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I'm pleased to report that the WSP system failure that prevented complete background checks for CPL, firearms transfers and dealer licenses has been mostly fixed. While many law enforcement agencies stopped issuing any approved firearms transfers, many others continued to issue approvals based upon incomplete data from WSP. During this time, dealers were unknowingly releasing firearms with incomplete "approvals". Other dealers, under Washington law, released the firearms after 10 days, as allowed by Washington and Federal Law. Either way, the risk of releasing a firearm to a prohibited person was significant.
Since June 1, the WSP "ACCESS" system upgrade was not returning a CID#, failed to return "near hits" on disqualifying conditions, failed to return on wants and warrants, and lastly, failed to return on active protection orders. At this time, Protection orders are still not returning properly, but our local agency is able to look at separately.
WSP had not informed agencies of the failure, only recently directing agencies that issued approvals, to redo ALL checks June 1 to June 24. While this was a terrible inconvenience, it is a prime example of the issues looming with WSP developing and running a single point of contact background check system.
Critical items still not address by the WSP in their December 2020 implementation plan;
1) A timely appeal process for wrongful denials
2) Any system integration to Immigration and Customs for resident aliens (currently a green cards earns an automatic "delay" for a check on immigration status). The system integration WSP references makes no reference to an ICE check.
3) WSP has no mechanism to check the "local" pending cases, pending protection orders and such.
4) Will disqualifying records be sent upstream automatically, to prevent prohibited persons from purchasing firearms outside of WA? If yes, then using the federal NICS system would save the state tens of millions of dollars and result in the same outcome, preventing prohibited person from obtaining firearms through legal channels. If not reporting upstream, why not? It allows prohibited persons from purchasing out of state because the state is not reporting the data into the NICs system.
Since June 1, the WSP "ACCESS" system upgrade was not returning a CID#, failed to return "near hits" on disqualifying conditions, failed to return on wants and warrants, and lastly, failed to return on active protection orders. At this time, Protection orders are still not returning properly, but our local agency is able to look at separately.
WSP had not informed agencies of the failure, only recently directing agencies that issued approvals, to redo ALL checks June 1 to June 24. While this was a terrible inconvenience, it is a prime example of the issues looming with WSP developing and running a single point of contact background check system.
Critical items still not address by the WSP in their December 2020 implementation plan;
1) A timely appeal process for wrongful denials
2) Any system integration to Immigration and Customs for resident aliens (currently a green cards earns an automatic "delay" for a check on immigration status). The system integration WSP references makes no reference to an ICE check.
3) WSP has no mechanism to check the "local" pending cases, pending protection orders and such.
4) Will disqualifying records be sent upstream automatically, to prevent prohibited persons from purchasing firearms outside of WA? If yes, then using the federal NICS system would save the state tens of millions of dollars and result in the same outcome, preventing prohibited person from obtaining firearms through legal channels. If not reporting upstream, why not? It allows prohibited persons from purchasing out of state because the state is not reporting the data into the NICs system.
