How Armed is Your State?

   10.24.18

How Armed is Your State?

So, CBS News published an article asking, “How heavily armed is your state?” It’s far from conclusive, mainly because there are many unknowns about guns and gun ownership — for instance, in free(ish) states, there’s no such thing as gun registration. But it does attempt to sum up gun ownership by taking data from a “gun ownership rate assessment” titled “Gun ownership and social gun culture,” published in 2015.

Here is a look at per capita weapons data, based on the ATF’s National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, and 2013 data from the U.S. Census.

Here’s the distilled info:

  1. Rhode Island: 5.8%
  2. New York: 10.3%
  3. New Jersey: 11.3%
  4. New Hampshire: 14.4%
  5. Connecticut: 16.6%
  6. Ohio: 19.6%
  7. (tie) Nebraska: 19.8%
  8. (tie) California: 19.8%
  9. Maryland: 20.7%
  10. (tie) Massachusetts: 22.6%
  11. (tie) Maine: 22.6%
  12. Washington, D.C.: 25.9%
  13. Illinois: 26.2%
  14. Oregon: 26.6%
  15. (tie) Pennsylvania: 27.1%
  16. (tie) Missouri: 27.1%
  17. Washington: 27.7%
  18. North Carolina: 28.7%
  19. (tie) Vermont: 28.8%
  20. (tie) Michigan: 28.8%
  21. Virginia: 29.3%
  22. Oklahoma: 31.2%
  23. Georgia: 31.6%
  24. Utah: 31.9%
  25. Kansas: 32.2%
  26. Arizona: 32.3%
  27. Florida: 32.5%
  28. (tie) Indiana: 33.8%
  29. (tie) Iowa: 33.8%
  30. Colorado: 34.3%
  31. Wisconsin: 34.7%
  32. South Dakota: 35%
  33. Texas: 35.7%
  34. Minnesota: 36.7%
  35. Nevada: 37.5%
  36. Tennessee: 39.4%
  37. Kentucky: 42.4%
  38. Mississippi: 42.8%
  39. South Carolina: 44.4%
  40. Louisiana: 44.5%
  41. Hawaii: 45.1%
  42. North Dakota: 47.9%
  43. Alabama: 48.9%
  44. New Mexico: 49.9%
  45. Montana: 52.3%
  46. Wyoming: 53.8%
  47. West Virginia: 54.2%
  48. Idaho: 56.9%
  49. Arkansas: 57.9%
  50. Alaska: 61.7%

Alaska comes as no surprise. After all, there are many areas in Alaska where you’d better be armed if you want to stay alive… and Alaskans, it seems, have a higher level of common sense than most folks. Probably because without it, they’d die.

Where does your state rank on the list? Mine is more or less in the middle of the pack, but to judge by the sounds of target shooting I hear almost daily, I’d say my area is probably armed well enough.

Avatar Author ID 61 - 1440142716

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.

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