(GunReports.com) — A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office confirms that the number of Americans exercising the right to carry firearms for personal protection is skyrocketing, NRA-ILA reports.
GAO investigators gathered information from state authorities nationwide about the number of permits issued, eligibility requirements for those permits, and the extent to which states recognize permits issued by other states. The researchers also conducted a more in-depth review of nine selected states. While information on eligibility requirements and reciprocity is easily available online (for example, on NRA-ILA’s “Gun Laws” page), some of the statistical information in the report is remarkable.
With hard numbers or estimates from all but three of the 49 states that have laws allowing for issuance of carry permits, the GAO reports that there were about 8 million active permits in the United States as of December 31, 2011. That’s about a million more than previous estimates by scholars, NRA-ILA said.
The report also includes calculations of permit holders as a percentage of the population. Although the numbers for some states are skewed by issuance of nonresident permits, the GAO’s figures show that in two states–Georgia and South Dakota–more than one in 10 adult residents have carry permits. Several other states come close; five percent or more of Kentucky, Tennessee and Wyoming residents have permits.
