Gun licenses in Indiana outpacing last year

The number of Hoosiers who hold active licenses to carry handguns has grown by nearly 50 percent since 2012, according to an IndyStar analysis, and the state is on pace to issue substantially more licenses than it did last year.

IndyStar analyzed data kept by the Indiana State Police regarding handgun permit holders. In Indiana, residents do not need a permit to buy a gun or to carry a rifle, and permits are not required to go target shooting or to keep guns at home. Permits are needed only to carry handguns in public.

In short: The data offer only a limited glimpse into how many Hoosiers are gun owners.

The numbers do, though, show a clear increase in the number of Hoosiers who want the option to carry a handgun in public. In the first three months of 2016, the state approved more than 50,000 carry permits, more than half of the total number of permits approved in 2015.

The state also is seeing the number of women with permits skyrocketing. By the first quarter of 2016, more than 174,000 Hoosier women held permits, up nearly 90 percent from the roughly 92,000 women who held permits in 2012.

Unsurprisingly, the highest percentage of permit holders were in the state's rural areas, while urban areas and college towns fell at the bottom.

Nine percent of Marion County residents have permits to carry a handgun. Monroe County, home of Indiana University’s flagship campus in Bloomington, is at the bottom of the list, with only 7 percent of the population holding carry permits. St. Joseph, Tippecanoe, Elkhart and LaGrange counties filled out the bottom five.

At the top of the list for percentage of permit holders are Brown, Morgan, Posey, Greene and Hancock counties. Brown County tops the list with about 20 percent of its population holding a permit.

In Morgan County, Sheriff Robert Downey said the county's residents tend to be conservative and believers in the Second Amendment. It’s a low-crime county, he said, but carry permits in the rural area southwest of Indianapolis have a public safety utility.

“We may be 15 to 20 minutes away in the worst-case scenario,” he said, referencing law enforcement response times.

Other reasons for the increase in licenses are rooted in culture, politics and perception of crime and gun violence, authorities and experts say.

Authorities say applications for permits tend to spike around highly publicized mass shootings and what is often an ensuing political conversation about gun control.

“Anytime there is an issue in the news where politicians are talking about limiting people’s right to bear arms, that proportionally usually results in an increase in people buying licenses to carry,” Indiana State Police Capt. Dave Bursten said.

This gun is far more popular in Indy than the AR-15

Recently, for example, a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., spurred President Barack Obama to call for gun control, though the U.S. Senate in June blocked four gun control measures prompted by the killings, USA TODAY reported.

Some county sheriffs in Indiana said they often receive questions about licensing in the wake of such events.

“Any type of event like this always brings on scrutiny of gun ownership, but also people want to go out and do anything to protect themselves,” Boone County Sheriff Mike Nielsen said.

But there’s no evidence that gun permits deter crime, or elevate it, said Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University who studies gun ownership.

“It doesn’t affect the rate of crime,” Kleck said.

IndyStar public safety editor Ryan Martin contributed to this story.

Call IndyStar reporter Madeline Buckley at (317) 444-6083. Follow her on Twitter: @Mabuckley88.