Mississippi permits open carry of a pistol or revolver without a permit. The Section 97-37-1 criminal baseline reaches only concealed carry; Section...
Reviewed by Will Luker, Founder of CCW Hub. USCCA Training Counselor, USCCA Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, Law Enforcement.
Mississippi permits open carry of a pistol or revolver without a permit. The Section 97-37-1 criminal baseline reaches only concealed carry; Section 97-37-1(4) tells courts that a pistol carried in a sheath, belt holster, shoulder holster, scabbard, or case that is wholly or partially visible is NOT "concealed" at all. Miss. Const. art. III, Section 12 protects the right to keep and bear arms in defense of person and property.
There is no statutory minimum age for open carry under Section 97-37-1 alone, though the federal Youth Handgun Safety Act under 18 U.S.C. Section 922(x) restricts handgun possession by persons under 18 with narrow exceptions for hunting, training, employment, and ranch work.
Three statutes:
Section 97-37-1(4):
"For the purposes of this section, 'concealed' means hidden or obscured from common observation and shall not include any weapon listed in subsection (1) of this section, including, but not limited to, a loaded or unloaded pistol carried upon the person in a sheath, belt holster or shoulder holster that is wholly or partially visible, or carried upon the person in a scabbard or case for carrying the weapon that is wholly or partially visible."
That language extends Mississippi open carry to:
It does NOT reach:
Open carry is broadly permitted in public places in Mississippi. The same Section 45-9-101(13) place restrictions that apply to LTC concealed carry also apply, by independent statutory authority, to open carry where the underlying place rule is not LTC-specific. The cleanest statement:
The Section 97-37-1 baseline lists "any rifle with a barrel of less than sixteen (16) inches in length, or any shotgun with a barrel of less than eighteen (18) inches in length, machine gun or any fully automatic firearm or deadly weapon" among the items it bars from concealed carry. Standard-length rifles and shotguns are not on the list. Open carry of standard-length rifles and shotguns is therefore not reached by Section 97-37-1 at all. NFA-regulated short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and machine guns are reached by the statute (concealed) and by federal law (registration and tax). See NFA_ITEMS.
Open carry does not authorize threatening conduct. Section 97-37-19 and other Mississippi statutes (assault statutes, disorderly conduct, etc.) reach pointing a firearm or threatening with one. Section 97-3-15 (justifiable homicide) and the broader self-defense framework set the standard for when display or use of a firearm is justified. A holstered pistol carried openly is not, by itself, a threat. Drawing the pistol or pointing it at another person crosses into Mississippi's assault or display-related criminal law.
Open carry of a handgun in the federal 1,000-foot buffer around a school is barred by 18 U.S.C. Section 922(q)(2)(A) unless the carrier holds a license issued by the state in which the school is located. The Section 922(q)(2)(B)(ii) exception turns on the existence of a state-issued license; it is satisfied by a Mississippi Section 45-9-101 LTC. Open carry under Miss. Const. art. III, Section 12 alone does NOT satisfy the federal exception. A Mississippi resident who plans to walk through or near a school zone with an openly carried handgun should hold an LTC.
Mississippi law does not impose a duty on a carrier to inform a law-enforcement officer that the carrier is armed. See DUTY_TO_INFORM. An openly carried handgun is visible by definition, however, and officers commonly ask. Ordinary stop-and-identify rules apply.
Open carry is legal in Mississippi, but most carriers concealed-carry under either constitutional carry (Section 45-9-101(24)) or an LTC (Section 45-9-101). The legal infrastructure for open carry rests on the absence of a statute prohibiting it, plus the Section 97-37-1(4) "concealed" definition, plus Miss. Const. art. III, Section 12. The constitutional clause is the durable backstop; if the Legislature ever amended Section 97-37-1(4), the constitutional analysis would still protect open carry. The state Attorney General has historically taken the position that open carry is protected, and the Mississippi Supreme Court has not held otherwise.
For long-gun open carry in public, the legal answer is the same, but the practical answer is that visible long guns draw heavier law-enforcement attention. There is no Mississippi statute that bars the conduct, but local ordinances cannot do so either under the preemption framework in Sections 45-9-51 through 45-9-57 (see PREEMPTION).
This page covers one part of our Mississippi concealed carry guide.
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