How We Verify Carry Reciprocity
Official sources only
Every recognition fact comes from the destination state's own publications: Attorney General reciprocity pages, State Police or Department of Public Safety lists, and state statutes. The dataset currently cites 203 distinct official pages, each listed on the sources page and on the pages it supports. We read aggregator sites the way you might read a rumor — sometimes a prompt to check something, never a source. Several widely repeated reciprocity claims on aggregator sites are simply wrong, which is why none are cited here.
Dated rows, honest nulls
Every state's row carries a last-verified date, shown on every page built from it. When an official source does not answer a question — say, whether a permitless-carry statute covers non-residents — we store the gap and the page says so plainly. A null with a link to the official page beats a plausible guess, because a plausible guess about carry law can put a reader in a cell.
One dataset, every surface
The map, the trip checker, and all 5,100 pair pages render from the same validated dataset through the same rule engine. There is no page whose facts can drift from the map, and the build fails outright if any state's row is missing, unsourced, or undated.
Quarterly re-verification
Carry law moved fast in the last five years: permitless-carry waves, post-Bruenissuance changes, and reciprocity lists that get edited without announcement. We re-verify the full matrix at least quarterly, and sooner when a state changes its law. Dataset last verified 2026-08-08.
What we do not do
We do not give legal advice, we do not summarize local ordinances below the state level, and we do not track pending legislation as if it were law. Before you travel, check the destination state's official page — it is linked at the bottom of every page here.