The one downside of concealed carry versus open carry is that sometimes, you feel like you’re the only one in a given place with a firearm. That means that if something goes down, all the weight of the world is on you to do something about it, and it’s all because you don’t know who’s carrying and who isn’t.
This isn’t a bad thing, mind you, but just something that plays in my mind, at least.
However, new data suggests that my concerns probably aren’t well-founded.
The CPRC hired McLaughlin & Associates to survey 1,000 general election voters on May 19th, 2026 (cross tabs available here), regarding whether likely voters carry concealed handguns. In the survey, 13.2% carry all/most of the time, with another 16.6% carrying sometimes/rarely. The percent who carry all or most the time is virtually the same as the percent who carried similarly in December 2024. But the percent who carry at last[sic] some of the time or rarely has increase by 5.4 percentage points (from 11.2% to 16.6%). So the total who are carrying increased by 5.5 percentage points (from 24.3% to 29.8%).
Not surprisingly, people in the 29 constitutional-carry states carry concealed handguns more frequently (34.2%) than people in 21 right-to-carry states (25.98%).
That’s five and a half percentage points in just six months.
Had this been compared to, say, 2022, I’d chalk much of the difference up to the Bruen decision. That’s clearly not playing a factor in this, though. That means something has convinced 5.5 percent of the population to start carrying a firearm at least occasionally.
It might not happen much with those folks, but it does happen, and in many cases, they may increase their carry frequency as they continue. Carry comfort, for example, might be a factor, or having a beast of a handgun, which is nice for the range, but awkward for day-to-day carry. Someone picking up a lighter firearm and a good concealed carry holster might lead them to carry more often.
Or not.
Keep in mind that this is just shy of a third of the American population that carries a gun at least from time to time. A full third would be 33 percent, for those who aren’t big on fractions, and that number is approaching a lot faster than I’d have thought. It’s possible we’ll hit that number in December, at least if this rate continues.
Again, or not.
Still, this is fantastic news, especially when you consider that this means at least this many people have firearms, and since a lot of people don’t carry at all but still own guns, then that means the percentage of the American population that owns at least one firearm is significant. It’s not 100 percent or anything, which it should be, but still nothing to sneeze at.
Now, we need to make sure all of those gun owners become gun voters, because we all know that the anti-gun jihadists won’t stop with “ghost guns” and AR-15s. They will come for their shotguns and bolt-actions…to say nothing of their handguns, which have long been on the anti-gun wishlist.
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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