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How many total conceal carry weapons (CCW) permits are issued by state and how many were issued in 2016?
Hello! Thanks for your question about the number of concealed weapon permits issued by each state in 2016. The short version is that the Crime Prevention Research Center published the number of CW permits issued by each state annually. According to their data, there are a total of 14.5 CW permits issued in the USA. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
I found several reports about the number of concealed weapon permits issued in the United States. These sites included the Crime Prevention Research Center, Political Florida, and the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO lists the "ratio of active permits issued to adult population (20 or over)." The permit data is from 2011, so I did not include it below. For reference, it is found on page 75. The most current information comes from the Crime Prevention Research Center. They published a report which lists the number of CCW permits issued per state for 2014, 2015 and 2016.
FINDINGS
There are a total of 14,533,094 valid CWPs in the USA. This is up from 12.8 million CWPs in 2015. Florida has the most permits with almost 1.38 million concealed weapon permits as of March 2015.
Alabama 513,209 June, 2016
Alaska† 8,770 June, 2016
Arizona† 272,622 June, 2016
Arkansas† 202,722 June, 2016
California 59,808 December 31, 2015
Colorado 248,478 December 31, 2015
Connecticut 229,000 March 3, 2016
Delaware 13,275 July, 2016
District of Columbia 74 May 17, 2016
Florida†† 1,581,742 total/ 1,369,923 residential June 30, 2016 Georgia 945,000 December 31, 2015
Hawaii 168 March 21, 2013
Idaho† 130,760 June 14, 2016
Illinois 180,583 June 14, 2016
Indiana 728,976 June 14, 2016
Iowa 267,149 December 31, 2015
Kansas† 100,493 January 31, 2016
Kentucky 277,972 December 31, 2014
Louisiana 154,707 December 31, 2015
Maine† 36,000 March 18, 2015
Maryland 16,152 April 30, 2016
Massachusetts 360,263 June 1, 2016
Michigan 556,136 June 1, 2016
Minnesota 221,712 February 1, 2016
Mississippi† 46,598 June 21, 2016
Missouri 160,184 December 31, 2012
Montana* 50,300 June 1, 2016
Nebraska 48,579 June 1, 2016
Nevada 104,123 June 1, 2016
New Hampshire 34,315 nonresidential/ at least 44,000 residential March 20, 2015
New Jersey 1,200 2012-2013
New Mexico 40,330 June 20, 2016
New York¥ 40,794 September 2014
North Carolina 530,092 June 20, 2016
North Dakota 40,872 December 31, 2015
Ohio 549,730 March 31, 2016
Oklahoma 256,612 May 27, 2016
Oregon 226,255 February 1, 2016
Pennsylvania 1,193,146 June 20, 2016
Rhode Island 2,813 February 1, 2016
South Carolina 276,084 December 31, 2015
South Dakota 91,785 May 31, 2016
Tennessee 560,933 June 1, 2016
Texas 1,052,073 May 1, 2016
Utah†† 660,012 total/ 230,306 residential June, 2016 19 Vermont† No permits issued
Virginia 426,280 June 13, 2016
Washington 515,065 January 1, 2016
West Virginia† 147,801 February 28, 2015
Wisconsin 300,000 March 24, 2016
Wyoming† 27,347 January 19, 2016
"† States where permits not required to carry within the state. Permits only obtained to carry outside of state.
†† Permits not required to carry in 99.4 percent of Montana and a similar percentage of Idaho. For those people, the only reason that they would obtain a permit is to carry in other states.
* Utah's total permits as well as those issued only to residents are included here.
º New Hampshire’s permit numbers only include out-of-state permits.
¥ Data are not available for New York State, so we assumed a 0.1% permitting rate"
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, there are a total of 14,533,094 valid CCW permits in the USA. This number is on the rise from the two previous years. Thanks for using Wonder! Please let us know if we can help with anything else!