How Many Licensed Gun Owners Are in Beverly?

In light of the reinvigorated debate on gun control and substantive proposals at both the federal and state levels from President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick, you may be curious how many licensed gun owners there actually are in Beverly.

According to some basic state data, between 2008 and 2012, the number of Beverly residents licensed to carry large capacity weapons, i.e. semiautomatic guns was 1,141.

Beverly's firearms licensing administrator Lt. Bill Terry provided data to Beverly Patch that showed that in 2012, the city received 445 firearms license requests, compared to 250 in 2011.

Terry said not to jump to conclusions about residents rushing to get licenses.

Because there was a change in the law that caused the city to get 'slammed' with license renewals in 2012, Terry estimated the city had about three years worth of renewals in one year.

Typically, Terry said the city rejects about ten license requests a year.  

It is lawful in Massachusetts to obtain a license (Class 3) for a fully automatic weapon, but a person has to either be a state certified firearms instructor or a bona fide gun collector to qualify. And in the former case, the license has to be solely for the purpose of instructing police officers.

The following statistics are from 2008-2012:

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For the sake of comparison, here are the numbers in a few other communities nearby: