Nicholas Pugliese | NorthJersey

New Jersey's gun laws make it one of the hardest states in which to buy a weapon. So where do most of the guns used in crimes here come from?

States like Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.

Seventy-five percent of traceable guns recovered by authorities in New Jersey are purchased in states with weaker gun laws, according to an analysis by The Record and NorthJersey.com of federal firearms trace data and a gun-law score card published by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The firearms trace data were compiled by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, between 2012 and 2016. The figures include guns used in crimes and weapons found by authorities but not tied to specific crimes.

The analysis bolsters a claim by Gov. Phil Murphy in recent weeks that “our guns laws are only as good as those in the states around us."

Signaling a new tactic in his effort to tighten standards, Murphy said earlier this month that he would begin “naming and shaming” other states by releasing data on where guns used in New Jersey crimes originate.

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The existing federal data preview what the state data will likely show and whom Murphy may be trying to shame, even if he won't say explicitly.

Weaker guns laws: States with weaker gun control laws are the biggest sources for guns in New Jersey

NJ gun laws: A look at the push for stronger gun laws raises questions of effectiveness

Pennsylvania, which requires background checks for private sales of handguns but not rifles and other long guns, has been the No. 1 source of out-of-state guns recovered in New Jersey each year for the past decade, according to the ATF data.

In 2016, for example, the most recent year for which data are available, the ATF successfully traced 2,477 guns that were either used in crimes or “found” in New Jersey. Of those, 412 came from Pennsylvania, while only 50 guns flowed in the opposite direction.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Between 2012 and 2016, meanwhile, 40 percent of guns recovered in New Jersey came from states with laxer gun laws along the Interstate 95 corridor south of New Jersey — a popular route for gun trafficking that has come to be known as the Iron Pipeline.

Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida do not require background checks for private gun sales, while North Carolina requires a license to buy handguns but not long guns.

In comparison, relatively few recovered guns, or less than 3 percent, originated in New York, which shares New Jersey’s strict approach to gun regulation. Both states require background checks for all gun purchases and ban many so-called assault weapons, among other restrictions.

Of all the firearms recovered in New Jersey during that five-year period, about 21 percent were first purchased in the Garden State, a higher share than came from any other single state.

But that number is well below the national average for recoveries of guns purchased in-state of 71 percent. In fact, New Jersey has the lowest in-state recovery rate in the nation. New York is next at 30 percent.

Those figures also give credence to another of Murphy’s claims: that more than four of every five “crime guns” recovered in New Jersey come from outside its borders.

“Gun laws work,” said David Chipman, a retired ATF agent who is now a senior policy advisor at Giffords, a gun safety advocacy group. “They are just compromised when states that are adjacent or at the other end of this pipeline don’t have similar laws.”

Crime data as propaganda?

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Gun-rights advocates rally across U.S.

Starting next month, the state will release periodic reports on gun crimes in New Jersey, including information on where they occur, the number of victims, the offenses charged, the type of guns used and where they were purchased.

Murphy ordered the data shared in an executive order he signed April 6.

“It’s a call to action,” said Attorney General Gurbir Grewal, appearing with Murphy at the signing event, describing the motivation for releasing the information. “It’s a call to provoke change in those states where the gun laws are not as strict as they are here.”

Thomas P. Costello

The executive order came as Democratic lawmakers are trying to move a package of six gun control bills through the Legislature, a push given renewed urgency in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, this year that left 17 people dead.

But the announcement has also added to the perception among New Jersey gun rights activists of being under siege. Scott Bach, executive director of the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs and a member of the National Rifle Association, accused Murphy of “propagandizing” gun crime data.

“The reporting would be entirely one-sided, meaning it’s only reporting negative issues involving firearms,” he said. “There are way more times every year that a firearm in a defensive setting saves a life.”

It also raises questions about whether New Jersey and other “anti-gun states” are trying to circumvent federal restrictions on the release of gun trace data, Bach said. First attached as riders to federal appropriations bills in 2003, the so-called Tiahrt amendments — named for Todd Tiahrt, a former Republican congressman from Kansas — limit the ATF’s ability to share gun tracing information with the public.

In any case, Bach said, Murphy’s attempt to influence gun laws in other states is “a tacit admission that we don’t really need any more gun laws in New Jersey.”

Limits to ‘naming and shaming’

Democrats in the Legislature apparently disagree, and some of them have even gotten onboard with Murphy’s tactics.

One day before Murphy’s gun crime data announcement, Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, introduced a bill, S-2402, that would bar most state-sponsored travel to any state that doesn’t require a permit to purchase firearms.

Only about a dozen states and the District of Columbia have such laws. Neighbors Pennsylvania and Delaware do not.

All the while, Murphy has been building a regional gun coalition designed to limit the flow of illegal firearms across state lines, cut down on gun crimes and study gun violence.

Launched together with the governors of New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island in February, the States for Gun Safety coalition now also includes Delaware, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico.

But there is apparently a limit to how much naming and shaming Murphy is willing to do.

“There’s at least one state we approached on States for Gun Safety who said no,” Murphy said at the executive order signing event. “My gut tells me if they’re on this list [of gun crimes] as a high source state, that’s going to be a tough conversation between the chief executives.”

Asked last week which state that was, Murphy spokesman Dan Bryan declined to answer.