of all adults in 15 states are licensed to carry concealed firearms. Over one million carry permits /licensed are in circulation in five of those states.

This is just one startling revelation in the newly-updated concealed carry report from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), an organization founded by economist, researcher and author John Lott.

States with more than a million active carry licenses include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

The 69-page CPRC report is an eye opener. I read through it a few times, partly because my home state of Washington made the list, a remarkable feat considering how the state has officially turned “blue” politically. Funny thing about anti-gunners, they evidently like guns when their personal safety may be at risk thanks to their efforts to defund police departments and reduce the number of commissioned officers.

I get monthly updates on the number of active concealed pistol licenses in Washington State. On April 1, 2020, there were more than 650,000 active licenses. When the coronavirus pandemic panic hit, law enforcement agencies “suspended” accepting applications for new CPLs. They continued renewing existing licenses, but didn’t want to risk one-on-one contact because new ones require fingerprinting. By April 1 of this year, the number of active licenses had dropped to just over 619,000, a decline of some 31,000 CPLs.

How’s this for vigor? When agencies started accepting applications, interest skyrocketed. In the five months from April through September, the number rebounded to more than 640,000, an average of more than 4,250 applications per month.

They may vote liberal in Seattle and along the I-5 corridor, but the rest of the state still has their wits.

Source

Speaking of Women

The updated concealed carry report contains another piece of information surely upsetting to the anti-gun Moms Demand Action group—a subsidiary of billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety.

“In 2021,” the CPRC report states, “women made up 28.3% of permit holders in the 14 states that provide data by gender, an increase from the 26.4% last year. Seven states had data from 2012 to 2020/2021, and permit numbers grew 108.7% faster for women than for men.”

In Washington women make up roughly 20-25 percent of the legally-armed citizens now licensed to carry. Studies indicate the majority of private citizens who own guns bought them for personal protection. This isn’t some made-up statistic from the “gun lobby,” but data from a monthly report from Washington’s Department of Licensing.

For example, in wacky liberal King County—home of Seattle—women held 21,300 of the 98,143 active CPLs as of Oct. 1. Down the freeway a hundred miles, women held 10,718 of the 41,965 active licenses. Way over in Southeast Washington’s Asotin County, women held 768 of the county’s 2,720 CPLs.

Source

How Many Did You Say?

Between October 2020 and October 2021, according to the CPRC report, 2 million (yeah, that’s six zeroes worth), more concealed carry licenses and permits were added. It constitutes a bounce of 10.5 percent above the 2020 figure — no small accomplishment considering the number of agencies that weren’t taking applications for most of the year.

An estimated grand total of 21.52 million American adults are now licensed to carry. However, thanks to 21 states with “constitutional carry” where no license or permit is required to carry for self-defense, nobody can be sure just how many people are actually legally armed.

If these armed citizens were really a problem, you’d be reading about it every day on the front page of every newspaper, above the fold. However, according to the CPRC report, “Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of firearms related violations at one-twelfth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.”

It’s not legally-armed citizens driving around shooting up neighborhoods, robbing gas stations and convenience stores, or murdering people because of some “turf” conflict. A look through police reports reveals suspects in these violent acts have criminal histories precluding them from possessing firearms. This includes teen thugs who couldn’t legally be packing iron even if they were choirboys. Often, guns recovered from these “model citizens” often flag “stolen.”

Three States Shine

Three states have delightfully high percentages of licensed adults.

According to the report, Alabama has the highest concealed carry rate of all the states, at 32.1 percent. Coming in at second place is Indiana, where 21.6 percent of the adults are heeled, and Iowa is third in line at 16.5 percent.

Keep your eyes on the U.S. Supreme Court, which was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen this week. This is the case that could smack down the Empire State’s extremist “proper cause” permit requirement that allows issuing agencies to arbitrarily reject all but the privileged few to legally carry by granting them the coveted permit.

Eight states, including New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland and Massachusetts have similar requirements. A decision by the Supremes that nullifies this licensing scheme would upend the gun prohibition lobby.