It sure is different from one state to another. I lived in Boston for a while, and unless you were a cop, or an officer in the Military you could not get a permit to carry a swiss army knife, let alone a gun. Period. You need a permit to possess a gun in your home, and a separate to carry in Mass. Yup, permission to exercise your 2nd amend. rights. But in Boston proper, no way no how. Can't get a permit to even own one through any means. Period.

Then I moved to Montana, where a sheriff told me there definition of concealed was under a shirt or coat, i.e. concealed by clothing. You could have any size gun anywhere in you car, in or out of view. You could have it in a purse. Nothing but under clothing was considered "concealed". You could carry it on your person in plain site, which a lot of people did. They didn't even care about knives. There were 100,000 in Missoula, Mt, and the paper reported anually on the number of carry concealed (under clothes) permits issued. It's averaged around %45 percent of adults in town had a permit. Guess how much violent crime happened in Missoula? I lived there 6 years and never heard of anyone getting shot, or little to nothing about violent crimes.

How much violent crime do you think happened in Boston? Put it this way. I wouldn't walk down the street in broad daylight, let alone at night without my Glock 23, mace, and a boot dagger.