Did guns doom Hillary in Michigan?

And in 2013, the last year of available records according the the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the state sold nearly 800,000 hunting licenses. That means about 10 percent of the population of Michigan over the age of 15 are hunters. It’s not the highest rate in the country, but its well above Ohio, Florida, or even Iowa.

Researchers who look into the issue of concealed carry rights find that as of 2014, nearly half a million Michiganders hold permits to wear a gun. Rough back-of-the-napkin math shows that’s about 5 percent of the adult population of the state over the age of 21, the minimum age for permits.

In fact, there’s solid momentum in the state behind a bill introduced this year that would remove the need to even apply for a concealed carry permit. If it passes, Michigan would join Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Maine and — wait for it — Vermont as states that do not require a concealed carry permit for its citizens.

And if you look at the exit polls for the March 8 Democratic primary, while Clinton had the urban voters locked up, Sanders crushed Clinton in rural areas and in the southeast, southwest and the hunter-heavy north-central and Upper Peninsula of the state, where he beat the former New York senator by 20 points.