A record number of firearm permit applications were processed in Hawaii last year, the state Attorney General’s Office reported in its annual firearm registration report.

Just over 26,100 applications were processed in 2020, which is about 62% more than the 16,100 or so applications in 2019.

The permits issued cover about 54,000 firearms that were registered in 2020. About 24,100 of those firearms were rifles, 5,700 were shotguns and 23,700 were handguns.

About 39,500 firearms were registered in 2019.

Those numbers should have been even higher, according to Hawaii Firearms Coalition Director Andrew Roberts, who said there have been delays at the police departments around the state to get firearms registered.

“I would say as many as 20,000 guns are out there right now that aren’t registered because they get an appointment (with the police departments),” he said.

Roberts said the change in presidents during last year’s election, along with the COVID-19 outbreak and civil unrest in the U.S. — ignited by police brutality against the Black community that sparked worldwide protests — motivated people to acquire firearms.

“We’ve had kind of a trifecta of anti-gun and pro-gun stuff come together,” he said. “We’ve gone from Donald Trump, who was relatively pro-Second Amendment, to Joe Biden, who has always been sort of anti- gun. … On top of that, we’ve also had the civil unrest on the mainland. … And on top of that, we’ve also had the pandemic. And again it comes down to being able to defend your home if civil unrest or shortages happen.”

Nearly 96% of the total firearm applications were approved in 2020, and almost 3% were denied. The remaining applications were approved but voided after the applicants failed to pick up their permits.

Of the 741 denied applications, most — 274 — were for issues related to mental health. Criminal offenses accounted for 207 of the denials, and 187 denials were for medical cannabis patients, who can apply for firearms a year after their medical cannabis card expires.

Domestic violence accounted for 49 of the denials in the Attorney General Office’s report and is a concern for the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

“We are definitely concerned when there are more firearms because, whether they are registered or not, in domestic violence cases the presence of firearms is a higher indicator of lethality, and we’re talking the lethality, obviously, of the victim,” said Angelina Mercado, executive director of the coalition.

The Washington Post reported after the recent mass shootings at an Atlanta-area spa and a grocery store in Boulder, Colo., that, despite a downturn in mass shootings last year, gun violence in 2020 was the highest it’s been in decades.

Mercado, like Roberts, also wants to see a more streamlined registration process. There are more “legal mechanisms” for law enforcement entities in crimes involving firearms, she said.