Pistol-Packing Percents

This might not be the best day to report this — Martin Luther King won a Nobel Peace Prize for his advocacy of non-violence — but yesterday’s Middletown Press includes a fascinating story on the numbers and rates of pistol ownership in Connecticut.

Westport has 719 permit holders. That’s 2.7% of our population — the 7th lowest rate of pistol ownership of all 169 Connecticut towns and cities.

We’re tied with  Danbury and Greenwich. The only places with a lower population of pistol owners are West Hartford, Darien, Stamford, New London, Mansfield, New Haven and — at the bottom — Hartford (1.5%).

The most heavily armed town in Connecticut is Canaan: 13.5%. There are 167 permit holders in the rural community of just 1,234 people.

Click here for the full story, statistics, and an interactive map.