New Jersey State Police Tight-Lipped Over Retired Police Permits

The number of permits to carry in New Jersey is publicly available. The number of retired police officer permits are excluded, though, and New Jersey is mum on providing those numbers.

In early 2024, then-Attorney General Matthew Platkin unveiled the New Jersey Permit to Carry Dashboard. The dashboard makes data available to the public on permitting statistics. As of Dec. 2025, there’s been over 92,000 approved applications in the Garden State. Of those approvals, just under 64,000 were valid — nonexpired. Previously reported, retired police officers are excluded from the dashboard accounting and the state doesn’t want to give those numbers up.

In the fine print of the Permit to Carry Dashboard it highlights that permits issued to retired police officers — a separate statute regulates those permits — are not accounted for. Trying to get a proper accounting of how many RPOs are issued permits in the Garden State has proved to be difficult.

Utilizing New Jersey’s version of Freedom of Information Act requests — Open Public Records Act requests — queries were directed to New Jersey authorities in Nov. 2025; one to the attorney general and one to the New Jersey State Police.

In Dec. 2025, the records custodian for the Office of the Attorney General denied a request to supply the number of RPO permits granted. The notice from the records custodian observed that the New Jersey State Police is the holder of those 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 said. “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.”

In that same timeframe, the New Jersey State Police sent correspondence stating they’d need more time to fulfill the request for records. The deadline extension seemed like a promising indication that they’d be fulfilling the request.

About a month after the initial request, the New Jersey State Police denied it. What was the reason? “Improper and Overbroad” was the main reason. They further stipulated the request was for “information” rather than a “record.”

“Your request for ‘the number of permits to carry issued in the State of New Jersey to Retired Police Officers’, is denied, as it is asking for information and therefore is improper under OPRA,” the denial letter said. “OPRA is a records law, not an information law.”

Just over six weeks ago it seemed like the public would be able to get a clearer picture of the total number of permits to carry issued in New Jersey — not just to non-law enforcement citizens. However, the New Jersey State Police thinks otherwise about the public’s right to know.

In an attempt to calculate the number of RPO-issued permits to carry in New Jersey, another Open Public Records Act request was made: “Seeking a record of the monies received by the state for Retired Police Officer permits to carry applications for the years 2024 and 2025.”

According to the electronic application landing page for retired police officers, the fee is $125.00. The RPO permits are good for one year. With the amount of money collected for those years, it can be roughly calculated how many permits there were issued respectively.

Since this is a request for a monetary amount received by the state, the state is going to have a hard time saying there’s no record of the exchange. If the New Jersey State Police honors the information request, a more accurate accounting of valid permits can occur.

With the Permit to Carry Dashboard implemented under former Attorney General Matt Platkin wide open and still in existence, the lion’s share of the data on permitting is already publicly available. One source guesses there’s around 3,800 valid RPO permits at any given time, however that claim cannot be confirmed. A response to W246200 should be forthcoming soon, however NJSP requested a deadline extension to Feb. 25, 2026.

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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