New Jersey -- a competitive shooting paradise

When gunnies in middle America think of New Jersey, they think it must be the worst possible place to be a gun owner. And for the most part, they're right. Instead of just strolling into a gun store, seeing a handgun you like, and walking out with it twenty minutes later, you fill out some paperwork, take it to the local police department, wait anywhere from six weeks to forever, and then go buy the gun you want. But as far as competitive shooting goes, New Jersey is about as good as it gets.

For Bullseye, there are essentially two matches per month all year round (outdoors April through September and indoors October through March.) In addition to that, there are a number of leagues shooting during the week. In addition to the one I shoot at my club on Wednesday nights, there's another indoor league on Monday night and an outdoor one on Thursday nights. If I could manage to make all of these, that would mean competing 14 times a month, effectively every other day.

But that's just Bullseye. There's a high-power match once a month from March through November, a Garand match every other month from April through October, and high-power silhouette matches every month April through October.

And all of this is just the stuff that I'm currently interested in. Looking at different club calendars, I see cowboy action stuff, practical shooting matches (both USPSA and IDPA), smallbore matches, smallbore silhouette, cowboy lever action silhouette, cowboy rimfire silhouette, etc.

So why does New Jersey have such a strong competitive shooting environment? There are probably a few reasons. The first is population density. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country. Even if per capita gun ownership is lower than the national average, there are still a lot of gun owners in a fairly small area. Some small percentage of gun owners are going to be interested in competing, so the higher the number of gun owners, the more likely you'll have a critical mass of competitors. (I found this graph, based on this data, which shows that gun ownership in New Jersey runs about 12.3%. With a population of some 8.7, that makes about 1 million gun owners. Compare this to Wyoming: they have 59.3% gun ownership, but with about 545,000 residents, that makes for only 325,000 gun owners.) And given the size of New Jersey, the bulk of those gun owners are probably an hour's drive or less from some competition opportunity.

Aside from the density, though, there's the fact that gun owners are a minority in New Jersey, and an embattled minority at that. There's something about being in that position that tends to make people far more involved than they otherwise might be. People in New Jersey are fighting to maintain a culture in which guns are just a normal part of life. They're looking for any way to foster that culture, and competition offers that. Not only are you out shooting, but you get to socialize with other gun owners.

So, inasmuch as it really sucks being a gun owner in New Jersey, there's at least something to offset the suckiness.