Maryland’s State Police are missing accurate serial numbers for a significant portion of handguns bought in the state, according to a state audit released this week.
When someone buys a handgun in Maryland, the buyer’s name and information as well as the make, model and serial number of the gun are entered into two different databases. Local law enforcement agencies across the state rely on one of these datasets to investigate crimes that involve handguns.
But the state audit found that of the roughly 27,500 handguns purchased between May 2014 and March 2015, about 4,000 — nearly 15 percent — were listed with different serial numbers in each set of records, making it impossible for law enforcement to use the data to determine where those guns came from.
Maryland lawmakers passed a strict gun law in 2013, following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. When the law took effect, buying a handgun in the state became a multi-step process.
The first step is obtaining a handgun qualification license, the requirements for which include a four-hour training course and a criminal background check by the Maryland State Police. Then a prospective gun owner must send the police a paper application identifying the desired gun, including the gun’s make, model and serial number.
Chuck Spafford, who opened Tyler Firearms in Halethorpe a year and a half ago, said he faxes this form to the Maryland State Police and usually hears back in about three or four days.
“They’re all handwritten forms, so if the person has horrible handwriting and state police can’t read it, they can reject it administratively and have the person redo the forms,” Spafford said.
However, police have only asked him to clarify information on the application a few times since his shop has been open. Usually the police give the go-ahead for Spafford to sell the gun.
According to Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, the vast majority of handguns used in crimes were once bought legally. That means they should exist in Maryland’s records, which can be a boon for local law enforcement agencies.
“A detective in Baltimore City, for example, can recover a gun and immediately enter the information about the gun and its serial number into a database kept by the state police and almost instantaneously determine, ‘OK, I know where this gun started,’” Webster said. “But it won’t get them very far if the serial number doesn’t match what’s in the database.”
State auditor Thomas Barnickel said the missing numbers could be the result of messy handwriting, data entry errors or both.
“There are employees of more than 300 firearms dealers across the state who are the first ones to write that serial number down by hand and then it’s entered by hand into databases, and there are mistakes that occur,” said state police spokesman Greg Shipley.
Shipley said he doesn’t believe any of the guns in question were involved in criminal investigations.
He also expects that a new digital application process, due to be launched by the middle of next year, will help prevent future problems. In the meantime, the police are working to address the errors.
“Now we have full-time people who sit and do nothing but go through the [Maryland Automated Firearms Services System] and make sure that those serial numbers are accurate,” he said.