June 18, 2013: Various automatic handguns are shown in the weapons vault during a media open house at the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) National Laboratory Center in Beltsville, Maryland.Reuters
More than 360 guns were bought in Maryland last year by people barred from owning them because of a massive backlog in conducting gun transaction background checks, the Baltimore Sun reported.
The newspaper said last week that undercover troopers recovered nearly all of the 364 firearms sold to people who were ineligible to buy them, but four guns have not been retrieved.
"To us, the danger has not passed," state police spokesman Greg Shipley told the newspaper.
People with histories of mental illness or convictions for violent misdemeanors, felons and fugitives were able to obtain and keep guns for three months or longer before state police reviewed the sales, The Sun said, citing records obtained under a Public Information Act request.
Would-be gun buyers in the state must pass a background check conducted by Maryland State Police. But a gun can still be sold without a background check if state troopers are unable to complete it within seven days and the dealer has no reason to believe the person purchasing the weapon is ineligible.
Over the course of last year, dealers released 51,812 guns before a background check was completed, The Sun said.
Troopers began having trouble completing background checks in seven days after the Newtown school shooting sparked gun purchases in January 2013.
The backlog grew even bigger after a tough new gun-control law pushed by Gov. Martin O'Malley and passed by the legislature spurred gun sales leading up to Oct.1, when the law took effect.
More gun purchase applications were received in September 2013 alone than the state often sees in a year, police told The Sun. Of the 128,640 applications received last year, 40 percent of the firearms were released without a background check being completed. The numbers show most of the guns sold without background checks were purchased by people eligible to buy them.
The exceptions included a person who bought a gun even though he was prohibited from owning one for mental health reasons. He took home a gun from a Baltimore County dealer on Oct. 1. State police did not see it, and didn’t reject the buyer's application until nearly three months later, on Jan. 29, The Sun said. That gun was recovered by Maryland State Police.
A felon in Baltimore took home a gun on Sept. 30 -- even though he would have failed an instant federal check that can be done at the store for shotgun purchases. State police didn't fully review the transaction until mid-February, the newspaper said. Police also recovered that firearm.
"That's one guy out of 51,000," Delegate Michael Smigiel, an Eastern Shore Republican and vocal defender of gun rights in the General Assembly, told The Sun. Smigiel criticized the state police for insisting on doing their more exhaustive, time-consuming check instead of relying on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, to screen buyers.
Police say state law requires them to perform a more extensive check that involves searching more than a dozen databases.
Most of the guns went to people who did not know they were barred from owning them, Shipley said. Some were convicted in other states where their crime doesn't result in losing gun rights. Others were convicted of crimes years ago, long before state lawmakers decided those offenses deserved longer sentences that result in losing gun rights
To date, state police are aware of only one instance in which a gun released to a prohibited buyer was used in a crime. That Prince George's County carjacking case from January is scheduled to go to trial in May, the newspaper said.
Maryland State Police finally cleared the backlog of background-check requests only last week.
"It's unfortunate that there were so many guns being bought that there was an overload, but it will never happen again," said Vincent DeMarco, president of the Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence advocacy group that worked to pass the state's strict new gun law. Gun sales have plummeted since the law took effect.
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