By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
More than 22 million people are licensed to carry concealed firearms in the United States, according to the newly-released annual report from the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC).
The CPRC report says this year’s figure is a 2.3 percent increase over the 21 million-plus posted in 2021, translating to about 488,000 more active permits and licenses. This is, according to the report from CPRC founder and President John Lott, “is the slowest percent and absolute increase that we have seen since we started collecting this data in 2011.”
“Part of that is due to the number of permits declining in the Constitutional Carry states even though it is clear that more people are legally carrying,” Lott writes.
Twenty-five states have now adopted so-called “Constitutional Carry,” which means there is no requirement to have a permit in order to carry. The Alabama law takes effect Jan. 1, 2023, which will make it official that half of all the states have adopted a permitless carry statute.
Lott’s updated report also refers to the possible impact from the Supreme Court’s ruling back on June 23 in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen which nullified the Empire State’s “may issue” carry law requiring applicants to provide “good cause” for carrying a defensive sidearm.
“The decision will have a major impact concealed carry laws in the seven states that had ‘May-Issue’ type rules,” the report said.
Actually, the ruling already has had an effect, with lawmakers in New York and New Jersey scrambling to adopt new statutes designed more to dance around the high court ruling than embrace it. As a result, federal judges in two cases have already ruled significant tenets of the new law are unconstitutional.
Here are some major findings revealed in the CPRC report:
- Last year, the number of permit holders continued to grow by about 488,000. At 2.3% growth over 2021, that is the slowest percent and absolute increase that we have seen since we started collecting this data in 2011. Part of that is due to the number of permits declining in the Constitutional Carry states even though it is clear that more people are legally carrying.
- 8.5% of American adults have permits. Outside of the restrictive states of California and New York, about 10.2% of adults have a permit.
- In seventeen states, more than 10% of adults have permits. Since 2019, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have fallen below 10%, but they are now all Constitutional Carry states, meaning that people no longer need a permit to carry. The concealed carry rates for Connecticut, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have risen to above 10% this year.
- Alabama has the highest concealed carry rate — 32.5%. Indiana is second with 23.4%, and Georgia is third with 15.5%.
- Six states now have over 1 million permit holders: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Florida is the top states with 2.57 million permits.
- Twenty-five states have adopted Constitutional Carry for their entire state, meaning that a permit is no longer required. Because of these Constitutional Carry states, the nationwide growth in permits does not paint a full picture of the overall increase in concealed carry. Many residents still choose to obtain permits so that they can carry in other states that have reciprocity agreements, but while permits are increasing in the non-Constitutional Carry states, they fell in the Constitutional Carry ones even though more people are clearly carrying in those states.
- In 2022, women made up 29.2% of permit holders in the 15 states that provide data by gender, an increase from the 28.3% last year. Seven states had data from 2012 to 2021/2022, and permit numbers grew 115.4% faster for women than for men.
As the number of armed citizens continues to increase, the likelihood of confrontations between criminals and armed Samaritans increases. A Twitter site called the Defensive Gun Use Tracker keeps tabs on such events, including this one:
Amy Swearer at the Heritage Foundation noted in her own tweet, “Guys, I’m telling you – armed civilians are having an absolute MONTH and we’re only halfway through it.”
The story tells about a Georgia man who was waiting for an oil change and intervened in an attempted kidnapping, holding the suspect until police arrived.
In another tweet, Swearer wrote, “There have been some really insane and inspiring armed Good Samaritan stories this month. Just normal people willing to risk their lives to protect others – while being armed and therefore capable of effectively doing so. Just great stuff from ordinary Americans.”
This year’s concealed carry report came within hours of the release of a study by the University of Washington showing the number of U.S. adults carrying handguns nearly doubled between 2015 and 2019. The story was first reported at Ammoland.
