NEWARK, NEW JERSEY — We joke about New Jersey’s absolutely abysmal and unconstitutional concealed carry permitting process all the time. Occasionally, brave New Jersey residents even risk their own well-being to get confirmation straight from the horse’s mouth that it’s as bad as we all think it is. But nothing is more sobering that to see the actual statistics for the number of permits issued in a year by the State of New Jersey to its residents.
According to the New Jersey State Police,
“In 2014, 266 permits were issued by New Jersey State Police and 230 permits were issued by municipalities in 2014, thus totaling 496 permits total.”
That statistic, as revealed by the New Jersey State Police, was in response to a Open Public Records Act request submitted by Citizens For A Safer NJ. According to recent U.S. Census information, New Jersey has approximately 8.9 million citizens. Rough estimates based upon that tell a harrowing story of only 5.5 out of every 100,000 New Jersey residents are being issued a permit to carry a pistol. That’s just plain horrible.
Here’s the weird part (and we’re not going to try to rationalize this into a causal relationship) — New Jersey’s violent crime index is reportedly down from 2013 to 2014. Across the board, New Jersey has followed in the wake of national crime statistics showing violent crime is uniformly trending downwards.
The only possible recourse that can be imagined is because New Jersey has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, the punishment for being caught with a gun has to be disproportionately more draconian than in the rest of the country. We’ve covered countless stories of out-of-state residents being busted in New Jersey simply transporting their handguns used for personal protection. It’s a HUGE problem.
Thankfully, there are organizations within New Jersey fighting for expansion of the 2nd Amendment. Will these organizations like CFASNJ and others be able to bring enough light to this issue so that New Jersey residents finally have the ability to protect themselves? Only time will tell. In the meantime, for those holding their breath for a permit to carry in New Jersey, they may be holding their breath just a little bit longer.
