Coincealed carry continues to expand nationwide.-Dave Workman photo
By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
When the Kitsap Sun, a newspaper in Bremerton, WA recently did an analysis of more than three years’ worth of data from the state Department of Licensing (DOL) on concealed carry, the Sun discovered that “the number of women licensed to carry handguns is growing fast across the state and especially in Kitsap (County).’
It appears to be part of a national trend, contributing to more than 13 million active concealed carry licenses and permits nationwide, according to some estimates.
Washington’s DOL provides monthly updates to TGM on the number of active concealed pistol licenses in the Evergreen State, and it just might startle some people who consider Washington to be a bastion of liberal Democrats.
As of May 2, the state reported 534,978 active CPLs, a gain of 4,272 during the month of April, and a spike of 25,400 since the first of the year. This averages to 6,350 additional CPLs every month for the first four months of the year.
Roughly one in five licenses are held by women, and in some counties, that ratio is tighter, about one in four.
The Kitsap newspaper quoted data from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center that said 12 percent of American women own a firearm, compared with about 33 percent of men. The newspaper also said 61 percent of women gun owners have more than one firearm and noted that a story in Marie Claire magazine published in February reported that 77 percent of those women own handguns, for protection from strangers.
Down in Arizona, there were 265,024 active carry licenses on May 2, and the largest segment of those were among adults in their 60s, according to data from the state Department of Public Safety.
What’s going on here?
John Urquhart, sheriff of King County, which is Washington’s most populous county that encompasses Seattle, told TGM that this phenomenon might be attributable to a variety of factors.
“I think there are likely several reasons for the increase in CPL’s,” Urquhart said. “Of course Washington is essentially a ‘shall issue’ state. But also it feels to me like the San Bernardino and Paris shootings have left a sense of general ‘unease,’ and people might be reacting by getting a concealed carry permit, whether they intend to actually carry or not.”
Urquhart may have pegged it. In the days following the San Bernardino and Paris attacks, there were ample stories about how people were flocking to their local police or sheriff’s departments, applying for licenses or permits. In addition, gun shop traffic was up in many parts of the country as concern over domestic terrorism went up.
The Marie Claire article noted that “56 percent of gun-owning women think having a gun at home makes it a safer place. But only 20 percent of women in the general populace do.” That squares with a Rasmussen poll published last Dec. 11 that revealed “63 percent of Americans with a gun in their household feel safer because someone in that household owns a gun.”
Which group is more “mainstream?” Or should that read, “Which group has a better handle on the real world?”
Just days before the Kitsap newspaper ran its story, an 80-year-old woman living in Sultan, in Washington’s Snohomish County, was being applauded for having fatally shot a home intruder who stabbed her husband in the abdomen with a large knife. The man had broken into the home in an apparent attempt to get the keys to the couple’s truck, which he may have been trying to steal. They did not know the man.
When the attack started, the woman ducked into their bedroom and retrieved a handgun. She shot the attacker multiple times and he died at the scene.
While the Marie Claire report suggested that women are less likely to carry their guns in public than men, 15 percent of licensed women do carry their guns.
There have been a few unfortunate tragedies in the news, including the death of a 26-year-old woman in Milwaukee, WI who was fatally shot in April when her toddler found a loaded handgun. In December 2014, an Idaho woman was killed while shopping when her child somehow managed to discharge a handgun she had in her purse. A Florida woman, described as a gun rights activist, was shot in the back when her child found a handgun in her car, as she was driving. That woman survived.
Overall, however, with the number of firearms in private possession, and considering the number of people licensed to carry, such mishaps are pretty rare and they do get a lot of publicity.
There does not appear to be any slowdown in the trend, either. Washington’s CPL number has been steadily climbing for more than three years. Back on Jan. 2, 2013, the state DOL told TGM that there were, at the time, 392,784 active licenses. One year later, on Jan. 2, 2014, that number had jumped to 449,532, an increase that year of 56,748 CPLs.
If this year’s monthly pattern continues, the state could add somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000 new licenses.
