It’s a deceptively low number, but any figure above zero is too high. To help reduce the death toll, New Jersey’s Gun Violence Research Center (GVRC) conducts ongoing surveys and research to establish a more accurate profile of Garden State gun owners. Some of their most telling findings were published in the 2022 Report on Firearms in New Jersey.

According to GVRC, one in five New Jersey residents (1.45 million people) live in homes with firearms.  Men are twice as likely than women to have a gun in the house: 27% to 14%. Running the numbers along racial lines, 24% of white respondents said they had a firearm at home, while 11% of Black residents answered in the affirmative. That finding may be skewed, though, since some Black respondents refused to answer the question. Some 13% of Hispanic respondents said they kept a firearm in the home.

Among Democrats, 15% said they kept a gun in the house, compared with 34% of Republicans.

New Jersey’s Gun Violence Research Center is one of the first state–funded research centers in the United States that conducts interdisciplinary research on the causes, consequences and solutions to gun-related violence, while respecting the rights of legal, safe gun ownership and use.