Just .03 percent of concealed carry permittees in Minnesota committed a gun crime last year.

That’s according to last week’s release from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA). The agency reports about 126 permit holders committed a gun crime out of the nearly 400,000 living in the state. The numbers show Minnesota concealed carriers commit gun crimes at a much lower rate than the national average.

The FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System found there were 246,893 gun crimes in 2021. That same year, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were 332,031,554 Americans. That means the average American was more than twice as likely to commit a gun crime than somebody licensed to carry a gun in Minnesota. The same trend holds within Minnesota itself, according to the same data.

Additionally, the fact that the FBI only details the use of guns in violent crimes while Minnesota’s report counts any crime where a gun is involved combined with poor compliance with the NIBRS’s voluntary data collection system (the agency notes on its website that only 66 percent of the population is covered by its data) suggests the gap between the average American and licensed gun carriers may be significantly wider.

The numbers suggest that those who obtain a concealed carry license, which requires a background check and firearms training in Minnesota, tend to be more law-abiding than the general public. The data from Minnesota and other states may curtail ongoing efforts in states like California and New York to restrict the issuance of concealed carry licenses.

The BCA report found people with permits committed 4,199 crimes overall. The agency said that was the highest number of crimes it has recorded among permit holders in a given year. However, it said that represented about one percent of all permit holders, which is in line with reporting from previous years.

“More than 60 percent were DWIs or other traffic offenses,” BCA said in the release. “15 percent were from the ‘Other’ category, which includes both less serious offenses such as city ordinance violations and DNR hunting, fishing and recreational vehicle violations and less common but more serious offenses such as stalking and riot.”

The general crime rate of Minnesota concealed carry permittees also compares well against the average Minnesotan. The FBI reported 133,991 crimes in the state during 2021, while the Census Bureau reported just over 5.7 million residents. That puts the general crime rate about twice as high as the rate for permittees.

BCA said Minnesota issued 65,257 gun-carry permits in 2022, down from a record 106,488 the year before. At the same time, 177 permits were suspended, 27 revoked, 1,414 voided, and 866 denied.

UPDATE 3-10-2023 10:09 AM EASTERN: This piece has been updated to correct two typos. BCA reported about 126 gun crimes by permit holders, not 1,260. Additionally, Minnesota’s population is just over 5.7 million. The math in the article was based on the correct number but we initially published the larger figure.