The jurisdictions most plagued by crime are often the ones that work hardest to harass concealed carriers and deny law-abiding citizens their constitutional rights. Yet gun ownership has increased while violent crime has fallen to historic lows. So much for the anti-gun claim that more guns automatically mean more crime. It turns out law-abiding gun owners were never the problem.
Firearms sales went through the roof during COVID and 2020’s social unrest as people scrambled to deal with a world that seemed to be coming apart at the seams. Previously thought of—with a great deal of exaggeration—as the domain of white male rural-dwellers, gun ownership became increasingly diverse as women and minorities acquired the means of self-defense. A recent survey finds that many people among the growing ranks of gun owners are carrying their tools for protection.
“In the survey, 13.2% carry all/most of the time, with another 16.6% carrying sometimes/rarely,” the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) announced last month of the results of a survey conducted by McLaughlin & Associates. “The percent who carry all or most [of] the time is virtually the same as the percent who carried similarly in December 2024. But the percent who carry at [least] some of the time or rarely has increase[d] by 5.4 percentage points (from 11.2% to 16.6%). So the total who are carrying increased by 5.5 percentage points (from 24.3% to 29.8%).”
As you might expect, needing permission to carry a weapon, in the form of a concealed-carry permit, reduces the rate at which residents of such states carry relative to those in constitutional carry states where no permits are required. But 25.98 percent of survey respondents at least occasionally carry guns in states that require permits, while 34.19 percent do so in constitutional-carry states.
By J.D. Tuccille
