Florida Stopped Doing National Background Checks For Gun Permits For A Year

Lynne Sladky / AP The director of training and security at the National Armory gun store has a hand gun in a holster as he teaches a concealed weapons permit class. Florida failed to do national background checks for people who applied for concealed weapons permits for a full year, meaning hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would have been disqualified may have been approved to carry guns. The reason: the lone employee in charge of running names through the FBI database wasn’t able to log in for over a year, a state report found. During that time, anyone with a criminal record or who had been banned from possessing a firearm because of a mental health issue could have slipped through the system. The lapse, which was detailed in a Florida Office of Inspector General report from June 2017, was first reported Friday by the Tampa Bay Times after obtaining the report through a public records request. The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which issues concealed weapons permits, stopped running the names of applicants through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System in Feb. 26, 2016, yet continued to approve hundreds of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits, according to the report. Criminal background checks were done on all applications, officials told BuzzFeed News, but the national database would have assured the applicant had no criminal record or other disqualifying red flags in other states. The lone employee responsible for running the names […]

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