Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States – Crime Prevention Research Center
Summary
The last comprehensive report on the number of concealed carry permit holders was completed three years ago by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and showed that 8 million Americans held a concealed carry permit.
CPRC collected the most recent data available for each state and the results showed that there are total of 11,113,013 Americans who currently hold concealed carry permits representing 4.8 percent of the total population.
The number of concealed carry permit holders is likely much higher than 11.1 million because numbers are not available for all states that issue permits, such as New York. Additionally, four states and the majority of Montana do not require that residents have a concealed handgun permit to carry within the state so the number of residents who carry a concealed weapon is not recorded.
The percent of the adult population with concealed handgun permits is determined by how difficult it is to get the permits, how long the permits have been available, and whether the government has discretion over who gets the
permit.
The report also examines the violent crime rate in relation to the rising percentage of the adult population with concealed carry permits. Between 2007 and the preliminary estimates for 2013, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.4 per 100,000 – a 22 percent drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 130 percent. Overall violent crime also fell by 22 percent over that period of time