Now...One More Thing To Worry About!

by Delegate Mike McDermott

Today, the Maryland State Police announced a new policy which is currently allowing non-certified personnel from a several statewide organizations to have complete access to the MSP Form 77’s filed by individuals seeking to purchase a Regulated Firearm. The decision to allow non-vetted, non police personnel to access these forms is unprecedented and is part of a plan to help the MSP get caught up with the tremendous backlog they currently face with applications.
The Form 77 contains an incredible amount of identity information including: name, birthdate, address, Social Security number, Drivers License number, and information relevant to the firearm being purchased. With so many issues surrounding identity theft and compromised personal information, citizens filling out these forms do so with the idea that the only people visiting and accessing the information are law enforcement personnel. Law enforcement personnel must have background checks completed, polygraph exams, drug testing, psychological evaluations, etc. before they are considered for employment. This type of extensive vetting insures, to the best of the governments ability, that the individual is trustworthy and can be trusted with various types of sensitive information and access to confidential information. Vetting of this nature is important.
Cutting corners by allowing non law enforcement personnel to provide clerical support to an overwhelmed MSP may appear to be a good idea, but the risk cannot be overlooked. Many folks are expressing various degrees of outrage that this is taking place. They already feel threatened with the loss of liberty by the current implementation of SB-281, now they feel violated by a process that they have submitted to as law abiding folks.
To be sure, the criminals are not submitting their information for review. Their identities will remain secure.
This wave of applications should have been seen as it was approaching more than a year ago. The increase in firearms purchases was a sign of things to come and should have clued in the governor and MSP to prepare to hire and expand the Firearm’s Section. Having failed to take this type of action doomed the state to find itself in the current predicament. Any business in the private sector that failed in such a way would already have gone out of business.
Perhaps, if this use of personnel from various state agencies was seen as a possible means of getting caught up, those assigned should have been vetted and had background checks performed on them many months ago. At least this would have provided some degree of reassurance to the folks who are submitting these applications. As it sits, citizens can only wonder if this action will come back to haunt them and their families in the future.
Since it appears these outside agency personnel are being utilized in an overtime capacity, would it not have been prudent to simply utilize overtime to have other MSP personnel do the same duty? Or perhaps the other state law enforcement agencies (and there are many) could have been tasked as well over the past several months to insure that only vetted, certified staff would be accessing these records. Had these options been utilized over the past 6 months, we would have avoided this massive use of non law enforcement staff in the “ ninth” hour.
I have contacted the MSP Legislative Liaison and shared my concerns and those of the thousands of firearms applicants across Maryland who, once again, feel betrayed by their state. The reasoning behind their decision is included in their press release from today.

I join with the vast number of those who have contacted my office on this matter and express my great concern over these actions. A failure to plan on the part of those who should have known better is not a good reason to compromise our standards and process.
I will be contacting Colonel Marcus Brown and Governor Martin O’Malley to give voice to these concerns and I urge all firearms owners in Maryland to contact their offices as well and voice your concerns over this practice.