New Jersey Permit Data Reveals Just How Bad Things Were Under ‘May Issue’ Laws

The number of New Jersey residents with an active concealed carry license has skyrocketed in recent years, and despite the predictions from gun control activists the state hasn’t seen any similar spike in its crime rate. There are a little more than 88,000 active carry permits in the Garden State at the moment, compared to just 667 permits issued statewide in the three years before the state’s discretionary “may issue” scheme was struck down. 

While that’s an enormous increase, New Jersey still has a way to go before it catches up with nearby states. The 88,205 permits issued between July 2022 and December 2025 still make up less than 1% of the state’s population; far behind states like Pennsylvania and even Delaware, where 13% and 3% of the population, respectively, hold active carry licenses. 

The Asbury Park Press has done a decent job of diving into the statistics, including a comparison for every licensing jurisdiction showing the number of permits issued in the three years before Bruen and the years after. 

I spent a couple of years of my childhood in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and I was curious to see what the numbers look like there. In the three years before Bruen, not a single permit was issued in the town of 26,000. Since Bruen, though, 110 residents have obtained their carry permit. 

I also took a look at the numbers in Paramus, where my late father lived for many years. Pre-Bruen, just one permit was issued. Since then, though 260 residents have received their carry permit. That’s still just 1% of the town’s population, but it’s still a big leap from just a few years ago. 

I was surprised to see that Camden, New Jersey only has 278 active carry permits as of December, 2025. That’s also a substantial increase from the 5 permits that were issued in the three years before Bruen, but given the still-high rate of violent crime in what was once the murder capital of the United States, it’s much lower than whatI expected. Nearby Cherry Hill, a much more affluent part of Camden County with roughly the same population as the city of Camden, has nearly three times as many active carry permits. That may be an indication that the price tag for a New Jersey permit, which includes a $200 application fee in most jurisdictions, is too much of a burden for low-income residents of the Garden State. 

There is a move afoot to get jurisdictions to refund $150 of that $200 fee back to applicants, and as Bearing Arms contributor John Petrolino reported last December, Toms River is the 13th municipality to take that step. As it turns out, Toms River is also home to the most active carry permits in the state with 1,622 permits as of December, 2025. That’s a hair more than the 1,600 in Newark, though Toms River’s has about 200,000 fewer residents. 

The high cost of a carry permit is likely one reason why New Jersey’s numbers aren’t even higher. Another is the fact that New Jersey Democrats have tried to make it impossible to carry almost anywhere in the state; a move praised by the anti-gunners at Everytown. 

“New Jersey’s response to Bruen has been a successful and decisive countermeasure,” said Sam Levy, policy advocacy director for Everytown for Gun Safety, a leading gun control advocacy nonprofit. “Through decisive legislative action to strengthen concealed carry requirements and establish policies around sensitive places where guns may not be carried, New Jersey has blunted the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“New Jersey is proof that even in the face of federal shifts and efforts to undermine commonsense gun safety laws, state-level policies can serve as a powerful firewall to keep communities safe.”

Everytown is trying to portray itself as a “gun safety” organization, to the point that its even offering what it calls gun “training” sessions online, but they’re just as hostile to the right to keep and bear arms as Handgun Control, Inc. was back in the 1970s. When New Jersey limited concealed carry to retired cops, judges, politicians, and a select few citizens who could carry almost anywhere in the state, Everytown had no complaints. But as soon as the average resident became eligible, Everytown and other groups pushed to make permits more expensive, more time-consuming to obtain, and worthless in more than two dozen categories of “sensitive places.” 

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals is likely going to undo some of those “gun-free zones” in the near future, and if that comes to pass I expect we’ll see another surge in permit applications, despite the best efforts of Everytown and other anti-gun groups to nullify the existence of our fundamental Second Amendment rights.

Editor’s Note: The radical left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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