Concealed Carry Permit Holders are More Law Abiding than the General Population or Police officers

People who have concealed carry permits are one of the most law-abiding groups in the United States. Police officers have crime rates far below the general population. People with concealed carry permits are more law-abiding than police officers.

The arrest rate for the overall adult population in the USA is about 2,100 – 2,200 per 100k in recent years.  The arrest rate for police officers has been about  170 per 100k. This may be low because no one tracks police arrests officially. Officials may be reluctant to charge police officers. The conviction rate for concealed permit holders is about 17.6 per 100k in Texas, according to an academic paper by John Lott, Moody, and Wang published in 2025. From the paper:

 Of the 43,932 total convictions in the Texas DPS 2023 report, only 284 — or 0.6 percent — were convictions of LTC holders, a conviction rate of
17.6 per 100,000.37

Convictions are not the same as arrests. Arrests for felonies tends to result in about 65% convictions. Arrests for misdemeanors results in about 45% convictions. A conviction rate is likely to be about half of the arrest rate.  If we double the conviction rate to approximate the arrest rate, concealed permit holders have less than one fifth the arrest rate for police officers. Concealed carry permit holders have 1.7% of the arrest rate for the general population.

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) sums up how law-abiding permit holders are for convictions of firearm related violations:

 Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of firearms related violations at one-twelfth of the rate at which police officers are convicted.

Minnesota tracks the number of carry permits which are revoked each year. A look at the Minnesota numbers shows revocations of permits are close to what concealed permit convictions are in Texas. The numbers and methodology may be significantly different in the two states. In 2024 the number of permit holders in Minnesota were about 400 thousand. The number of permit revocations was 47. That is a rate of revocation of 11.5 per 100k in 2024.

The crime rates of permit holders are much, much lower than that of the general population and much lower than that of police officers. In terms of other population groups, permit holders crime rates are about as law abiding as Asian Americans as a group.  Both groups show high levels of civic responsibility and respect for the rule of law.

Analysis:

Very few people believe disarming the police is a good idea. Police officers, even retired police officers have the legal right to carry in most places where most people are prevented from carrying weapons. Police officers have the legal right to carry in all states and territories of the United States. The Congress created the LEOSA act as a way to protect the public with more responsible armed people on the streets. They also created it as a way to protect police officers. The same logic applies to people with concealed carry permits. Those people are much less likely to break laws than even police officers are.

It is common sense to increase the number of such protectors by 15X. There are about 700 thousand sworn police officers.  There are about another 500 thousand retired officers. There are over 20 million Americans with concealed carry permits.

  

©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

 Gun Watch

Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2026/06/concealed-carry-permit-holders-are-more.html