Posted on: Tuesday, May 17, 2005

State sees rise in gun-permit applications

Advertiser Staff

The number of applications for new firearms permits increased slightly last year over 2003, the state attorney general's office said yesterday.

The state's four county police departments processed 6,842 private firearm permit applications in 2004, up 0.7 percent from the previous year.

The Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division report released yesterday showed that from 2000 to 2004, the number of new applications processed increased by about 5.4 percent.

During that same five-year period, the number of guns registered annually rose from 13,617 to 14,611, an increase of about 7.7 percent. The number peaked in 2002, when 15,822 guns were registered in Hawai'i.

Of the firearms newly registered in 2004, about 60.4 percent were rifles and shotguns, also known as longarms, while the rest were handguns. About 51.8 percent were imported from out-of-state while the rest were defined as in-state transfers, or firearms that were already in Hawai'i.

The study gave an "informal estimate" of about 1 million privately owned firearms in the state, although it acknowledges that law-enforcement officials have a difficult time putting a handle on that number because there is no way to track guns that leave the state or are destroyed.

About 95 percent of applications processed in 2004 were approved. Of the rest, 3.5 percent were approved but subsequently voided after applicants failed to return to obtain their permits within specified time limits and 1.5 percent were rejected because of various disqualifying factors. Although Hawai'i's background check process is more extensive than other states, the rejection rate is below the national average of about 1.9 percent.