State Laws Restricting Concealed Handguns in Sensitive Places: 2024 Landscape

Firearm-related injuries and deaths remain a major public health challenge in the U.S., with over 46,000 fatalities reported in 2023. State laws restricting firearms in specific locations-often loosely referred to as sensitive places or gun-free zones-seek to reduce firearm-related harm in high-risk or protected settings. The authors are unaware of any current comprehensive, state-level accounting of these place-based restrictions, which contributes to an underappreciation of the many variations in this policy area that could have implications for compliance and public safety. The aim of this work is to develop what the authors believe to be the first comprehensive data set of state-level legislated concealed handgun place-based restrictions in the U.S.

This cross-sectional study, conducted using legal epidemiology methods, identified relevant statutes enacted at the state level as of May 31, 2024, using LexisNexis; publicly available resources, including the Giffords Law Center website; and outreach to state legislative research libraries. Each statute was reviewed and coded in Qualtrics for variables, including the type of restricted location (e.g., schools, transportation terminals), statutory exemptions (e.g., law enforcement, permit holders), and types of firearms restricted. Descriptive statistics were calculated in R to examine patterns across states.

Across 48 states and the District of Columbia, 450 unique concealed handgun place-based restrictions were identified. Among states with at least 1 restriction, the number of location types per state ranged from 1 to 34, with a median of 7 locations and 2 statutes per state. Schools-including daycare centers, elementary and secondary schools, postsecondary institutions, and school buses-were the most frequently restricted locations (24%), followed by courthouses, jails and prisons, and transportation terminals (each 6%).

Restricting firearms in sensitive locations is a common legislative approach across the U.S., yet these laws remain poorly understood. Locations, scope, and exemptions vary across state policies. This data set provides a standardized comparison of location-based firearm restrictions that can be used in future epidemiologic and policy analyses to operationalize exposure to place-based firearm laws and compare variations across states.