RIO DE JANEIRO - The number of new guns legally sold in Brazil sextupled in the last eight years, growing from 5,161 in 2004 to record 31,500 in 2012, local daily O'Globo reported Sunday.

Figures from the Brazilian Federal Police showed a total of 183,722 new guns were registered in the country between 2002 and 2012, which equals two every hour, O'Globo reported.

Among those sold in 2012, 60 percent of the weapons were purchased by policemen.

The newspaper said the actual firearm sales could be much bigger as the disclosed figure does not include the trade of used firearms, the smuggled weapons or the ones illegally sold.

O'Globo attributes the increase in firearm sales to the lack of public campaigns on gun control and the growing public concerns about violence in some Brazilian cities.

According to a study published this year by the Brazilian Center of Latin American Studies and by the Latin American Social Sciences Institute, the number of gun-related deaths in Brazil grew 346.5 percent in the last three decades, up from 8,710 to 38,892 in 2010.