Northampton County set records in 2012 for most license-to-carry applicants in a day, month and year. Lehigh County was 25 percent above its previous high point by August.
Lehigh and Northampton counties reported a record number of applications for licenses to carry concealed firearms.
Northampton County Sheriff Randy Miller said his office received 4,627 license-to-carry applications last year, shattering 2011's total by 70 percent.
The demand required him to bring on extra help to handle the volume of people walking through the doors, and it has become a challenge for his deputies to finish the background checks within the 45-day period mandated by law, he said.
The surge meant the county broke its records for the most license applications in a day, month and year, he said.
"Every five minutes we were moving an application forward," Miller said, calculating the workload on the department's busiest day.
Both Miller and Lehigh County Sheriff Ronald Rossi said in September they had already seen record highs in applications for licenses to carry a concealed weapon. While Rossi couldn't provide the county's total 2012 figures Friday because the deputy handling it was unavailable, he said in August the numbers were already up 25 percent from 2011.Miller and Rossi attributed the spike in part to the number of high-profile mass shootings reported in the media last year, including massacres at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The two sheriffs also speculated that President Barack Obama's call for sweeping gun control initiatives has created a rush of people looking to legally acquire guns in the face of future uncertainties.
"You have this whole gun rights issue," Miller said.
Rossi said, "I think it's a lot of people overreacting to what's going on. People keep coming in for these permits."
Efforts failed Friday to obtain figures on concealed-carry permit applications in New Jersey, where state police spokesman Sgt. Adam Grossman said state law prohibits the release of such information.
But federal statistics show a spike in background checks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on people looking to both buy firearms and obtain concealed-carry permits.
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, recorded 968,534 applications for purchases and permits in 2012 in Pennsylvania, up 35 percent from 718,934 in 2011. In New Jersey, such applications rose 42 percent to 85,851 in 2012 from 60,256 in 2011.
Though he could not provide a final total, he estimated January 2013 broke the previous record by about 100 applications. That came despite a four-day period where the county could not accept any applications due to a glitch in the Pennsylvania's computer system for license-to-carry applications.
Miller also noted Northampton County set a record for the number of rejected applicants. In Pennsylvania, sheriffs must approve the license except for certain circumstances such as mental health, age, criminal history and character. Miller downplayed the mark, however, saying the 2012 rejection rate of 9.2 percent was lower than 2011's 10 percent.
Staff members Precious Petty and Kurt Bresswein contributed to this report.