There are 51,401 licensed gun dealers in America. We know, because we keep a live directory of every single one. So we did the obvious thing: we counted them up by state to settle a bar argument that never ends. So which are the most armed states in America?
The answer depends entirely on how you ask the question, and the honest version of it is a lot more fun than the headline version. Here is the whole map.
The headline answer: Texas, and it isn’t close
By raw count, Texas runs away with it. The Lone Star State is home to 5,211 gun dealers, nearly double second-place Florida at 2,635. Pennsylvania (2,251), North Carolina (2,029) and Ohio (1,888) round out the top five. If you want to find a gun store in Texas, you are never more than a short drive from one.
But here is the catch, and it is a big one. Texas also has 31 million people. Florida has 23 million. Of course the big states have the most stores; they have the most of everything. Raw counts mostly just measure population. To find out which state is actually saturated with gun dealers, you have to do the per-person math.
The real answer: Wyoming buries everyone
Measure dealers per 100,000 residents and the whole board flips. Wyoming, with barely 588,000 people and 512 gun shops, posts a staggering 87 dealers per 100,000 residents. That is not just first place. It is more than double the national feel and nearly forty times the bottom of the list. In Wyoming, gun stores are about as common as coffee shops are everywhere else.
Right behind it is the rest of the wide-open West. Montana sits at 68 per 100,000, Alaska at 56, North Dakota at 54, and South Dakota at 52. West Virginia is the lone non-Western state to crack the top tier at 43. The pattern is obvious once you see the map glow red across the Mountain West: lots of land, few people, and a deep hunting and ranching culture add up to a gun store on every other corner.
The least-armed states: the coasts go quiet
At the other end, the restrictive coastal states sit nearly empty. New Jersey is dead last with just 2.3 dealers per 100,000 people, followed by California at 3.4, Massachusetts at 3.7, and Hawaii at 6.0. New York, despite having 1,408 stores in raw terms, drops to a thin 7.1 per capita once you account for its 20 million residents.
It tracks with how hard each state makes it to open and run a dealership. Where the paperwork is heavy and the politics are hostile, the storefronts thin out. A New Jersey gun buyer has roughly one shop for every 43,000 neighbors. A Wyoming buyer has one for every 1,150.
The surprise in the data: Vermont
Every dataset has a twist. Here it is Vermont, which lands at a healthy 36 dealers per 100,000 residents, good for seventh in the nation. For a state most people file under deep blue, that is wildly out of step with its coastal neighbors. The explanation is rural culture, not politics: Vermont has long had some of the most relaxed gun laws in the Northeast, and a hunting tradition that has nothing to do with how it votes for president. It is a useful reminder that gun-store density follows the land more than the ballot box.
What the most armed states map tells us
The map is really a map of two different Americas. One is rural, Western and wide open, where a gun shop is a routine part of Main Street. The other is dense, coastal and regulated, where dealers are scarce and the nearest counter might be a county away. Neither is right or wrong; they are just different worlds, and the FFL directory draws the border between them in sharp relief. The most armed states by this measure also tend to post the highest household gun ownership rates, so the dealer map doubles as a rough map of gun culture.
Wherever you land on that map, you can find the best shops near you in our state-by-state best gun stores directory. And if you want more numbers like these, we dig into ownership, crime and culture stats in our U.S. gun statistics hub, and track real ammo costs in the Ammo Price Index.
How we counted
The dealer counts come from our live FFL directory of 51,401 licensed dealers nationwide, current as of June 2026. The state-by-state rankings below cover the 50 states and D.C. (51,342 dealers); the remainder are in the U.S. territories. Per-capita figures use 2024 U.S. Census Bureau population estimates, expressed as dealers per 100,000 residents. We counted every active Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder issued by the ATF, which includes dedicated gun shops, sporting-goods stores with a gun counter, pawn shops, and home-based FFL transfer dealers, so the totals run higher than the number of big-box storefronts you would picture. The relative ranking between states is what matters, and that holds up no matter how you slice it.
Free data: Download the full state-by-state numbers as CSV or JSON, including dealer counts, population and per-capita figures. Use them however you like, just credit USA Gun Shop.
Frequently asked questions
Which state has the most gun stores?
By raw count, Texas leads with 5,211 licensed gun dealers, followed by Florida (2,635) and Pennsylvania (2,251). But that mostly reflects population, since Texas is the second-largest state.
Which state has the most gun stores per capita?
Wyoming, by a wide margin. With about 588,000 residents and 512 dealers, Wyoming has roughly 87 gun stores per 100,000 people, more than double any other state. Montana, Alaska and the Dakotas follow.
Which states have the fewest gun stores per capita?
New Jersey is lowest at about 2.3 dealers per 100,000 residents, followed by California (3.4), Massachusetts (3.7) and Hawaii (6.0). These tend to be the most densely populated and heavily regulated states.
How many gun stores are there in the United States?
There are 51,401 active federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) in our nationwide directory, which includes gun shops, sporting-goods stores, pawn shops and home-based transfer dealers.
Why does Wyoming have so many gun dealers per capita?
Wyoming pairs a tiny population of about 588,000 with deep hunting and ranching culture and almost no dealer red tape. With 512 shops, that works out to 87 dealers per 100,000 people, the highest rate in the country and more than double the national figure.
Does Texas have the most gun stores?
Yes. Texas has 5,211 licensed gun dealers, far more than any other state and nearly double second-place Florida at 2,635. But that mostly reflects its size. Per capita Texas does not crack the top ten, where Wyoming, Montana and Alaska lead.
Is gun-dealer density the same as gun ownership?
Not exactly, but they track closely. Dealer density measures storefronts per resident, not guns owned. Still, the high-density states like Wyoming, Montana and Alaska also post the country's highest household gun ownership rates, so the dealer map doubles as a rough map of gun culture.
Are there more gun stores in rural or urban states?
Rural states, by a wide margin. The most armed states per capita are wide-open and Western, including Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and the Dakotas, where hunting culture and light regulation put a dealer on nearly every corner. Dense coastal states sit at the bottom.
Free to use. Grab the map or any chart for your own blog, article or socials, just credit USA Gun Shop at usa-gun-shop.com. Dealer counts from our live FFL directory; population from the 2024 U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Curious what the priciest guns in America actually cost? We matched the most expensive ones to used cars in guns that cost more than your car.
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