Researchers analyzed temperature and gun violence data in 100 cities and pinned nearly 7% of shootings nationally to abnormally warmer weather. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Gun violence researchers have long suspected a link between shootings and hot weather, theorizing that tempers flare as temperatures rise, especially as more people are out and about, increasing opportunities for conflict.
Now, researchers have quantified it, attributing 221 shootings in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Trenton between 2015 and 2020 to hotter-than-normal temperatures.
Unusually warm weather was a driver in 11% of Jersey City’s 426 shootings; 10% of Newark’s 896 shootings; 9% of Paterson’s 502 shootings; and 8% of Trenton’s 527 shootings, according to a New York Amsterdam News analysis of data provided by Boston University and the University of Washington.
Researchers analyzed temperature and gun violence data in the U.S.’s 100 most gun-ravaged cities and pinned nearly 7% of shootings nationally during that six-year period — a total of almost 8,000 shootings — to abnormally warmer weather.
“It’s a single-digit number, but it’s really quite large when you think about what a complex problem gun violence is and how many different factors contribute to gun violence patterns,” said lead researcher Jonathan Jay, a community health professor at Boston University.
The study comes as high temperatures continue to break records. New Jersey is one of America’s fastest warming states , according to Climate Central. Last year was the hottest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And Earth’s hottest day on record happened just last month, according to NASA.
“This is a growing concern because climate change is contributing both to higher temperatures in general and to larger temperature fluctuations and unseasonable weather patterns,” Jay said.
The study was conducted by Boston University’s Research on Innovations for Safety and Equity Lab and the University of Washington’s Firearm Injury and Policy Program.
Its findings also come as New Jersey’s leaders struggle to retain the state’s famously tough gun restrictions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which upended gun laws nationally by declaring a constitutional right to guns. Gun permit requests in New Jersey have soared since, as gun rights advocates have fought New Jersey’s firearm restrictions in court and often won.
The trend should prod policymakers to protect residents from rising gun violence by cooling communities through strategies like replacing abandoned places with green spaces, improving energy infrastructure, and focusing on urban heat islands, Jay said.
“The neighborhoods that have been most harmed by redlining and other racialized disinvestment is where we need to focus our efforts around gun violence, because the residents of those neighborhoods — who are disproportionately Black and brown — bear the overwhelming burden of community gun violence and a disproportionate burden of climate change,” Jay said.
The state recently released an extreme heat resilience action plan that sets priorities for state agencies to integrate climate resilience into policies and programs, including things like expanding cooling centers, studying air-conditioning access, and increasing the tree canopy in urban areas.
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