UPDATE: Our newest annual study is available here.
Original: The CPRC has new issue of our annual report on the number of concealed handgun permits in the US. A copy of the report is available here. Some updated numbers are shown at the bottom of this post. Past reports can be viewed here. Part of the executive summary is shown here:
During President Obama’s administration, the number of concealed handgun permits has soared to over 14.5 million – a 215% increase since 2007. Among the findings of our report:
■ The increase in the number of concealed handgun permits last year set another record, increasing by 1.73 million. That is slightly greater than previous record of 1.69 million set the last year.
■ 6.06% of the total adult population has a permit.
■ In ten states, more than 10% of adults have concealed handgun permits. Indiana has the highest rate — 15%. South Dakota is close behind with 14.7%.
■ Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas each have over a million residents who are active permit holders.
■ In another 11 states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. Thus the growth in permits does not provide a full picture of the overall increase in concealed carry.
■ Between 2012 and 2016, in states that provide data by gender, the number of women with permits has increased twice as quickly as the number of men with permits.
UPDATE
Arizona: 272,622 June, 2016 to 299,121 December 25, 2016 (21.7% of active permit holders were women). In March 5, 2017, there were 307,190 active permits (21.4% women). In April 3, 2017, there were 311,840 active permits (21.87% women). In May 8, 2017, there were 314,580 permits (21.81% women). On June 4, 2017, there were 316,383 active permits (21.8%). Latest Arizona statistics available here.
California: As of December 2016, to get a permit in Sacramento County you are “required to pay $220 in application fees, pass a state criminal background check, take a 16-hour training course and have approval of the the sheriff’s department by having “good moral character” and a good reason to have CCW.”
Colorado: El Paso County Sheriff’s Office released data showing 7,109 gun permits were issued in 2016, compared to 4,227 permits issued in 2015. Lepp said he saw a significant increase in the amount of women and senior citizens purchasing guns since last years shootings. Colorado’s data is available here.
Florida: 1,747,635 on March 31, 2017; 1,718,672 on December 31, 2016; 1,681,482 as of November 30, 2016 up from 1,581,742 on June 30, 2016. Info on permits for April 30, 2017 here and here. Info on permits for May 30, 2017: 1,767,552 total and info on demographics. florida-male-female-cw_holders, here, and here.
Hawaii: zero concealed handgun permits for civilians issued in 2016. See also here for other recent years.
Idaho: beginning December 2016: 131,665 Idaho adults possessed a concealed weapons permit, 8 percent of the state’s population, according to the Idaho State Police. Of those, 27,243, or 21 percent, were enhanced permits. up 54 percent from the beginning of 2013, when 85,535 adults had such a permit. 33% of permits are held by women. Because of the adopt of Constitutional Carry the growth in the number of permits has slowed dramatically.
Indiana: April 1, 2017, there were 799,546 permits. 26.5% of those were women. December 31, 2016 there were 776,500 permits (26.2% were women), October 31, 2016 there were 753,974 permits, up from 728,976 on June 14, 2016. 25.7% of permit holders were women. More info available here.
Kentucky: rose from 277,972 on December 31, 2014 to 309,748 on December 31, 2015. This is obtained by adding up the number of permits issued over the last five years and substracting the number of revoked permits.
Lousiana: Increased from 154,707 at the end of 2015 to 173,881 on December 31, 2016. Annual reports from state police available here.
Massachusetts: in Dec 2016 412,369 active concealed carry permits, 47% increase since beginning of 2011. Graph shows number of permits in January each year. Up from 360,263 in June 1, 2016.
Michigan: 556,136 on June 1, 2016 to 616,508 on June 2, 2017, 613,387 on May 1, 2017 and 608,390 on April 3, 2017 (and here). 574,356 on October 3, 2017 and 579,583 on November 1, 2016. Michigan monthly data are available here. Annual reports are available here.
Minnesota — 194,905 April 30, 2015 to 200,000 August 22, 2015, 19 percent of permit holders are women)
North Dakota : 48,700 active permits on December 31, 2016 up from 40,872 on December 31, 2015.
Pennsylvania: Concealed handgun permits up 20% in 2016 in Beaver County.
Ohio: as of September 30, 2016 there were more than 574,000 valid concealed handgun licenses. Up from 549,730 in March 31, 2016.
Oregon: December 1, 2016 by county available here (newspaper article here).
South Carolina: For December 31, 2016, it was 308,406 up from 276,084 on December 31, 2015.
South Dakota: October 31, 2016 there were more than 95,000 permits, up from 91,785 on May 31, 2016. As of December 30, 2016, there were 96,047 residents with active permits, one in six adults, or 14.9 percent of the adult population of 644,147 who are 18 or older. At the end of December 2016, there were 96,000 concealed handgun permits.
Tennessee: June 2, 2017 had 594,498 and April 3, 2017 had 589,874 up from 560,933 on June 1, 2016. 592,517 on May 1, 2017.
Texas: Went from 1,052,073 on May 1, 2016 to 1,150,754 on December 31, 2016. Texas permit fee looks likely to be reduced from $140 to $40.
Utah: information is available here. 698,920 total permits on March 31, 2017, 244,808 of those for residents.
Wisconsin: annual reports are available here.
UPDATE: A new report from Kansas provides another example of how the number of concealed handgun permits in a state can fall after a Constitutional Carry law is passed. From the McPherson Sentinel (McPherson, Kansas):
The number of concealed carry applications made in Kansas has dropped again this year state-wide.
This decline comes on the heels of a legislative change in 2015 allowing eligible Kansans to carry concealed without a license. Between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2016, the Kansas Attorney General office’s Concealed Carry Licensing Unit received 5,874 applications. Compared with recent years, this marked a steep decline in new applications — there were 9,800 applications received in the prior year.
For Steve Sechler, owner of Treasure Chest Gun Shop, McPherson isn’t matching these declines. The store offers concealed carry licensing classes and other gun ownership education classes, and enrollment rates are rising.
“. . . Now, people are starting to realize they need the education with it, so they’re taking the class now and it’s picked back up,” Sechler said. . . . .
WPRI.com (Channel 12) has updated numbers for Rhode Island at the end of 2015 of 3,577 (70 percent of the permits, 2.489, were issued by the Attorney General’s office).
Shooting Illustrated, September 9, 2016
An analysis conducted by the Indianapolis Star and published Sept. 2 indicated that in 2012, there were 92,000 concealed-carry permits issued to female Hoosiers, but by the beginning of 2016, there were more than 174,000 women with a valid carry license.
In the first three months of 2016, more than 50,000 concealed-carry licenses were issued to Indiana residents, more than half the number issued in all 12 months of 2015, the Star reported. If Indiana continues that pace for the year, they will have issued more than double the number from the previous year.
“Anytime there is an issue in the news where politicians are talking about limiting people’s right to bear arms, that proportionally usually results in an increase in people buying licenses to carry,” Indiana State Police Capt. Dave Bursten told the newspaper. . . .
![1,767,552](https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Florida-Total-permits-May-30-2017.png"><img src="https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Florida-Total-permits-May-30-2017.png){kind=link}
Yes!! I love Indiana! We’re #1!! 🙂
Had my IN LTCH since I was 18 & now have our lifetime license!
Indiana offers a lifetime LTCH and no training required, only a background check. Could this be the reason for the high rate?
South Dakota is right on your heels Dan. We don’t have as many people but still prepared.
It is said that there were “several hundred” people in that club in Orlando. If even 1% – let alone the 10% or more that we see in the real world – of those had been armed, they would have outnumbered the shooter by “several” to 1, and there is strength in numbers. One way to identify a really enthusiastic ideological advocate for gun control is if they can look at such a terrible scene of blood and carnage and say it’s a good thing that none of those people had a gun, or somebody might have got hurt. I have heard that mass shootings like that decrease more than ordinary crime when we pass a shall-issue concealed carry law; perhaps that is because the ordinary criminal depends on the criminal enterprise for their income, while the mass murderer could just decide not to do it and suffer no economic loss.
Cauthon, the problem with your statement, despite being a statement of a fact I truly believe in, the Pulse nightclub was/is a gun-free zone. We will probably never know how many of the dead, let alone the number of patrons overall, had their weapon in the car. Sadly, but true, legal gun owners/gun carriers follow the law and thus were unarmed.
As A Florida CCW permit holder, I have to explain that we may not enter an establishment that serves alcohol with our side arms. However, in light of that evening, more CCW are sneaking their side arms in as a safety measure.
Firearms / nightclub (or bar, saloon, tavern)… Maybe not the best combo
Thank you Rick for making that clear for I was ready to comment on that The Pulse along with all other bars/night clubs are prohibited from legal carry. I’ve seen so many statements saying “if” they had someone with their firearm, there wouldn’t have been so many murdered.
A gun free zone in a club that sells liquor will have a sign prohibiting gun carry….But if that club is in a c.c.w. state, the state law supercedes that club regulation..That regulation is stated to keep liability off the club establishment..They have a right not to let you enter if you have a firearm, which they probably check person at door entry..THE GUN is part of my body , if I cannot enter with it, I JUST DONT ENTER…I refuse to be PREY…
In case you didn’t already know, liberals think that if concealed carriers were present they would have done nothing more than shoot several more innocent people. That’s how incredibly ignorant they actually are. To them, guns are used for only one thing, murder. And if you ever ask one of the idiots, they’ll swear that no gun has EVER saved anyone.
This is my personal experience. I have been a cab driver in the city if Des Moines, Iowa for many years. From 1986 to 1993 the already danerous job of driving in our local conditions was compounded by the fact the bad folks were almost fearless. Drivers were kidnapped, ripped off, even injured severely or killed on a regular basis. In 2008 our legislature passed “Shall Issue,” taking the decision to issue permits out of the hands of the local political machines. I got back i the business in 2011 and noticed the bad folks were suddenly, even amazingly, polite.
Now, instead of being considered a source to fund the next party, cabbies are considered professionals that try their best to give you a safe ride to where ever you need to go. And the bad guys even started tipping accordingly!
While I will never confirm or deny the presense of nuclear wepons aboard my or any other naval vessal…..
Mark Patterson
In Orlando, with all those people, they could have ATTACKED the shooter. If you are going to die anyway, attacking with chairs, bottles, etc is better than just wimping out! Even Dr. Carson suggested this. Have we become a nation of cowards?
There is truth to that. Why not go down fighting? Some people can react and function even under fire, others freeze and are unable to move.
Surprised FL and TX not in the top ten.
CCW attitudes are certainly changing over the last few years. Concealed Carry is more accepted, especially in light of terrorism threats; both Islamic and from thugs.
We need to eliminate GFZs OR ADD CCW license holders as an exception.
There’s no reason the police should be able to carry in schools, etc., while a SAFER and MORE law-abiding group cannot.
It’s ridiculous.
Gee big surprise, when the Constitutional Right to keep and bear arms is universal, then less folks have to go through the red tape to get a concealed carry permit.
Yet more folks actually carry as the COST WENT DOWN. this is econ 101.
“Surprised FL and TX not in the top ten”
As far as Texas is concerned, the cost of obtaining a permit is probably a big factor. Unless you qualify for one of the discounts, a Texas LTC will cost you just short of $300! A lot of people just can’t afford to pay that much money for a “privilege” that should be free.
I’m trying to get Emergency Management in Washington State to give CPL holders an opt-in to be part of an augmented security force in the event of a megaquake and tsunami here along the Western Washington coast. We’re told help from the Feds is over 2 weeks away whilst they concentrate on helping Seattle area.
WHERE THE HELL IS THE AUTHER! I NEED TO WRITE A DANM PAPER AND THIS IS NOT HELPING ME BECAUSE THERE IS NOOOOO AUTHOR!
If you click on the links to the paper, you will find the author and you can look at the entire paper that you want to cite.
I almost never leave remarks, however i did some searching and wound up here New Study: Over
14.5 million concealed handgun permits, last year saw the largest increase ever in the number of permits – Crime Prevention Research CenterCrime Prevention Research Center.
And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you usually do not mind.
Could it be only me or does it look as if like some of the responses come
across as if they are written by brain dead individuals? 😛 And, if you are posting at other sites, I would like to follow anything
new you have to post. Would you list of every one of all your public sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?
This map makes me angry: Why isn’t Utah green? Why?!?
Of course, I wish the entire map were green, but as a resident of Utah who’s seen efforts to get Constitutional Carry here, I can’t help but be frustrated by how the efforts to establish Constitutional Carry has been thwarted several times these past several years…