Florida Poised To Become First State To Have Issued 1,000,000 CFPs...

Yes, perhaps it is a bit "off topic" for an OC forum, but relevant information nonetheless. If Florida issued only to state residents, then 1:27 Floridians would be packing. However...

In the wake of the gun control debate raging after the Aurora shooting last week, we hear that Florida will soon have one million people in possession of concealed weapons. According to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel by way of The Awl, this will make the state — which is issuing between 10,000 and 12,000 "carry permits" a month — the first to reach this somewhat dubious "milestone." The state's agriculture commissioner told the paper that at the rate the state is going, it will get to a million by the next six weeks or two months.

So who is walking around with a concealed weapon in Florida? Well, 80 percent are middle-aged men:

Of Florida's 952,000 total permit holders, the majority, 243,505, are between the ages of 51 and 65. About 11 percent of all permit holders are from out of state.

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Let us not forget that Florida is staging ground of the highly publicized Trayvon Martin case, wherein the teenaged Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, who had one such permit. (Attribution to the Sun-Sentinel)

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The bias of this article isn't too obvious to the casual observer. But, to those of us with an interest in such things, what the use of the sarcastic phrase "dubious milestone" - and the entire closing "reminder" - say (subliminally and IMHO) is that guns, and the people who own them, are evil!

Then from NBCNews.com, there's this:

Florida is on a pace to grant new and renewed permits to about 25,000 out-of-state residents in the current fiscal year. Of 692,621 current Florida concealed-carry license holders, 71,059, or more than one in 10, are not state residents. Over the past 10 years, the number of concealed-carry permits issued by Utah has surged 431 percent, from 40,363 to 214,403, a figure that would represent nearly 8 percent of the state’s population. But more than half the permits now go to non-Utah residents, up from just 12 percent a decade ago. Of the 1,011 instructors authorized by Utah to teach its concealed-carry license class, 641 live out of state — 100 in California alone — while 370 are Utah residents.

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Two years ago, just before I returned to Utah from Oregon, literally half the people I knew in Oregon had CCWs... and Oregon is an OC state.

I found the statistics interesting, regardless of the fact that they are for CCWs/CHPs/CFPs (or whatever they call them in your neck of the woods). Since Constitutional OC is not illegal in most states, and there is no paperwork or financial transaction involved to exercise that right, there are no stats regarding OC numbers... other than SWAGs (and, your SWAG is as good as anybody else's).
I'll go out on a limb here, and posit that there was quite likely a noteworthy increase in OC... in states that do not prohibit OC, anyway. :shocker: Pax...

Gotta love the Sunshine State!!