Disclaimer: The laws, regulations, and case citations contained within this blog do not constitute legal advice. Laws change frequently. Consult a lawyer if you have legal questions. If you choose to act upon the details cited here without doing your own research, you do so at your own risk.
Because most survivalists are gun owners, gun control laws should be considered a key factor when deciding where you plan to relocate. Do some research. Ideally, you are looking for a state that allows vehicular and “on the hip” open carry, with non-discretionary concealed carry permits, and with non-regulated private party firearms transactions. (No “paper trail.”) In a subsequent blog post I will include some data on various state gun laws that was kindly provided to me by the gent who writes under the pen name Boston T. Party. See my review of his excellent book “Boston’s Gun Bible” at my Bookshelf page.
The worst states to for a gun owner to live in are of course the “Locked up and Unloaded” States such as Neu Jersey and Kalifornia. According to the NRA-ILA, under California law, to legally have an unloaded handgun in your car outside of a locked container you must be going to or from a shooting range, to or from a gun show, or on a hunting trip. Otherwise, they must be both unloaded and locked in a case or in the vehicle’s locked trunk. (See California Penal Code sec. 12025 and 12026 for details.) I suppose that means that if you want to carry an unloaded handgun in your car and don’t want to have to spend extra time both having to take the time to get it out of a locked case AND then loading it, you should always carry a pair of earmuffs, some shooting glasses, and some targets in your car… “But officer, I was planning to go to the range after work!”
Some states require no permit for concealed carry. Currently, just Alaska, Vermont and New Hampshire are in this category. (The New Hampshire law is pending, as of this writing.) A few other relatively gun-friendly states such as Idaho allow open carry virtually anywhere and concealed carry without a permit only outside of incorporated areas.
For updates on gun laws in various states, see the Gun Owners of America (GOA) and the The National Rifle Association (NRA) web sites.