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

What was the death toll?

[Kohath]

All those concealed carry permits without background checks? It's an authoritarian's worst nightmare!

How many murders and shootings were committed by those unvetted CCW holders? I will guess zero.

None of that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Employee is given a task, then doesn't do it, because cannot.
Boss doesn't find out for over a year that employee didn't do the assigned work.

My first thought is that it isn't really fair to fire the employee for that, but that really depends on whether she made clear to her boss she couldn't do the job. And why not give her the old job back, was she no good at that? If not, why give her oversight of this database? Do explain that one, please.

But the boss not finding out about it for over a year? Or the boss' boss? And so on? That's inexcusable. They're supposed to know that sort of thing, that's their job. So if any heads are to roll, I expect at least several levels of middle management to start sprouting vacancies. If not, the firing of managers shall continue until the idiocy stops.

Right up to the governor if necessary. Go on, have a full-blown election with only new candidates over the firing of an ex-mailroom clerk. Or what is this democracy thing for, anyway?

Re:None of that matters

[irving47]

They probably "HAD" to fire her when it became clear it was going to become public knowledge... Yeah, something doesn't sound right.

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.

Re:None of that matters

[Zocalo]

No, I'd have likely fired Wilde too, but certainly a minimum of a disciplinary for sitting on the broken login for so long without following up and getting her supervisor(s) involved to escalate it, and quite likely her supervisors would be investigated for potential incompetence as well. The problem is that the story doesn't really detail what her role and interaction with the system was, what kind of proportion of her working day it was meant to occupy, or how much supervision this part of her job was subject to, all of which are quite relevant if you are trying to work out what might be an appropriate response from your armchair. That her employer did fire her is really all we have.

Clearly the sheer number of applications wouldn't allow manual processing of the forms by a single person, even if it was just to review each application was correctly completed and send it on, so her role seems most likely to have been either managing the batch processing of submitted forms or supervising a team's work. For instance, iIf that was only a small part of her job then that doesn't necessarily mean she was just "acting busy", and if her involvement with the system was periodic - say every several weeks - then the apparent 40 day delay in calling support could actually be a non-issue. Regardless of any possible mitigating circumstances that clearly were not sufficient to get her off the hook, it seems pretty clear that the entire department is suffering from the symptoms of "good enough for government work", and the buck for that kind of issue stops in the Governor's office.

Re:Another loop hole

[BronsCon]

I keep hearing about this supposed loophole, but all I see every time I go to a gun show is licensed dealers performing background checks as required by law and the odd exempt private party transfer (except in states where private parties are required to transfer through a dealer, in which case the background checks still happen) -- and private party transfers can occur anywhere, not just at gun shows. In fact, most gun shows don't allow private sales at all, so they're actually less likely to occur at gun shows than they are in a private residence.

The real loophole is what I like to call the "dark alley loophole", wherein stolen and/or smuggled guns are sold out of some guy's trunk in a dark alley. Not legal in the slightest, but it's where the guns used in the vast majority of crimes come from.

Nobody is using a weapon with their name on it to commit a crime, and nobody is willingly transferring a weapon with their name on it to someone else who may use it to commit a crime without ensuring that the transfer has been recorded. Too much liability.

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

[GWXerog]

Non-licensed gun dealers at gun shows would be illegal. Being a non-licensed gun dealer anywhere is illegal. Are you referring to private sales?

Re:Good question

[Anonymous Coward]

The pattern for everything I've looked at so far:

Guns and Ammo summary: X!!!!

nap.edu report (title: Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence): There are studies that say X, there are some that say not X, sometimes studies of X do not take into account Y. Further research is needed.

To pit it mildly, it looks like Guns and Ammo is omitting a lot of the context from the NAP report. It's almost like they have an agenda or something.

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

[cold fjord]

If you've ever been to a gun show, you've seen them. As a lifelong gun owner,, I've actually purchased guns from these characters.

So you're the one you've been warning us about for years? Huh

And you didn't turn in either the ones you thought were illegally dealing guns, or yourself? Huh.

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?"

It seems we've found something that you and the NRA agree on.

Re:Good question

[tlhIngan]

And yet the CDC did exactly that research. https://www.nap.edu/read/18319...

Guess what? Guns help prevent crime more than they cause it. And we're not talking about indirect deterrence here where knowing a populace is armed keeps potential criminals scared. We're only talking about direct defensive uses of firearms.

If you can't be arsed to read the whole thing, Guns and Ammo summarized it here http://www.gunsandammo.com/pol...

Funny, because for over 20 years, the CDC was prohibited from studying gun violence. Yes, the NRA has bought legislation that prevents any money the CDC gets from going into gun violence research.

So obviously the CDC did not conduct the research, because they're not allowed to. They're allowed to contract it out for no money, which basically means really self-interested researchers (i.e., industry) gets to write an opinion piece about it.

Your article is dated to 2013, and the CDC has not conducted any gun violence research since 1996 (Dickey Amendment).

And all my article states is the AMA is lobbying for its appeal since 2016, because one really cannot make any sort of judgements without proper research. Of course, the NRA opposes this, almost as if they're worried about the real truth, that it might be the next cigarettes, or leaded gasoline, or climate change, or something. Or it might be because their whole set of mottoes end up being lies...