Are We Closer to Getting a True Accounting of New Jersey Carry Permits?

New Jersey has a Permit to Carry Dashboard that publishes statistics on permits. Those numbers exclude retired police officers, though, which makes it hard to get a complete picture.

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office maintains the dashboard, which purport to show the number of approved, denied, and withdrawn permit to carry applications are listed on that dashboard. Those numbers, however, don’t represent a true account of all the permits to carry in the Garden State. Excluded from those numbers are permits that have been issued to retired police officers under N.J. 2C:39-6 — a strange exemption to their accounting practices.

As previously reported, the numbers on the dashboard can be misleading. Casual viewers will see the number of “approved applications” listed, however that’s not the number of current valid permits to carry. What the dashboard does not do is subtract out the number of permits that have expired in the days since the data was being tracked. A quick glance might make it seem like New Jersey has 80k+ permits in circulation, but those numbers are in the 60k+ range.

Once the Garden State started issuing permits to carry to regular citizens, any number of permits issued was sizable. While looking at the 20k+ delta between non-expired permits to carry and total number of permit applications approved, New Jersey is still in great shape. Interest is growing with more citizens applying for permits.

Last formal accounting used October’s data. News2A reported that there were 62,149 valid permits. The number is in contrast to the 88,656 number of approved applications. After analyzing that data, 26,507 permits have expired since the state has been tracking permit to carry information.

In an effort to get an even clearer picture of the number of card-carrying permit to carry holders, a pair of Open Public Records Act requests were filed early December. Those requests asked how many permits have been issued under N.J. 2C:39-6 to retired police officers. One request went to the Office of the Attorney General; the other to the New Jersey State Police.

On Dec. 9, 2025 the request to the attorney general was denied due to a lack of records.

“Please be advised that responsive records would be within the possession of the Division of State Police (DSP), a separate division from the OAG,” the OAG Custodian of Records’ notice stated. “The OAG is advised that you have submitted to DSP an identical request (W244732) for these records. DSP will process and respond to that request separately. With regard to your request #W244730 to the OAG, as OAG does not have the records you seek, your request is hereby closed.”

The Open Public Records Unit for the New Jersey State Police responded to request W244732 via email later that same day.

“The Division of State Police is in receipt of your OPRA request,” the email stated. “Your request is being processed, and we would like to extend your due date to January 6, 2026. If our response is completed prior to this extension date, it will be provided to you as soon as possible.”

The State of New Jersey often extends their deadlines on responding to these Open Public Records Act requests. As noted just last week and earlier this year, there have been OPRA requests that the New Jersey AG’s office pushed out for over six months, only to return nothingburger replies.

It may not seem it, but this points to ground being gained. The New Jersey State Police has historically shot down every OPRA request filed by Bearing Arms almost immediately upon the one-week deadline expiration. The email is promising, as the request has yet to be denied, and they’ve extended the deadline.

The number of permits to carry in New Jersey is being closely monitored. An accurate accounting of how many valid permits in the hands of private citizens will continue to be pursued. This is a developing story and updates will be provided as they arise.