PSP spokesperson, Intendant Hugo Palma told Lusa News Agency that the vast majority of the weapons were for the purposes of hunting with the bulk of the new licences also for the same purpose.
Furthermore, of the 4,792 new licences issued for bearing weapons in 2015, only 515 went to new weapons carriers with the rest either renewals or resulting from the acquisition of one of the 45,530 firearms sold last year.
Also, there were a total of 52,583 authorisations issued for the export of weapons over the course of 2015 while import authorisations totalled 4,481.
The aforementioned department holds responsibility for licensing and controlling all weapons, ammunitions and explosives in Portugal apart from those belonging to either the armed forces or the security services.