How Heavily Armed is Wyoming?
With our daily news reports filled with politics and multiple shootings, CBS News took aim at crime rates and possible changes to gun laws.
There is no argument that guns and gun rights are hot topics in this political season. But with our culture deeply rooted in firearms, which state is the most heavily armed?
According to CBS's report of the ATF's National Firearms Registration and Firearms Transfer Records as compared to the number of persons in each state, one state stands out above all the rest when it comes to firearm saturation.
With Wyoming's legal concealed carry, hunting and shooting nature it should be no surprise that we have the highest number of guns per capita in the country. In fact, Wyoming has so many guns that there are almost three times as many guns per capita as the next highest state and 4 times as many as the third highest.
Wyoming boasts over 195 registered guns per 1000 residents. The second highest is not even a state, the District of Columbia has the 2nd most guns per capita at just over 66 guns per 1000 residents.
Here are the top 5 states and the number of guns per 100 residents:
1-Wyoming 195.7, 2-Washington DC 66.4, 3-Arkansas 41.6, 4-New Mexico 40.5, 5-Virginia 30.1
The 5 lowest gun to population ratio states are:
51-New York 3.3, 50-Rhode Island 3.8, 49-Delaware 4.2, 48-Michigan 4.3, 47-Massachusetts 4.9
There is a reason why we say in Wyoming - "Consider everyone Armed!". Wyoming has 114,052 registered firearms in our state and countless guns that are not registered and have been handed down within families for years.
Source: CBS News