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GAO study on CCW permits
Here, in pdf. It finds:
8,000,000 ccw permits have been issued.
Virtually the entire country, apart from Ill, Calif, and some NE states, has gone with "shall issue," or does not require a permit for concealed carry.
Revocations are rare (p. 26). Arizona had issued 12,000 permits, and revoked 30 (I assume these are annual figures, since total permits are much higher). Texas had issued 143,000 and revoked 900.
Data is also broken down by State (p. 78 ff). Florida has about 887,000 active permits, while Hawaii has zero. Pennsylvania has 786,000; Maryland has 12,000. Someone with spare time could compute out the ratio of permits to population, and compare that to crime rates.
UPDATE: GAO was requested to study CCW laws by, I believe, Nancy Pelosi, in hopes that they'd find data that she could use to argue against nationwide CCW reciprocity, by finding that standards vary widely. Which is pretty much the case. However, since permit holders seem to be quite law abiding whatever the standards are, the results are likely disappointing to her.
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Why is the GAO involved with this, anyway?
Florida, like Utah, is a mail order state. I bet the ratio of permits per population is really higher in Pa.
I like that Georgia has intentionally decentralized their system so nobody can build a master list of CWL holders (and the lists held by the counties are not public records subject to disclosure). Heck, if it's after business hours, an officer on the side of the road has no way to verify whether a CWL is valid, and there's certainly no link to driver's license or vehicle registration...
plugging the end of 2011 permit numbers into the 2010 FBI uniform crime report violent crime stats doesn't make a particularly interesting graph. there is perhaps a minute trend towards lower violent crime based on higher permit counts.
that said, that mix of data is rather horrible. wisconsin changed in 2011, for instance. and other states which had recently changed were likely still growing. others like florida had probably reached a steady state.
if one could get their hands on data for permits/year for a lot of states, it would be interesting to plot the change in violent crime from Y-1 to Y+1 against permits issued in Y.