By Dave Workman
For the fourth straight month, the number of active concealed pistol licenses in Washington State has declined, with the drop in November being the most significant, to 706,046, the lowest the number has been in several months.
The last month with lower CPL numbers was April, when the statewide total was 705,691.
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October 2025 ended with 711,564 active CPLs and September finished with 713,073 licenses in circulation. August appears to have been the peak month, when there were 713,294 active CPLs on the 31st, according to the state Department of Licensing.
It is not clear what is responsible for the loss of more than 5,500 active CPLs in a single month. This may reflect the number of people who simply failed to renew their licenses, perhaps erroneously thinking the new training requirement had kicked in. But that doesn’t happen until May 1, 2027, by which time many in Washington’s firearms community expect legal action will either have been filed to challenge the statute, or will be pending.
The Evergreen State has always been fairly well armed. The state constitution, Article I, Section 24, declares, “The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain or employ an armed body of men.”
There is no mention of a training requirement, nor does the Constitution stipulate anything regarding obtaining a permit to purchase a firearm, another tenet of the law taking effect in 18 months. Washington’s is considered one of the strongest state constitutional right-to-bear-arms provisions in the country. Only Arizona’s constitution has identical language.
This is not the first time the numbers have slumped late in the year. The same pattern was evident in 2024 and 2023, and by spring the following year, the numbers rebounded. Presently, about one in nine or ten qualified adults in Washington is licensed to carry.
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