Adam Putnam sheds light on report of missed background checks

After a newspaper report published Friday revealed that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for more than a yearlong period stopped using a federal background check database in its concealed carry permits approval process, Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam released a statement explaining his department took key steps to correct the issue once it was discovered, and that only a few hundred approved permits doled out during the gap would’ve actually required the use of the federal database.

The report, published by the Tampa Bay Times, details an Office of Inspector General investigation into the Department of Agriculture that found the Department did not use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, for a period lasting February 2016 through March 2017. The NICS database is used to make sure concealed carry permit applicants do not have a disqualifying history in other states.

Aaron Keller, a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture, told the Times that the database is used to check for non-criminal disqualifications. He also said that during the gap period the Department continued use of two other background check tools: the Florida Crime Information Center database and the National Crime Information Center database.

The Times reports, “From July 2016 through June 2017, which covers most of the period when the system wasn’t accessed, 268,000 applications were approved and 6,470 were denied for reasons like an incomplete application or the state discovered they were ineligible, according to the state Agriculture Department’s annual concealed weapons permit report.”

But in a prepared statement, Commissioner Putnam said that only 365 applications during the gap would’ve required use of the NICS. And when the Office of Inspector General provided the results of its investigation to the Department, his office immediately backtracked and reviewed the 365 applications.

“Upon discovery of this former employee’s negligence in not conducting the further review required on 365 applications, we immediately completed full background checks on those 365 applications, which resulted in 291 revocations,” Putnam said. 

He emphasized Keller’s initial statement as well.

“To be clear, a criminal background investigation was completed on every single application,” Putnam said. 

The Office of Inspector General concluded that one employee, Lisa Wilde, was negligent. The Times reports that Wilde could not log in to the federal check system and ultimately stopped using it. Keller told the Times that Wilde was fired immediately after the Inspector General’s Office concluded she had been negligent.

Added Putnam on Friday: “The former employee was both deceitful and negligent, and we immediately launched an investigation and implemented safeguards to ensure this never happens again.”

As for the National Rifle Association, a longtime Putnam supporter and advocate for gun safety, Florida NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer decried the lack of proper vetting.

“I’m almost speechless. Anyone would assume that checks and balances were in place so that something like this couldn’t happen,” Hammer told POLITICO Florida. “I imagine Commissioner Putnam is furious, I would be. Although the agency’s comments indicate they reacted quickly to correct this disastrous failing, it certainly leaves us with a bad feeling.”

With more than 1.8 million concealed weapons permit holders in Florida, nearly 268,000 applications were approved and 6,470 were rejected during the last fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2017. That was the period when background checks were not conducted.

According to POLITICO, this was the second time background checks were at issue in issuing permits. for a time, one in five mental health records were entered late into the background check database, a longrunning problem that could have resulted in people with known mental illness able to purchase a gun.

As the Florida Department of Law Enforcement explained: “The risk of late reporting of mental health records is that an individual who is prohibited from purchasing or possession [of] a firearm may be approved at the time of the background check if the disqualifying mental health record is not available.”