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STAR-ADVERTISER
Gun owners lined up to register weapons at the Honolulu Police Department in December
A record 60,757 firearms were registered last year, a 20.6 percent increase over the previous year, the Attorney General’s Office reported on Thursday.
The Attorney General’s Office and the Honolulu Police Department estimate that there are about 1 million privately owned firearms in the islands.
The previous record was in 2012 when 50,394 firearms were registered.
A little more than half of the firearms registered in 2013 — about 30,802 — were imported, while the remainder, or 29,955, were transfers of firearms that were previously registered in Hawaii.
The Attorney General’s Office said there is no way to determine the number of firearms that leave Hawaii.
A record 22,765 personal and private firearm permit applications were processed last year, a 4.6 percent increase over the 21,864 applications processed in 2012. Of the applications processed in 2013, 94.6 percent were approved; 4.3 percent were approved but subsequently voided after the applicants failed to return for their permits within the specified time period; and 1 percent were denied due to one or more disqualifying factors.
Seven private citizens applied for a license to carry a concealed firearm in public in Honolulu. All seven requests were denied by Honolulu Police Chief Louis M. Kealoha. On Kauai, Chief Darryl Perry approved its sole applicant.
