Gun Control Law Leads to Spike in Concealed Carry Licenses

A record number of Washington State residents are bearing arms in self-defense these days. About 14,000 carry permits have been issued so far this year, almost three times the number of licenses that were issued in all of 2024. 

As the Washington State Standard reports, the rise in carry license applications directly coincides with the passage of the state’s latest gun control law; a permit-to-purchase scheme that will subject would-be gun owners to a host of new requirements and restrictions set to be enforced in May, 2027. 

Dave Workman, editor-in-chief of the Second Amendment Foundation’s TheGunMag.com, has been tracking concealed pistol license numbers in Washington since 2013. Usually, more people getting CPLs is tied to a fear of rising crime. But crime dropped significantly in 2024, the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs recently reported.

Still, the feeling of being unsafe remains for those on both sides of the political spectrum, Workman believes.

“You see these stories about shootings or stabbings on the heels of reports that Seattle has lost several hundred officers since 2020,” he said. “People look at that and they think, and I think rightfully so, that they have to take more responsibility for their own safety.”

That’s undoubtably true, but crime in Seattle also isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. And as the the paper points out, the number of applicants for a carry license really took off in April of this year, which just happens to the be the month after anti-gun Democrats approved the permit-to-purchase bill. In fact, according to the paper, every month since May has set a new record high for active licenses, with more than 3,800 new permit holders in July alone. 

The National Rifle Association said the state’s gun control efforts, “coupled with a soft-on-crime agenda, have created a dangerous scenario where law-abiding citizens must jump through administrative hoops to exercise their constitutional rights.”

“Despite these arduous hurdles, more Washingtonians than ever are arming themselves, because they understand that their family’s safety is in their own hands,” said John Commerford, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement.

Gregory Joseph, communications director for the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, disagrees. He said that, “while more firearms in circulation can increase risk, we believe Washington’s approach to firearm safety makes our communities tangibly safer.”

The permit-to-purchase law will “ensure that those carrying firearms in public are well-trained and continuously vetted, helping to prevent prohibited individuals from possessing firearms,” Joseph said. “By raising the bar for training and oversight, Washington state is making responsible ownership the standard and improving safety for everyone in Washington.”

If you believe that this new law will stop violent criminals from illegally carrying guns in public, I have a Space Needle in Seattle I’d like to sell you. The permit-to-purchase law will make it more costly and time consuming to lawfully exercise a fundamental civil right, but it’s going to have the same effect on crime that Washington’s waiting periods, “assault weapon” and “large capacity” magazine bans, universal background checks, and “red flag” law have had: none at all. 

Crime does appear to be finally trending down in King County and Seattle, but the same is true in plenty of places without any of those gun control laws in place. And King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion doesn’t credit any of the state’s gun control laws with the decline in shootings and homicides. 

Manion points to a two-pronged approach to reducing gun violence that she began implementing when she took office in 2023.

The first focuses on police solving nonfatal shootings and prosecutors filing charges to hold shooters accountable. And the second involves law enforcement partnering with community organizations to identify people close to gun violence — including victims and witnesses — and providing services to hopefully prevent them from becoming perpetrators or casualties.

Violent crimes are largely committed by a very small cohort of repeat offenders, which is why targeted deterrence efforts are so valuable. Gun control laws like the permit-to-purchase scheme signed into law this year take the exact opposite approach. They threaten to turn lawful citizens into non-violent criminals if they don’t comply with training mandates, paperwork requirements, and restrictions on the type of guns they can own and where they can legally be carried. 

These laws are aimed at the law-abiding, not gangbangers, carjackers, and home invaders, who couldn’t care less about a permit-to-purchase scheme. It won’t change their life or behavior one bit. But it will be more difficult to legally keep and bear arms, which is why so many more Washingtonians are choosing to get their carry license now, before these new restrictions are actually enforced. 

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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