Concealed carry permit

Concealed carry or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon (such as a handgun) in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in close proximity. Not all weapons that fall under CCW laws are lethal. For example, in Florida, carrying pepper spray in more than a specified volume (2 oz.) of chemical requires a CCW permit, whereas anyone may legally carry a smaller, “self-defense chemical spray” device hidden on their person without a CCW permit. As of 2017 there have been 16.3 million concealed weapon permits issued in the United States.

There is no federal statutory law concerning the issuance of concealed-carry permits. All fifty states have passed laws allowing qualified individuals to carry certain concealed firearms in public, either without a permit or after obtaining a permit from a designated government authority at the state and/or local level.

The number of permit revocations is typically small. The grounds for revocation in most states, other than expiration of a time-limited permit without renewal, is typically the commission of a gross misdemeanor or felony by the permit holder. While these crimes are often firearm-related (including unlawful carry), a study of eight years of Texas data found that concealed handgun licensees were much less likely to be convicted of crimes than were nonlicensees. The same study found that licensees' convictions were more likely to be for less common crimes, "such as sexual offenses, gun offenses, or offenses involving a death." This is also in line with a much cited research study published in 1997 researching county level data from 1977 to 1992 concluding that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. However, 2004 National Academies National Research Council's report examining that study found the results sensitive to the specification and time period examined, and concluded no evidence that passage of right-to-carry laws reduces crime, further a 2014 Stanford University study reported that these laws were associated with an 8% increase of aggravated assaults, and a 2017 NBER working paper found that the laws caused a 13–15% increase in violent crime, though the murder and property crime rates were unaffected. The results were disputed by crime researcher John Lott.

...
Wikipedia