By The Herald Editorial Board
We wouldn’t send a law enforcement officer on a call without her or his service weapon, a patrol vehicle, handcuffs or any other tools on which police depend to do their jobs safely and effectively.
Yet we’re sending them out with a gap of more than two years in the information that is supposed to record who has bought or accepted the transfer of a handgun.
The Herald’s Jerry Cornfield reported Sunday that the state Department of Licensing is losing ground on a backlog of more than 327,000 pistol transfers, records of the make, model, serial number and caliber of each weapon and the purchaser on sales that date back to 2014. Forms are coming in quicker than department employees can enter the data.
Since before 2013, the Department of Licensing has not been able to keep up with the increase in firearm sales. The backlog was 106,000 in 2013 and is expected to grow to 385,000 by June. Because most sales are recorded on paper forms, data entry is time-consuming.
The fix is simple: Hire more people to enter data.
The state agency has requested $382,000 in the state’s next two-year budget to contract with a private data-entry firm to eliminate the backlog by the end of 2017. Gov. Jay Inslee has included that sum in his budget request to the Legislature.
The database is a tool frequently used by all levels of law enforcement. Along with the data on handgun sales and transfers, the database also includes information on those who have obtained or renewed a concealed weapons permit or those who because of court order or because they have been deemed mentally unfit are not allowed to legally possess a firearm.
The backlog means that information on purchases made since 2014 is not reflected in the database and officers may not have a complete picture of the weapons a subject may possess.
Mitch Barker, executive director for the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs called the database essential to law enforcement and a tremendous tool for investigating the history and ownership of a handgun. Because of the records gap, officers might recover a handgun that’s been stolen but be unable to identify its owner if the purchase happened in the last two years.
This isn’t the only backlog hampering law enforcement.
Washington State Patrol’s Crime Lab is now working through a cache of untested rape kits, the DNA samples that can lead to arrests and convictions. About $3.5 million in state money and federal grants has allowed for the hiring of more forensic scientists at the lab, which is now working through a backlog of some 6,000 kits.
State Patrol Chief John Batiste in a Dec. 1 report to lawmakers recommended hiring three more forensic scientists and contracting with a private lab to make a bigger dent in uncompleted work, The Seattle Times reported last week.
The backlog at the Department of Licensing requires fighting a battle on two fronts, budgetary and political.
WASPC’s Barker noted that some lawmakers, backed by gun rights groups, would rather see the database go away. It’s important to note that the database used only by law enforcement is not a registry of firearms ownership, a point made by state Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a recent white paper on access to firearms in the state.
Beyond its value as an investigative tool, the handgun database is invaluable in protecting the safety of officers, a need that is painfully clear following the Dec. 15 shooting of Mount Vernon Police Officer Mike “Mick” McClaughry and the Nov. 30 fatal shooting of Tacoma Officer Reginald “Jake” Gutierrez.
The Legislature must find the political will and the budgetary capital to see that both backlogs are finally eliminated.
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