CONCEALED CARRY, CONCEALED SECURITY
Concealed carry is becoming an increasingly hot topic at both the state and federal level. National reciprocity is growing closer, and more states are looking at concealed carry as a legitimate option. Conclusive studies, such as University of Chicago Professor John Lott’s, have shown that concealed carry states have lower violent crime rates than states without it. However, as more and more states give their citizens back the right of self-protection, Handgun Control Inc. (HCI) continues to apply increasing pressure to deny law abiding citizens this essential right.
This report is a state by state breakdown of concealed carry laws of all fifty states. Included is a rating given by analysts at the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA). The grading system was based on the following criteria:
The most important factor is whether the individual state is "Shall Issue" or not. When there is not an unbiased, objective standard to follow rights will be, and are, denied. Only one person in Hawaii has a concealed carry permit, and apart from the state being "May Issue" the concealed carrying laws are relatively lax. Because a bureaucrat has the final say so due to the law, citizens are denied the right of self-protection on a daily basis. Hawaii is just one example of the egregious violation of civil rights due to discretionary issue of concealed carry permits.
Seven states do not allow concealed carry at all. Six of those states received "F" ratings. New Mexico does not allow concealed carry, but it does allow carrying of handguns in vehicles without a permit, so it rated a "D". No "May Issue" state rated better than a "D", except Alabama. Alabama rated a "B" because they rarely, if ever, deny permits to legally eligible applicants.
Criminals are going to carry guns regardless of the law. Any person willing to commit the violent crimes of rape, robbery, assault or murder could not care less about a "don’t carry" law. The only people hurt in non-carry states are law-abiding citizens. Thomas Jefferson cites Cesare Beccaria as saying it best:
False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that it has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are of such a nature…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. (Beccaria, ON CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 87-88, cited from Thomas Jefferson, COMMON PLACE BOOK 314)
These ideals were poignant first to Beccaria in the sixteenth century, then to Jefferson at our country’s birth, and are still so today. Concealed carry has been empirically proven to lower violent crime rates. For responsible gun owners concealed carry is synonymous with concealed security.
Alabama: B
Alaska: A minus
Arizona: A minus
Arkansas: B
California: D
Colorado: D
Connecticut: B plus
Delaware: D
Florida: A minus
Georgia: A
Hawaii: D
Idaho: A
Illinois: F
No concealed carry is allowed
Indiana: A
Iowa: D
Kansas: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
Kentucky: A minus
Louisiana: B plus
Maine: A
Maryland: D
Massachusetts: D
Michigan: D
Minnesota: D
Mississippi: A minus
Missouri: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
Montana: A minus
Nebraska: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
Nevada: A minus
New Hampshire: A
New Jersey: D
New Mexico: D
No concealed carry is allowed, HOWEVER, the carrying of handguns is allowed inside motor vehicles without a permit.
New York: D
North Carolina: B plus
North Dakota: B plus
Ohio: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
Oklahoma: B plus
Oregon: A minus
Pennsylvania: A
Rhode Island: D
South Carolina: A
South Dakota: A
Tennessee: B plus
Texas: B
Utah: B plus
Vermont: A plus
Allows residents and non-residents to open carry or carry concealed without a permit.
Virginia: A
Washington: A
Washington, DC: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
West Virginia: A
Wisconsin: F
No concealed carry is allowed.
Wyoming: A