Yesterday Kentucky become the 17th state that allows people to carry concealed without a permit in all or virtually all the state. There are 16 states where no permit is required and Montana where a permit isn’t required in 99.4% of the state. As of 2018, over 11.38% of the adults in Kentucky had a concealed handgun permit. Eliminating the permitting requirement should increase the percent of the population that legally carries concealed even further.
Republican Governor Matt Bevin signed it into law on March 11th and the law will go into effect on July 1st. Now if Iowa, Nebraska, or Colorado were to change their law, it would then be possible to travel carrying a concealed handgun from West Virginia to Idaho without a permit.
The sixteen pure Constitutional Carry states are now: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Senate bill 150 eliminates the requirement of a concealed carry permit, though Kentuckians can still opt to get a permit if they wish to take advantage of reciprocity agreements with other states. The current permit fee in Kentucky is $60 for five years, so this change will make it easier for the poor to carry legally. There will now be 24 states that allow people to carry without a training requirement. The bill passed the Senate by a 29-8 vote and in the House by 60-37.
It was recently pointed out to us that as a result of a 2015 Rhode Island state Supreme Court decision that state now is also a right-to-carry state. Additional information is available here. There are now 26 right-to-carry states, 16 Constitutional Carry states, 1 hybrid right-to-carry/Constitutional Carry, and 7 May Issue states.
the law goes into effect on June 28th, not July 1st, and we are exactly the 16th constitutional carry state, with three more states that have a constitutional carry bill in their lawmaker’s hands right now.