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

Another loop hole

[rsilvergun]

in addition to the Gun Show one. Most places have it on the books that if the background check takes more than X days you have to issue the permit. In theory it's supposed to stop Big Government from using Bureaucracy® to keep guns out of the hands of citizens. In practice it's just a big 'ole loop hole to let anyone have a gun or a concealed carry permit.

It's a ploy

[DewDude]

Have a system of checks in place. Do something to the system to make them not work by breaking them or hiring an employee who is not qualified. Use as an example as to why background checks don't work and why we need to get rid of them.

This is basically how the GOP operates. Like all the laws they used to block municipal broadband...they cite an example of my town's briefly-municipal system as a "failure that cost the taxpayers millions."

Except the system was highly flawed, violated FCC rules, the DOJ had to tell the FCC to enforce it's own rules on the subject, the incumbent privatized ISP responded by actually expanding it's coverage, people jumped ship to a better system, city took over the system only to shut it down cleanly. It was broadband over power line...it was a doomed system...but to the average profit-loving Republican...it's example number one of why "we need to let the private industry run broadband".

This whole thing is a joke. The gun lobby didn't want the system to work.

Re:Now can we audit the states use of the database

[PopeRatzo]

The background checks for those are done by dealers, who are auditable and who face very strong penalties for not doing it right.

Except for the non-licensed dealers at gun shows who don't have to do any background checks at all.

Re:Now can we audit the states use of the database

[PopeRatzo]

So your years of complaints and invective on the matter boil down to, "Our system is soooo f-----d! Why the hell isn't anyone arresting me for what I did?"

No sir. My argument boils down to, "I should be allowed to own guns because I'm willing to register them, demonstrate my ability to operate and maintain them and insure them against misuse. And you should not be allowed to own guns because you're a jackoff."

I hope that clears things up.