By: Teresa Mull

Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire – all Constitutional Carry states – have been named the safest states in the Union according to the FBI’s Public Safety Rankings.

“Constitutional Carry legislation,” according to South Dakota Gun Owners (SDGO), “recognizes law-abiding citizens’ right to carry concealed firearms for self-defense, without obtaining a permit…”

Fellow Constitutional Carry states, Idaho, Kentucky, and Wyoming, also made the top 15 safest states list.

“Maine is proving true the adage that an armed society is a polite society,” former Maine Sen. Eric Brakey, who sponsored the state’s Constituional Carry bill in 2015, told Gunpowder Magazine. “Despite dire predictions in 2015 from Bloomberg-funded gun grabbers that blood would run through the streets of Maine if my Constitutional Carry legislation passed into law, Maine has instead been ranked the safest state in America, with the number one lowest violent crime rate, every single year since passage.

“To stop violent crime, states should emulate the firearm freedom policies of Maine, not the failed gun control policies of crime-ridden Chicago,” Brakey said.

U.S. News and World Report released the rankings this week, noting:

Public safety makes up 50 percent of the Best States for crime & corrections ranking. This subcategory evaluates both the violent crime rate and the property crime rate in each state, as measured by the FBI in 2017. Though some major cities, such as Chicago and Baltimore, have seen drastic increases in homicides in recent years, overall violent crime and property crime rates remain near historic lows.

"It’s no surprise that a state with a Constitutional Carry law on the books has earned this designation,” Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, told GPM. “Constitutional Carry states are consistently ranked among the safest, and it’s common sense: criminals are cowardly, and they’re less likely to commit a crime when they suspect their victim is armed. That’s why 98 percent of mass shootings happen in so-called ‘gun free zones,’ and why places with extreme gun control laws, such as Chicago, have much higher crime rates."

Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].