If you ask your average New Yorker about so-called gun violence, they’re probably going to tell you is a major problem. That runs from the guy on the streets to the governor.

After all, it wasn’t that long ago when Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency regarding the massive surge in violent crime, particularly those using a firearm.

However, are at least some of those fears misplaced? Well, they might just be.

New Yorkers are more worried about their safety from violent crime than residents of any other state in the U-S. The new survey from SafeWise comes out just as Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order declaring a state of emergency for gun violence. The group’s safety reporter Rebecca Edwards compiles an annual report to see how worried Americans are about gun violence and property crime, compared to F-B-I crime statistics.

“We’ve seen a huge disconnect between what we think is what is happening in the world, what we think is out there threatening us, how prevalent that threat is, and the reality of it. The good news is we’re usually a lot more concerned than we need to be.”

The survey reveals just how on-edge New Yorkers are about violence in the state, where the fear of encountering gun or other violent crime is dramatically higher than reality.

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She says crime data show New York is safer than many other states, and has low rates of violent and property crime, per capita. The survey findings were also surprising because of the state’s low gun ownership, and gun control laws. Edwards notes this has not eased people’s fears regarding crime and their protection.

Of course, actual crime has never been a requirement to push for gun control. Let’s remember that for years, as violent crime rates continued to plummet as they had for decades before, gun control advocates in New York and beyond pushed for their preferred policies as a way to deal with supposedly out of control crime.

What they hoped to do was create a perception of a violent crime epidemic.

In fact, while this report is about New York, these facts likely hold true across the nation. See, this violence surge we’re in? It’s a homicide surge. Other violent crime rates are holding fairly steady, suggesting that there’s something different at play that people just going buck wild and shoot everything up.

Meanwhile, we keep hearing how bad it is out there.

At some point, we need more reports that take an honest look at violent crime rates overall and they need to be published beyond the confines of Bearing Arms where the people who really need the information can see it. Of course, if that happened, people might not push for gun control as much, and that would be a problem for a biased media that desperately wants to see you disarmed.

This is especially true in New York where, despite already strict gun laws, some think more needs to be delivered. Those folks are likely not interested in setting the record straight.

If they won’t do it, then maybe we should.