Affirmative Action at work.
Posted on 07/08/2008 11:04:39 AM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON - As the District prepares to begin accepting applications for handgun permits, police are having a tough time finding tens of thousands of handguns already registered in the city.
"Honestly, there are thousands of handguns that were registered in the city and I don't know whether those handguns are still in the city," says D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier.
About 41,000 handguns are already registered in D.C., and more than 36,000 of those guns are owned by residents who registered prior to the 1976 ban.
On WTOP's Ask the Chief program, Lanier says police don't know where the 36,000 registered handguns are because the department has not done an audit.
"A lot of these were registered pre-gun ban law, pre-1976, and even though those who registered back then were required to let us know if they moved or no longer have possesion of the handgun, whether they did or not we don't know. We believe that a lot of people did not."
Lanier says the main reason police have not done an audit is a lack of technology.
"Automation will make that a lot easier. It's all paper documents. We're working right now to automate all the information we have. It's hard to audit paper records."
D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large), who chairs the committee that oversees the police, is concerned about how this will impact the department's ability to implement the new handgun regulations.
"It is unfortunate that this problem of how we have handled registration in the past is going to complicate the effort to start up new registrations. Clearly the government is going to have to get ahead of the game if we're going to do this right."
Lanier says about 1,100 of the handguns are registered to off-duty D.C. Police officers who live in the city, 163 belong to retired D.C. Police, 150 are registered to law enforcement officers who live in D.C. but do not work for the Metropolitan Police Department and about 2,800 belong to security companies.
(Copyright 2008 by WTOP Radio. All Rights Reserved.)
They don’t know what all the citizens are having for dinner tonight either!!!
This revelation after the fact.........this goof should be pulling weeds for a living. I think the Peterson Principle has found this clown.
What an airhead they have for a police chief!
—wonder if they have the handgun owned by Vincent Foster accounted for?
Do they still have the drop gun left at the body dump scene?
Thank the Lord I do not live in DC.
I sincerely doubt that any Police Official in my State knows where my legal pistol is nor should they know.
Are they saying that their unconstitutional gun ban didn’t work? Never saw that comin’!
Not to worry. With the crime rate in DC, they’ll all kill themselves. Leave them alone.
Lanier says the main reason police have not done an audit is a lack of technology.
"Automation will make that a lot easier. It's all paper documents. We're working right now to automate all the information we have. It's hard to audit paper records."
What a waste of time and money.
Why bother with records that are 32 years or more old.
On the other hand what is the use of registering guns in the first place? It’s not like you can hide the fact that you own a piece of naval artillery anyway.
I am wondering if the federal agencies are registering their weapons as required?
-—the blue one or the chrome one or the two-tone, I wonder—
“...and even though those who registered back then were required to let us know if they moved...”
Fat chance I’d tell them anything if I moved out of their jurisdiction, even if I’d been stupid enough to tell them anything in the first place.
Have you ever seen a picture of her? She has the nastiest horse-face you could possibly imagine. Plus, she loves to deck herself out in her general wannabe uniform. If she likes dudes, I'd be shocked.
So somebody who followed the law prior to 76 and registered their handgun but then moved in 2000, having forgotten about the notification part, has now broken a gun law. Hmm. Want to bet the city does an all out targeting of these hardened criminals?
Affirmative Action at work.
LOL
This is a non story. They haven’t checked on those registrations, so they don’t know. That’s not a gun registration problem; that’s an incompetent government problem.
And the incompetent government is waving it’s hands, shouting, “Woohoo. Look at me. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“airhead police chief”
Actually she has only been chief for a short time. Since these guns were registered pre 1976, and nobody was tracking it back then, why is it her fault?
Actually, there is a lot of unrecorded/unreported stuff in DC. Look at the $40,000,000 tax scandal. A friend of mine who had a DC vending license made great efforts to find out what happened to the cash that many street vendors were forced to pay for their licenses and fees in lieu of sales tax. Information never provided. Someone was probably lining their pockets. As they were from people who paid $5,000 or more to have the police run vendors off a favored corner so they could occupy it. This was in the ‘90s, I don’t know if things are better now.
Guess the registry wasn’t really all that important to them to begin with if they let it slide for that long.
This sounds like another in what’s probably going to be a long line of delay tactics. They’re already playing stupid on the SC decision, and now they have to bring an “ancient” system up to date.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.