Hawaii firearm permit applications jump, imports hit record high in 2025

Hawaiʻi’s firearm pipeline widened in 2025, but the flow of guns into homes did not keep pace. County police departments processed 19,364 personal and private applications to acquire firearms statewide, up 14.7% from 16,879 in 2024, while total registrations edged down 0.5% to 44,401.

That mismatch sits at the center of a new report from Attorney General Anne E. Lopez’s office. Of the applications processed last year, 95.3% were approved, 3.9% were voided for technical reasons and 0.8% were denied, tying the record-low denial rate set in 2014. The same report says 18,451 permits were issued statewide in 2025, and more than half of the firearms registered during the year, 25,065, were imported from out of state, a record-high 56.5% share.

For Hawaiʻi Island, the numbers matter because the Big Island has not always tracked with the rest of the state. In 2023, Hawaiʻi County denied 332 of just over 4,800 permit applications, a 6.9% denial rate, far above Honolulu County’s rate and well above the low single-digit figures seen in Maui and Kauaʻi counties. Hawaiʻi Police Department Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz said at the time he was surprised by those numbers.

The 2025 statewide data raise a fresh question for the Big Island: whether Hawaiʻi County is keeping pace with the statewide trend or diverging from it as permit applications climb, registrations stay flat and imported firearms hit new highs. The state report is built from monthly data submitted by county police departments under state law, which makes local processing practices part of the story, not just the backdrop.

The broader trend is unmistakable. Handguns reached a record-high 53.3% of all firearms registered in 2025, while rifles fell to a record-low 37.6% and shotguns accounted for 9.1%. Since systematic tracking began in 2000, statewide permit applications have risen 198.4%, registrations 226.1% and imports 246.8%. From 2000 through 2024, Hawaiʻi recorded 902,643 firearms registered and 470,250 imported, and late-1990s estimates from the Attorney General and Honolulu Police Department placed privately owned firearms in the state at somewhere over one million.

Lawmakers added firearms-related reporting and permit revisions in 2023 and 2024 as Hawaiʻi continues to balance some of the nation’s strictest gun rules with legal pressure after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling. The state’s latest numbers suggest the pressure is now visible not just in courtrooms and statutes, but in permit counters and registration logs across the islands.