From an article by Bill Dentzer in the Idaho Statesman:
The group’s July 2014 report found 11.1 million concealed carry permit holders in the U.S., up from 4.6 million in 2007. Partially updated figures for 2015 put the national number over 12 million. Lott said the share of women who hold concealed carry permits has increased in the same period from 20 to 25 percent to 30 to 35 percent of the total.
The overall number of concealed carry permit holders is probably much higher, Lott said, because not all states keep track. Figures for Idaho, for example, are not centrally tabulated. Lott’s figures for the state from 2012, based on a federal survey the year before, show about 86,000 concealed carry permit holders, or 7.2 percent of the population. That technically puts Idaho 14th among states in permit-holders per capita, but an accurate measure is hard to determine. Idaho issues licenses to both residents and non-residents, which slightly boosts the per capita figure. Also difficult to calculate: the actual rate of concealed carry by state. For obvious reasons, permit numbers are lower in states that don’t require them. The same is true for rural areas of Idaho where they are not required.
Lott’s study sees the rise in concealed weapons permits as a contributing factor in a concurrent 22 percent drop in both murder and violent crime rates between 2007 and 2013. Not everyone agrees on the reasons for the decline. A 2013 Justice Department report found that firearms-related homicides dropped 39 percent from 1993 to 2011, although 70 percent of all homicides were committed with a firearm. The department attributed the decline in part to smarter policing. . . .
0 Comments