The number of Americans who leave their homes with a pistol or revolver on their person jumped from approximately three million in 2015 to six million in 2019, according to a study conducted by University of Washington researchers.
The Guardian reported the study on November 25, 2022, noting that it appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.
The study’s lead author, epidemiology professor Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, views the increase in carry as the natural outgrowth of a years-long evolution whereby Americans have spent less and less time buying guns for hunting and recreation and more and more time buying guns for self-defense.
Moreover, with record-breaking gun sales since 2019 and the Supreme Court’s Bruen (2022) decision, Rowhani-Rahbar indicates he believes the number of Americans carrying daily will continue to surge.
Rowhani-Rahbar said, “We have every reason to believe this is a trend that is probably going to continue.”
In addition to discovering that six million Americans carry a gun daily, the study found that 16 million Americans carry a gun once a month.
Rowhani-Rahbar pointed out a trend of states taking action to make it easier to carry guns for self-defense: “The country has been moving as a whole, in the past two or three decades, very clearly and dramatically toward loosening gun-carrying laws.”
Twenty-five states have adopted a constitutional carry framework for carrying a gun for self-defense. Those 25 states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Alabama’s constitutional carry law goes into effect January 1, 2023.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
