Report: As more states enact constitutional carry, CCW numbers dip

After a spike in 2022, the number of concealed-carry permit holders across the United States fell for a second consecutive year. The figure now stands at 21.46 million – a 1.8% drop since last year. A major cause of the continuous decline is that 29 states now have constitutional carry laws after Louisiana allowing permitless carry, effective July 4, 2024. In other words, 46.8% of Americans (157.6 million) now live in constitutional carry states, with 67.7% of the land in the country (2.57 million square miles). Unlike gun ownership surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really “hard data” that we have, but it becomes a less accurate measure as more states become constitutional carry states.

Among the findings of our report:

Last year, the number of permit holders dropped by 0.38 million to 21.46 million — the second year in a row with a decline. It hit a high of 22.01 milion in 2022. The main reason for the drop is that the number of permits declines gradually in the constitutional carry states even though it is clear that more people are legally carrying.

8.2% of American adults have permits. Outsidethe restrictive states of California and New York, about 9.8% of adults have a permit.

In 16 states, more than 10% of adults have permits. Oregon has fallen slightly below 10% this year. Indiana has the highest concealed-carry rate at 23.1%. Alabama is second with 20.5%, and Colorado is third with 17.7%.

Five states now have over 1 million permit holders: Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Florida is the top state with 2.46 million permits. Alabama has fallen below 1 million permit holders this year, but it has become a constitutional carry state since Jan. 1, 2023, meaning that people no longer need a permit to carry.

Twenty-nine states have adopted constitutional carry for their entire state, meaning that a permit is no longer required. Because of these constitutional carry states, the concealed-carry permits number does not paint a full picture of how many people are legally carrying across the nation. 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.

A survey we conducted with McLaughlin & Associates in 2023 found that 15.6% of general election voters carry concealed handguns.

In 2024, women made up 29.1% of permit holders in the 14 states that provide data by gender. Seven states had data from 2012 to 2023/2024, and permit numbers grew 111.9% faster for women than for men.

Three states that have detailed race and gender data for at least a decade show remarkably larger increases in permits for minorities compared to whites. In Texas, black females saw an 8.4 times greater percentage increase in permits than white males from 2002 to 2023. Oklahoma data from 2002 to 2023 indicated that the increase of licenses approved for Asians was slightly over four times the rate for whites. North Carolina had black permits increase twice as fast as whites from 1996 till 2016.

From 2015 to 2021/2023/2024, in the four states that provide data by race over that time period, the number of Asian people with permits increased 219.2% % faster than the number of whites with permits. Blacks appear to be the group that has experienced the largest increase in permitted concealed carry, growing 283.9% % faster than whites.

Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of firearms-related violations at one-twelfth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.

Read the full report at papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5040077.

Republished with permission from Crime Prevention Research Center. Sign up for CPRC's newsletters at crimepreventionresearchcenter.nationbuilder.com.

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