These Are the States With the Most Gun Dealers

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Nov 18, 7:55AM EST

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google

This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

These Are the States With the Most Gun Dealers — © artas / iStock via Getty Images

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) keeps track of the firearms licenses in the United States. As of last month, the figure totaled 130,525. The establishments with licenses vary considerably by state and also by the categories by which the ATF tracks them.

Federal Firearms Licenses fall into nine categories. In each case, the official name for firearms is “destructive devices.” These in turn are defined as guns or explosive devices regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, revised by the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and Gun Control Act of 1968.

These are the nine categories:

Dealer in Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices (Includes Gunsmiths)
Pawnbroker in Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices
Collector of Curios and Relics
Manufacturer of Ammunition for Firearms
Manufacturer of Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices
Importer of Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices
Dealer in Destructive Devices
Manufacturer of Destructive Devices
Importer of Destructive Devices

Clearly not all establishments on the list sell firearms directly to the public.
[nativounit]
The market for guns in the United States is huge. Some estimates put the number of guns in the country at over 300 million. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), over 30 million guns have been sold in the United States this year through October. At the current rate, U.S. gun sales will set a record in 2020.

These are the number of gun dealers by state, according to the ATF:

State	Total
Alabama	2,102
Alaska	834
Arkansas	1,864
Arizona	3,385
California	8,434
Colorado	2,950
Connecticut	1,744
Delaware	318
District of Columbia	33
Florida	6,991
Georgia	3,474
Guam	19
Hawaii	222
Idaho	1,506
Illinois	4,492
Indiana	2,735
Iowa	1,990
Kansas	1,771
Kentucky	2,225
Louisiana	1,943
Maine	881
Maryland	2,835
Massachusetts	3,936
Michigan	3,860
Minnesota	2,428
Mississippi	1,435
Missouri	4,225
Montana	1,495
Nebraska	1,100
Nevada	1,314
New Hampshire	1,169
New Jersey	470
New Mexico	1,023
New York	3,784
North Carolina	4,429
Northern Mariana Islands	3
North Dakota	705
Ohio	4,458
Oklahoma	2,198
Oregon	2,155
Pennsylvania	6,138
Puerto Rico	88
Rhode Island	566
South Carolina	2,101
South Dakota	758
Tennessee	3,102
Texas	10,624
U.S. Virgin Islands	13
Utah	1,488
Vermont	550
Virginia	3,969
Washington	3,130
West Virginia	1,351
Wisconsin	2,837
Wyoming	875

[recirclink id=806878]
[wallst_email_signup]

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.