A State-by-State Breakdown of Firearms Possession

A Percentage Breakdown of Households Possessing Firearms State-by-State

Alaska                  -    61.7                                     Utah                    -   31.9

Arkansas              -   57.9                                      Georgia               -   31.6

Idaho                   -   56.9                                      Oklahoma           -   31.2

West Virginia      -   54.2                                      Virginia               -   29.3

Wyoming            -   53.8                                      Vermont              -   28.8

Montana             -   52.3                                      North Carolina    -   28.7

New Mexico      -   49.9                                      Washington          -   27.7

Alabama            -   48.9                                       Pennsylvania       -   27.1

North Dakota    -   47.9                                       Missouri              -   27.1

Hawaii              -   45.1                                       Oregon                -   26.6

Louisiana         -   44.5                                        Illinois                -   26.2

South Carolina -   44.4                                       Massachusetts     -   22.6

Mississippi      -   42.8                                        Maine                 -   22.6

Kentucky        -   42.4                                        Maryland            -   20.7

Tennessee       -   39.4                                        California           -   20.1

Nevada           -   37.5                                        Nebraska            -   19.8

Minnesota      -   36.7                                        Ohio                   -   19.6

Texas             -   35.7                                        Connecticut        -   16.6

South Dakota -  35.0                                        New Hampshire -   14.4

Wisconsin     -   34.7                                        New Jersey         -   11.3

Colorado       -   34.3                                       New York           -   10.3

Iowa             -   33.8                                        Rhode Island      -    5.8

Indiana         -   33.8                                        Delaware            -    5.2

Florida         -   32.5

Arizona       -   32.3                                        Michigan            -   34.7

Kansas        -   32.2                                        DC                      -   25.9

Michigan was inadvertently left out of the sequence.

One of the striking features of this percentages of firearms by state households is that of the states with the highest percentages of firearms in households, only two, West Virginia and Alabama, are east of the Mississippi River. No northeast state is in the top 30, with Vermont coming in at 31 and Massachusetts at 38. The six states with the lowest percentages of firearms are all located in the northeast.

FBI indexes of violent crime annually show the northeast states as having the lowest levels of violent crime in the nation; therefore, there is a seeming correlation between firearms percentages and rates of violent crime.

Th four states that are usually put in the Deep South -- Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina -- all rank among the 13 states with the highest percentages of firearms possession. If we include Georgia as a Deep South state, all five of these states are in the top 30. In FBI statistics on violent crime rates, the South consistently ranks as the region with the highest rates.

Four of the seven states  with the highest percentages of firearms possession are in the far West -- Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and New Mexico -- and that my be due to sparse population concentrations and plenty of hunting territory.