1 In 5 New Jerseyans Have Gun In Home — More Than Experts Thought: Report

NEW JERSEY — About 20 percent of New Jersey residents live in a home with a gun, according to a new Rutgers University study. While New Jerseyans own firearms at a lower rate than most of the nation, the figures exceeded previous estimates.

The Rutgers New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center surveyed 1,018 adult New Jersey residents in July about whether there's a firearm in their home, how owners store their guns and whether a medical professional has ever asked them about firearm access.

According to the survey, 19.9 percent of respondents say they live in a home with a firearm. On the statewide level, that would mean 1.45 million adults in New Jersey live in home where guns are typically kept.

The figure more than doubles the Rand Corporation's estimate that 8 percent of New Jerseyans lived in a household with a firearm between 2007 and 2016, while much of the nation falls between 30 and 40 percent. But gun sales surged throughout the nation during the pandemic.

"Notably, 20 percent is higher than most estimates for New Jersey and might be reflective of the fact there has been a tremendous surge in firearm sales nationwide since 2020, including in New Jersey," said Michael D. Anestis, executive director of the Gun Violence Research Center.

Here were some of the report's findings:

• Men (26.5 percent) were nearly twice as likely as women (14.3 percent) to live in a home with firearms.
• White people (24 percent) were more likely to live in a household with a gun than non-white respondents. Only 11.3 percent of Black adults said there's a firearm in their home.
• Political ideology showed another disparity, with 33 percent of Republican-leaning individuals saying they live in a home with a firearm, while 22.7 percent of independents and 15.4 percent of Democratic-leaning respondents said the same. (The survey gave respondents those three options for ideological identification.)
• Living with a firearm at home was most common in exurban settings (24.8 percent) and least common in the suburbs (14.2 percent).

New Jerseyans also tend to secure their firearms more securely than many other gun-owning populations, according to the Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers. But Anestis found one finding "particularly troubling:" only 9.2 percent of respondents said a medical professional has asked them about firearm access. Health care providers can serve as a resource for information on safe firearm storage, according to the report.

"This might be because health care providers do not feel knowledgeable enough about firearms to have these conversations," Anestis said, "that they are concerned they might alienate their patients, that they do not have time to add another assessment to their already busy schedules or that they have not been trained to understand the rationale for asking these questions. Regardless, the need to make progress on this front is clear."