the best states for the gun industry

• Every state in the US differs in its attitude towards guns.
• Career website Zippia ranked each state by how good it is for the firearms industry.
• Southern states rank much higher than northeastern states, with Alabama taking the top spot and Rhode Island at 50th.

The United States is generally considered the most gun-friendly country in the world — by a wide margin. Americans they own almost half of all civilian-owned guns in the world, and counting more guns than people.

But in the US, each state differs in its approach to the gun industry.

Zippia career site ranked every US state depending on how good it is for the arms industry. The site found that based on a few key metrics, including the number of jobs available in the gun industry and legal regulations in the industry, not every state is as welcoming to firearms as America's reputation suggests.

Zippia looked at four metrics for its ranking:

• The number of gun industry jobs available in each state, according to the National Shooting Institute and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
• Statewide regulations on the gun industry, including legal regulations on the industry and the percentage of the federal excise tax each state receives on firearms sales
• State-by-state gun culture, including statistics on gun ownership per capita and percentage of homes with guns
• General labor statistics, including average worker wages and whether states are right-to-work

Many of the friendliest states to the gun industry, in terms of regulations and employment environment, are in the South, Zippia found, with Alabama topping the list and Arkansas and Georgia rounding out the top three. Florida and Louisiana also made appearances in the top 10.

Meanwhile, many of the worst states for the gun industry were in the Northeast, including at number 50, Rhode Island and New Jersey and Vermont, which finished 49th and 48th, respectively. New York, Maine and Massachusetts also landed in the bottom 10.

Here are the full ratings, from most to least industry-friendly:

1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Agriculture
4. Idaho
5. Arizona
6. Florida
7. Indiana
8. Alaska
9. Missouri
10. Louisiana
11. Colorado
12. Kansas
13. Kentucky
14. California
15. Montana
16. Texas
17. Nevada
18. New Mexico
19. Oklahoma
20. Mississippi
21. Virginia
22. Minnesota
23. New Hampshire
24. Michigan
25. North Carolina
26. Jute
27. Ohio
28. Pennsylvania
29. Connecticut
30. Illinois
31. South Carolina
32. Tennessee
33. Maryland
34. Wyoming
35. Hawaii
36. Iowa
37. West Virginia
38. Oregon
39. South Dakota
40. Delaware
41. Massachusetts
42. Nebraska
43. Maine
44. North Dakota
45. Wisconsin
46. New York
47. Washington
48. Vermont
49. New Jersey
50. Rhodes island