With housing inventories at recent highs, the US housing market just suffered another sentiment setback as Housing Starts crashed by 15.4% MoM in May (far worse than 2% drop expected and worse since March 2024)), following a revised 8.5% MoM drop in April. Building Permits slipped 0.7% MoM (in line with expectations)…

Source: Bloomberg

That pulls the Housing Starts SAAR to its lowest since COVID (after reaching the highest since 2024 in April)…

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, it was multi-family (rental) starts that collapsed:

• Housing Starts single-family drop from 899K (revised lower from 930K) to 882K

• Housing Starts multi-family drop from 486K (revised lower from 529K) to 284K

Source: Bloomberg

Did ‘renter nation’ just die?

Multifamily permits also fell…

• Housing Permits single-family rise from 881K (revised higher from 872K) to 886K

• Housing Permits multi-family drop from 491K (revised lower from 514K) to 474K

Is homebuilder sentiment about to slump even further…

Source: Bloomberg

It seems recent rises in the mortgage rate (and inventories already at over-stuffed levels, given the slowness of sales) has finally dented the homebuilders’ self-satisfying confidence.

Residential solar in the US is actively cratering after President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill resulted in the sunsetting of a key tax credit for homeowners last year – which will result in a prolonged slump in installations, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

“The market is not expected to recover to the record levels of 2023 anytime in the next decade,” according to the report. 

The downturn is widespread – with installers nationwide reporting steep drops in new rooftop projects. Higher interest rates, the winding down of certain federal incentives, and shifting state policies are cited as primary drivers behind the slowdown. Many homeowners are now facing longer payback periods and higher upfront costs, making the economics less attractive than in previous years.

Two notable exceptions stand out amid the broader decline. California and Florida continue to see relatively stronger demand, supported by state-level incentives, high electricity prices, and established installer networks. Even in these states, however, growth has moderated compared with the boom years, and analysts expect the national picture to remain challenged for the foreseeable future.

Impact on Major Players and Supply Chain

Companies such as Sunrun, Enphase Energy, and SunPower have already felt the effects through softer order books and margin pressure. The residential segment, once a bright spot in the clean energy transition, is now forcing these firms to adjust forecasts and focus more on commercial and utility-scale projects where demand remains steadier.

The stall comes at a time when broader energy policy debates are intensifying. With changing federal priorities and questions around long-term subsidy structures, the residential solar sector is confronting the reality that rapid adoption was heavily dependent on favorable financing and generous tax credits that are now fading.

This development underscores the challenges of scaling residential renewables without sustained policy tailwinds. While utility-scale solar and battery storage continue to expand in many regions, the rooftop market’s slowdown highlights how sensitive consumer adoption remains to interest rates, payback periods, and regulatory certainty. BloombergNEF’s outlook suggests the industry may need several years to stabilize before any meaningful recovery takes hold.

That said, Californa and Florida are bucking the trend…

California, a longtime solar leader, and Florida, which passed a new pro-solar law last year. BloombergNEF projects Florida’s residential solar additions will hit 710 megawatts in 2026, a 62% increase over last year. California’s installations are also forecast to grow 17% in 2026. Both states are also leading on solar permit applications. -Bloomberg

The national crunch is also affecting the market for solar batteries – from which only about 1.4 gigawatts of home storage is expected to go online this year, down 26% from 2025. That said, some 40% of new residential solar systems in the first three months of 2026 had batteries, BloombergNEF found, up from an average 35% last year. 

“Battery storage is the future of home solar,” said BloombergNEF analyst, Cosmo van Steenis. “Batteries can lay up stores of solar power in the daytime and release them at night.”

Via Remix News,

A demonstration of several thousand people took place in Rome on Saturday to advocate for remigration and stricter controls on immigration.

Coming from various regions across Italy, a crowd of roughly 3,000 individuals paraded through the nation’s capital behind a prominent sign declaring “Remigration and Recapture,“ a slogan used to call for the mandatory deportation of migrants back to their countries of origin.

🇮🇹Thousands demonstrate for remigration in Rome.

Protesters are increasingly hitting the streets across Europe demanding mass deportations.pic.twitter.com/X9zFjOkXeH

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 14, 2026

The march drew participation from various right-wing organizations, including Casapound.

According to Luca Marsella, a spokesman for Casapound, their objective is clear. “We want to throw out the illegal immigrants because they shouldn’t be here.”

He further noted that their demands extend beyond those without legal status, adding, “And because we are not politically correct, we also say that we want to send home the legal immigrants who have obviously not adapted or integrated.”

🇮🇹Huge turnout for Remigration in Rome, Italy.

Thousands marched with Italian flags in support of secure borders and mass deportations.pic.twitter.com/YxsvERdZMw

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) June 14, 2026

Concurrently, Rome hosted the inaugural party congress for Futuro Nazionale (National Future), a newly established right-wing political group organized by Roberto Vannacci, a former general who now serves as an MEP.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Vannacci expressed an uncompromising stance on border control, asserting, “If it were up to me, no one should be allowed to enter Italy.”

Vannacci previously aligned with the anti-immigration League Party party led by Vice Prime Minister Matteo Salvini. His political emergence means that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia), alongside her coalition allies, will contend with fresh rivals on the right.

Public opinion polls suggest that Futuro Nazionale could capture 4.5 percent of the electorate, drawing its strongest support from citizens who previously voted for League. Vannacci’s movement already possesses a foothold in the legislature, as eight sitting parliamentarians have already defected to join his ranks.

The issue of migration is a contentious one, with migrants responsible for 43 percent of sexual crimes and 60 percent of robberies and thefts.

Just days ago, two Pakistani men were arrested for allegedly burning alive four Pakistani nationals after the men demanded better wages for agricultural work.

Read more here…

The countries carrying the world’s largest refugee burden are often not the ones most people expect.

Using data from the UNHCR via Our World in Data, this graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, ranks countries by the number of refugees hosted per 1,000 residents in 2024.

The results reveal how proximity to conflict frequently matters more than economic size. Many of the countries at the top of the ranking border active war zones and have absorbed large refugee populations relative to their own populations.

Which Countries Carry the Largest Refugee Burden?

Roughly two-thirds of the world’s refugees remain in neighboring countries, helping explain why several relatively small nations rank ahead of much larger economies.

Rather than being distributed across the world’s wealthiest countries, refugee populations are often concentrated in states that share borders with major conflicts. The ranking below shows which countries carry the largest refugee burden relative to their population.

Why Does Lebanon Rank So High?

Lebanon tops the ranking by a wide margin, hosting 130.7 refugees per 1,000 residents. Put differently, about one out of every eight people living in the country is a refugee, the highest ratio in the world.

Its position reflects the country’s proximity to Syria, which has produced one of the world’s largest refugee crises since civil war broke out in 2011. Over the past decade, millions of Syrians have sought refuge in neighboring countries, with Lebanon absorbing one of the largest shares relative to its population.

The country has also faced mounting economic and political challenges of its own. More recently, fighting between Israel and Hezbollah displaced more than one million people within Lebanon, adding further strain to public services and infrastructure.

Taken together, these pressures help explain why Lebanon remains one of the countries most affected by displacement anywhere in the world.

Geography Matters More Than Wealth

Many of the countries hosting the largest refugee populations are located near active conflicts or regions experiencing prolonged instability.

Jordan and Lebanon border Syria. Moldova shares a border with Ukraine. Chad hosts refugees from neighboring Sudan, while Uganda has long received people fleeing violence in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The pattern helps explain why many smaller countries appear near the top of the ranking despite having far fewer economic resources than larger developed nations.

For refugees, crossing a nearby border is often the fastest and safest option. As a result, neighboring countries frequently absorb the largest influxes long before refugees are resettled elsewhere.

Why the U.S. Ranks 82nd

At first glance, America’s ranking may seem surprisingly low.

The United States hosts hundreds of thousands of refugees and remains the world’s 18th-largest refugee destination in absolute terms.

However, its population of more than 340 million significantly changes the picture.

When refugee numbers are adjusted for population size, the U.S. hosts roughly 1.3 refugees per 1,000 residents, placing it 82nd globally.

The gap highlights why per-capita measures can reveal a different reality than headline totals. While large countries often host more refugees overall, smaller nations can experience a much greater impact relative to their population size.

Refugee Pressures Are Reaching Record Levels

The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide has surpassed 120 million, nearly double the level seen a decade ago. Conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, and other regions continue to drive displacement across borders.

For host countries, the impact extends beyond humanitarian assistance. Large refugee populations can increase demand for housing, healthcare, education, infrastructure, and public services, particularly in smaller countries with limited resources.

The ranking highlights a reality often overlooked in global migration debates: the countries carrying the largest refugee burden are frequently those located closest to conflict, not necessarily those with the largest economies.

To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on the world’s largest migration corridors.

In a verdict that has rocked Norway’s monarchy, Marius Borg Høiby, the 29-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.

The Oslo District Court convicted him on 34 of 40 charges, spanning rape, assault, abuse in close relationships, drug offenses, and restraining order violations. He was acquitted on the other two rape counts. Prosecutors had demanded over seven years; the defense sought 18 months. He must also pay victims around $61,000 in compensation.

Key Facts from the Verdict

• Guilty on two counts of rape
• Sentenced to four years in prison
• Acquitted on two other rape charges
• Convicted on 34 out of 40 total charges
• Ordered to pay approximately $61,000 to victims
• Defense plans to appeal rape and domestic violence convictions

The seven-week trial detailed Høiby’s struggles with drug addiction and a lifestyle of excess. Evidence included self-made videos of sexual encounters and more than 800 electronic messages. In court, he described an “extreme need for recognition” from his unique position in the royal family.

“I’m mostly known as my mother’s son, not anything else. So I’ve had an extreme need for recognition my whole life,” he told the court. “And that manifested itself in a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol.”

The incidents took place between 2018 and 2024 after nights of partying. Prosecutors argued that what began as consensual sex became non-consensual when the women were asleep or incapacitated. Høiby insisted he was “not in the habit of having sex with women who are asleep.”

His lawyers have said he will appeal and have pushed for his release so he can support his ailing mother.

Princess Mette-Marit’s Health and Royal Family Pressure

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, 52, is battling pulmonary fibrosis and is on a lung-transplant waiting list. Doctors have indicated she may have only about a year left without a successful transplant.

The scandal comes amid other challenges for the royals, including criticism over the princess’s past contact with Jeffrey Epstein after his 2008 conviction. Polls showed support for the monarchy falling to a record low of 60% during the trial, with a slight recovery later.

The Royal House has stated it has no comment on the court outcome.

This case underscores the contrast between the public image of the Norwegian royal family and the private difficulties faced by its members.

Authored by ‘eugyppius’ via American Greatmess,

In 2024, the Austrian Identitarian activist Martin Sellner began serious efforts to push his concept of remigration into the political mainstream, and since then the German state and its civil society collaborators have extended him every assistance.

Gregory Bovino, ex-Customs and Border Patrol Chief, appears with (from left) Eva Vlaardingerbroek, Martin Sellner, and Alfonso Gonçalves at the second Remigration Summit in Portugal last week.

Domestic intelligence agents and activist journalists at Correctiv collaborated to convict Sellner and Alternative für Deutschland of planning the mass deportation of naturalized Germans in a late 2023 meeting in Potsdam. They called this small private meeting a “Secret Plan against Germany” and drew not-so-subtle comparisons to the notorious Wannsee Conference. Ensuing anti-AfD protests lasted months, even as litigation succeeded in deconstructing much of the slander Correctiv had propagated. The hysteria cost AfD some support ahead of the European elections, but it also succeeded in making “remigration” a household word throughout the Federal Republic—something that Sellner and his Identitarians could never have achieved on their own. Unbelievably, the Correctiv reporting was turned into a theater piece, and the actual Wannsee Villa where Nazi government officials and SS leaders met to plan the Final Solution in 1942 received a sign advising visitors of Sellner’s Potsdam meeting and “the . . . obvious . . . link between today’s ethno-nationalist fantasies of deportation and the historic Wannsee Conference.”

For their next act, authorities toyed with legally doubtful schemes to ban Sellner from Germany, while police devised pretenses to disrupt the speaking events Sellner had scheduled in the Federal Republic to present his book on Remigration. All this meant more press and more eyeballs for Sellner’s cause. When Sellner co-organized the inaugural “Remigration Summit” last spring in Italy, authorities tried to prevent the attendance of several German Identitarian activists by temporarily banning them from leaving the country, and they did the same again when the second “Remigration Summit” convened in Portugal last week. In each case, their restrictions ensured that small conferences held in other countries and attended by no more than a few hundred people could remain the subject of reporting and controversy here at home.

I don’t know to what degree the German approach to Sellner’s remigration program reflects a calculated strategy, and to what degree it’s just all the pinched head girls in the state bureaucratic apparatus having a collective aneurysm over the latest politically naughty thing to come across their desks. Either way, the unique German system of “defensive democracy” requires an enemy against which to array its defenses, and in the decades since the Berlin Wall fell this enemy has become “the extreme Right”—concentrated like the old Communist foe in the eastern states of the former DDR, embodied by Alternative für Deutschland rather than the SED, and constructed as an equal if not greater threat to Our Democracy. Because, unlike the Communists, this enemy does not really exist, it requires regime propagandists to engage in heavy revisionism—for example, by casting as an NSDAP successor a populist-Right party with politics broadly equivalent to the 1980s-era CDU, and by building up and deploring particular villains like Sellner.

Now, political dissidents and activists of all stripes have a curious relationship with establishment discourse. The one is like oil and the other is like water; they cannot occupy the same space. In the past years, the myth that Diversity Is Our Strength and that mass migration might fix our pension plans, alleviate our cultural ennui, and improve our culinary offerings has collapsed. Anti-migrationism has gone mainstream in many circles, driving right-populists to seize upon remigration as the new cause. I would imagine that a similar process unfolded from the establishment perspective; as major politicians and journalists decided the time had come to put the brakes on the steady stream of younger males streaming into our country from the Global South, they needed to draw a new line in the sand to differentiate themselves from the populist rabble-rousers.

Thus, with the help of literally everybody from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s benighted traffic light government to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution to Alternative für Deutschland to Martin Sellner and his Identitarians, remigration became the new anti-migration. Which is fine, as far as it goes; people should support the causes they want, and nobody would dispute that, particularly in the last ten years, a great many people have forced their way into Europe, where they have proceeded to abuse our social welfare systems, violate the law at disproportionate rates, and substantially degrade the quality of life. If I could push a button and make these people leave, I would.

Unfortunately, this problem does not come packaged with any easy solutions, and I am less and less certain (1) how remigration is supposed to work and (2) whether the newly ascendant and highly dogmatic remigrationists on the Right have any path toward realizing their vision. While remigrationists preach the manifold benefits of putting migrants on airplanes back to the Global South, the migrants’ native countries in many cases refuse to accept them, mass migration continues, if at a somewhat slower pace, the AfD remains firewalled out of German politics, our elaborate NGO machinery continues to push migrationist humanitarianism, a broad elite consensus resists even efforts to deport many of those who are here illegally, and primary EU law confounds remigrationist proposals at numerous points. Remigration would prove a tall order if 85 percent of Germans reversed their stance on the idea tomorrow. Sellner’s full, heavily technocratic vision, meanwhile, would require broad institutional buy-in and support from all major parties, including large parts of the Left, over a period of decades. We are talking about a new social consensus to compel or encourage the mass resettlement of entire populations, as deep and broad as the consensus that until recently existed behind climatism. That probably can’t happen without serious generational turnover or some kind of serious political upheaval.

I do not write this as a condemnatory political ninny or an incurable contrarian. I consider Sellner a friend, and I am even his translator. Yet personal considerations like these aren’t enough to blunt my skepticism.

The most recent initiative in remigration land is something called the Save Europe Act, rolled out by Sellner and Dutch political activist Eva Vlaardingerbroek at the Remigration Summit 2026 in Portugal. Basically, there’s an EU procedural mechanism known as the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), whereby ordinary people can bring a legal proposal for consideration directly before the European Commission. To do this, they need only gather a million signatures in support and meet a few other requirements. Among other things, the Save Europe Act demands “legislative and policy measures” to impose a “moratorium” on non-European migration, to deport “illegally staying migrants, rejected asylum seekers,” and criminals, to “establish a harmonized EU-wide framework for broader remigration” and to “remove social welfare incentives and benefits that function as pull factors for migration.”

All of that sounds great, as does the fact that Sellner and Vlaardingerbroek claim to have gathered well over 200,000 “signatures” so far. Unfortunately, reality tends generally to be less great. To begin with, Sellner and Vlaardingerbroek have yet to register the Save Europe Act with the European Commission at all. The signatures they are collecting—really, just email addresses—are part of an internet publicity campaign and have no wider significance. According to me, chances that the Commission agrees to register the Save Europe Act as a formal ECI are quite low, for the Commission may reject any proposal that “is . . . manifestly contrary to the values of the Union.” If Sellner and Vlaardingerbroek do manage to squeeze their initiative through registration and the Save Europe Act becomes more than a buggy website, then they’ll still need to collect a million signatures—not from random internet people, but from verified citizens of EU member states. And if they meet that hurdle, they’ll compel a response from the Commission and a hearing in the European Parliament. Even in this best-case scenario, there is no chance that the Save Europe Act becomes law, inspires any laws, or changes anything at the EU level at all.

Defenders of the Save Europe Act who have bothered to read the fine print accept that they are not on the path to making Remigration official EU policy. They argue instead that publicity surrounding the Save Europe Act will “move the Overton Window” and normalize remigration as a concept. These arguments neglect the fact that remigration has already been normalized; as I wrote above, since 2024, it has become almost a household word in Germany, if one denoting a very bad and fascistic concept approximately on par with outright genocidal fascism. Otherwise, I have learned to be wary of intangible, immeasurable ends in the world of political activism. Western politics abounds with activists who are changing perceptions, challenging conventions, deconstructing myths, complicating assumptions, correcting prejudices, deepening understandings, and now moving Overton Windows, and the only thing these projects and their goals have in common is that nobody can work out what any of them mean in concrete terms.

Mass migration has been an absolute curse. People want the migrants to stop coming, and they want the ones who are already here to go back home. They feel impotent to change the situation, and it’s natural that they should support social media campaigns promising at the very least to give them a voice. That’s fine, and most of this is probably harmless, but the truth is that we’re not going to petition the migrants away. I’ve read so many appeals to the Overton Window at this point that the concept has become quite threadbare for me, but if anything has shifted mass media discourse these past years, it is not activist campaigns but the manifold and quite serious problems caused by mass migration itself. As in so many other areas—from COVID to climatism—retarded elite policies are failing and unwinding themselves, but we’re not yet winning.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

Iran is poised to gradually return to the US-led Western order within certain limits exactly as Iran’s moderate faction has long wanted, its hardline faction has successfully preserved the armed forces and their missile stockpile, while Israel achieved none of its goals in its most epic defeat ever.

Iran and the US plan to sign a Zarif-inspired memorandum of understanding (MoU) on ending the Third Gulf War this Friday in Switzerland. The exact details aren’t yet known, and Fortune reported that there were at least three competing texts, but all of them “include similar elements around reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway, giving Iran sanctions relief and opening the door to longer-term negotiations around its nuclear program.” That’s already enough to arrive at several very important conclusions.

For starters, reopening the strait without Iran’s wartime petroyuan toll booth in place would represent a significant concession by the Islamic Republic, whose media surrogates celebrated this model as an historic multipolar milestone. The same goes for resuming negotiations on its politically sensitive nuclear program. The sanctions relief in exchange might arguably be worth it, however, judging by this estimate here of the profound economic-financial damage caused by the US’ (imperfect) blockade.

On that topic, it was explained here in late March that “The US will have lost the Third Gulf War if China can still rely on Iran as a reliable low-cost energy supplier while turning the yuan into a global reserve currency that challenges the petrodollar”, so preventing both is imperative from the US’ perspective.

With the petroyuan reportedly out of the picture, that leaves Iran’s oil export dependence on China, but sanctions relief could help gradually redirect its sales (such as to India) without disrupting the market.

Likewise, if reports about a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran are true (even if the final sum is much lower but still tens of billions of dollars), then US and Gulf investments in Iran’s energy industry could lead to them controlling its exports.

It was assessed in January that “The US Wants To Replicate The Venezuelan Model In Iran”, which would be on the path to implementation in that scenario.

The resultant interdependence could advance collective security and facilitate the US’ regional withdrawal.

Iran’s moderate (“reformist”) and hardline (“principalist”) factions would therefore achieve some of their goals, the first with respect to sanctions relief and the second with regards to preserving the country’s (arguably battered) armed forces as well as their missile stockpile, not to mention their political system.

Nevertheless, the factional balance would have shifted in the moderate’s favor since the US wouldn’t sign a MoU if the moderates couldn’t control “rogue” hardliners, who could potentially rekindle the war.

It can therefore be concluded that the moderates beat the hardliners in Iran’s deep state power struggle, but this was due to the US and Israel killing dozens of top hardline figures, after which their respective institutions (especially the IRGC) were weakened and ultimately tamed by the moderates.

To be sure, “rogue” hardliners – regardless of their relationship to the IRGC – could still sabotage the MoU, but Trump 2.0 feels comfortable enough that they won’t otherwise it wouldn’t go through with the signing.

A new regional era is emerging whereby the Third Gulf War might very well lead to Iran’s gradual reincorporation into the US-led Western order, albeit within limits, which lays the groundwork for better ties with its Gulf neighbors.

In that scenario, Israel would stand to lose since it could no longer divide-and-rule Iran and the Gulf, nor would the US have its back if Israel resumes hostilities with Iran due to the recent revival of the possibly irreconcilable Trump-Bibi rift. Israel is therefore the war’s biggest loser.

Authored by John R. Lott jr via RealClearInvestigations,

Alessandra Coote was walking on a trail with her 2-year-old daughter and dog two-and-a-half years ago when a man began yelling at her and threatened to kill her dog. When the petite single mom made it back to her Utah home, she decided she needed a firearm for protection.

A few months later, while living in what she described as a “shady part of town,” a homeless man threatened her. After that encounter, she began regularly carrying a firearm under Utah’s Constitutional Carry law.

Coote, who just graduated this spring from the University of Utah, says carrying the gun has given her the confidence to feel safe in public. “It’s been life-changing,” she told RealClearInvestigations (RCI). Although she has never had to draw or fire the weapon, she has faced a threatening individual when she was armed, but stopped the attack by merely letting the man know she was carrying.

Coote is part of a growing trend of strapped Americans. A new survey of 1,000 general election voters conducted last month by McLaughlin & Associates found that almost 30 percent of respondents said they carry a firearm. More specifically, the survey found that 13.2 percent respondents said they carry a firearm all or most of the time, while an additional 16.6 percent said they carry one sometimes or rarely. These results show a 5.5 percent increase in the number of respondents who said they carry firearms since a similar poll was conducted in December 2024.

Both polls were commissioned by the group I lead, the Crime Prevention Research Center, and have a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.

Since 2021, 13 states, covering 34 percent of the U.S. population, have adopted constitutional carry laws. As a result, 29 states do not require law-abiding citizens to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun. A little less than two-thirds of those who are carrying a concealed handgun in these states have a permit.

The survey is the latest evidence challenging claims linking firearms and violent crime. As data show both the number of firearms and the percentage of people carrying them is increasing, preliminary estimates show the U.S. murder rate is likely to hit a record low in 2025—at least 10 percent below the previous record low.

“It doesn’t surprise me that while the country is experiencing record-low murder and violent crime rates, we are also experiencing a record high number of people legally carrying concealed handguns for self-protection,” Alan Gottlieb, the executive vice president and founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, told RCI.

Bradford County, Fla., Sheriff Gordon Smith said lowering crime rates “isn’t rocket science.” He told RCI, “You reduce crime by putting more cops on the street, increasing arrest and conviction rates, and imposing meaningful prison sentences. But you also cut crime by empowering law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and their families through constitutional carry.”

Gun control groups—Everytown, Brady United, and Giffords Law Center—declined repeated requests to respond to the survey data and crime statistics.

Blacks, Hispanics & Women

The CPRC survey also found that politically engaged citizens are more likely to carry firearms. Respondents who identified as general election voters were twice as likely to have concealed handgun permits as other adults.

Blacks and Hispanics also carry at disproportionately high rates. Black people make up 11.0 percent of likely voters but account for 15.9 percent of those who carry all or most of the time. Hispanics are even higher, accounting for 18.8 percent of frequent carriers despite comprising only 11.0 percent of likely voters. By contrast, whites and Asians carry at rates below their shares of likely voters. Whites constitute 72 percent of likely voters but only 62.6 percent of those who carry all or most of the time, while Asians account for 4.0 percent of likely voters but just 2.0 percent of frequent carriers.

Audrey Bodiford, a 5’2” black woman living in Lansing, Michigan, told RCI she owes her life to her handgun and having a concealed handgun permit. On Valentine’s Day in 2022, she said, the over 6-foot-tall man she had been dating “kind of went crazy,” threatened to kill her, and pulled a knife on her. Fearing for her life, she shot him in self-defense.

Because she lives in what she describes as a “not good” neighborhood, this was not the only time she relied on her firearm for protection. In another incident, she said she accidentally let a door slip from her hand while trying to hold it open for a man leaving a store. The man became verbally abusive, followed her, and aggressively closed in on her. She turned slightly so he could see that she was armed. He immediately backed off, ending the confrontation. Asked if carrying has given her more confidence: “I feel more safe, definitely,” she said.

The survey found relatively small differences between men and women. While women make up 52 percent of general election voters, they comprise 45.1 percent of Americans carrying concealed weapons; men are 48 percent of the electorate and 54.9 percent of those who carry all or most of the time. The breakdown for Constitutional Carry states is relatively higher for women, with 47.5 percent of those carrying all/most of the time being women and 52.5 percent men. Constitutional Carry may benefit women who suddenly face threats from a stalker or former partner and often do not feel they can wait the months it takes for officials to approve a permit application.

Research shows that two groups benefit the most from carrying firearms: physically weaker individuals, such as women and the elderly, and those most likely to become crime victims, such as poor blacks living in high-crime urban areas. These groups have also experienced the largest percentage increases in concealed handgun permits over the last decade (2015–2024). During that period, permits for women increased 112 percent faster than permits for men, while permits for blacks increased 284 percent faster than permits for whites.

“A firearm dramatically increases a woman’s ability to defend herself,” Professor Carl Moody, a crime researcher at the College of William & Mary, told RCI. “Without a firearm, a woman is almost always at a significant disadvantage if attacked by a man. With a firearm, she can avoid an unfair fight with an opponent who usually has a size and strength advantage. Almost always, it is only necessary to announce or display the weapon to dissuade the attacker.”

More Guns, Fewer Violent Crimes

After the Supreme Court struck down a New York state law in 2022 which had sharply limited the number of people who could carry concealed weapons, six states, including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, were forced to make it easier to get a concealed handgun permit by eliminating arbitrary discretion and establishing objective rules on training and other qualifications. “This dangerous decision will make America a less safe country,” Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy warned. Those states did, indeed, see an enormous increase in the number of permits issued. In New Jersey, the number of concealed carry permit holders increased from 1,212 in 2022 to 57,245 in 2025. In Hawaii, the total has now gone from zero to 4,000.

Violent crime, however, has fallen in all six states. The murder rate in New Jersey fell from 3.9 per 100,000 people in 2022 to 2.4 in 2024, and the preliminary numbers show it falling to as low as two per 100,000 in 2025. A press release from New Jersey’s attorney general announced a “Historic Low in Gun Violence for 2025.” Some attribute the drop to the increase in permits. “Today, more than 58,000 law-abiding New Jerseyans can exercise their right to carry a firearm. And while some warned this would turn our streets into the Wild West, the reality has been far different,” Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Greg Myhre claimed.

An easier thing to measure is that permit holders are exceptionally law-abiding. States revoke their licenses for firearm-related violations at rates measured in thousandths or even tens of thousandths of a percentage point. Police officers rarely commit crimes, yet concealed handgun permit holders prove even more law-abiding than cops. Permit holders are convicted for firearms offenses at just one-twelfth the rate at which police are convicted of comparable firearm-related crimes.

“The data clearly show that concealed carry permit holders are among the safest and most responsible users of firearms,” David Mustard, a distinguished professor at the University of Georgia who researches extensively on crime, told RCI. Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith confirmed that this is his experience with Constitutional Carry: “The data is clear: The vast majority of concealed carriers are among our most responsible residents, not the problem.”

Despite the fears raised by gun-control advocates, over 91 percent of street police officers support concealed handgun laws. Law enforcement professionals understand that self-defense is a key element of public safety, in part because they know they usually arrive only after criminals commit crimes. An overwhelming body of academic research finds that allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces crime.

This is especially true for women, who often struggle to defend themselves against much larger and stronger men, who also tend to run faster. While both men and women benefit from carrying a concealed handgun, research shows that each additional woman who carries a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by roughly three to four times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.

“Too often, women who are being stalked or threatened are told to limit their movements, alter their routines, or rely on a piece of paper to stop someone determined to harm them,” Robyn Sandoval, the president of A Girl & A Gun, told RCI. “Women deserve better than living in fear. By learning to responsibly carry a firearm, they can gain the confidence and means to protect themselves and live their lives without fear.”

“Every day, more law-abiding citizens choose to legally carry firearms because they refuse to be victimized by criminals and thugs,” Brevard County, FL, Sheriff Wayne Ivey told RCI. “Responsible gun owners know that even the best police response times takes minutes, while violent criminals can take a life in seconds!”