New Jersey is about to reclaim the mantle of the state least interested in buying guns.

An analysis of federal data shows that, through November, New Jerseyans went through fewer firearms-permit background checks per capita this year than any state in the country.

With some of the strictest gun possession laws in the nation, New Jersey is likely to return to the No. 1 spot for fewest background checks per 1,000 households. That's a distinction the Garden State held every year from 2000 through 2015.

Background checks are the best gauge of gun-buying interest in the United States, as records showing actual purchases are not public information.

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New Jersey's numbers don't mean that residents have only a passing interest in owning guns. The analysis of data maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found that law enforcement agencies are on pace to run about 93,000 background checks in New Jersey in 2018, based on the first 11 months of the year.

That's more than double the number from 10 years ago, roughly following national trends, the analysis found. And it's slightly more than the total number of applications in South Dakota, which has about one-tenth as many households as New Jersey.

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But New Jersey's 2018 pace translates into just 29 checks per 1,000 households, or about one-seventh of the rate nationwide. Next on the list this year, with an expected rate of 31 per 1,000 households, is Hawaii, which supplanted New Jersey in 2016 as most ambivalent about guns. New York is third in 2018, with 48 per thousand.

Those numbers pale in comparison with some Midwestern and Western states where, with an exception, owning a gun is much easier.

Despite its relatively strict laws, Illinois leads the nation in per capita checks in 2018, on course to run 574 per 1,000 households. Its rate has doubled since 2015 amid rising violent crime in Chicago, the state's largest city.

Other states on pace to have rates of at least 275 per 1,000 all have some of the most lenient requirements in the country. They include: Indiana, West Virginia, Idaho, Alaska, Utah and Minnesota.

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