Unresolved Login Issue Prevented Florida 'Concealed Weapon' Background Checks For Over a Year (tampabay.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Tampa Bay Times For more than a year, the state of Florida failed to conduct national background checks on tens of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits, potentially allowing drug addicts or people with a mental illness to carry firearms in public... The employee in charge of the background checks could not log into the system, the investigator learned. The problem went unresolved until discovered by another worker in March 2017 -- meaning that for more than a year applications got approved without the required background check.

During that time, which coincided with the June 12, 2016 shooting at Pulse nightclub that left 50 dead, the state saw an unprecedented spike in applications for concealed weapons permits. There were 134,000 requests for permits in the fiscal year ending in June 2015. The next 12 months broke a record, 245,000 applications, which was topped again in 2017 when the department received 275,000 applications... There are now 1.8 million concealed weapon permit holders in Florida.
The employee with the login issue, who has since been fired, "told the Times she had been working in the mailroom when she was given oversight of the database in 2013. 'I didn't understand why I was put in charge of it.'"

Comments

Re:None of that matters

[Zocalo]

She was 'given oversight of the database' of the DB in 2013. Failed to run the checks, starting in 2015. Not a very good liar.

You missed a rather relevant bit from the middle of TFS:

On April 7, 2016, 40 days after records show the department stopped using the database, Wilde reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that her log-in to the background check system wasn't working.

So it looks like the checks were progressing just fine until late February 2016, which implies that Wilde's login was presumably working from 2013 through until some point around then, depending on how long the system could run without Wilde logging in. Sure, Wilde dropped the ball by failing to follow up when it wasn't resolved but, regardless of that failure, her supervisors (and their supervisors, etc., etc.) also failed to query a massive spike in concealled carry permits on the books - up over 40% in just two years. Setting aside the issue of gun control, it takes a whole other level of managerial incompetence to fail to react to a stat like that.