The Florida Department of Law Enforcement ought to change its name to the Florida Department of Dopey Decisions.
FDLE Commissioner James Moore engaged in a humiliating cave-in to pressure from the National Rifle Association. He wrongly agreed to substantially cripple a new statewide computer database of pawned items, deleting any records of guns after only 48 hours.
This is a foolish, irresponsible, cowardly policy. Because of it, more stolen guns will be pawned and more gun thefts and crimes committed with stolen guns will go unsolved. That’s too high a price to pay for a law enforcement surrender to a potent lobbying group with an extremist position on gun laws.
State law now wisely requires anyone pawning items to provide name, address, birth date, thumbprint and a detailed description of the items. The pawn slips must be sent to police within 48 hours.
The FDLE is asking police to voluntarily share information on pawned items with its statewide database to help solve crimes involving stolen items pawned in another county.
After the 1996 murder of Fort Lauderdale police officer Bryant Peney, police linked the weapon to the killer using an old pawnshop slip.
The NRA claims that keeping personal information about people who pawn guns amounts to illegal gun registration, invades personal privacy and could eventually lead to police confiscation of weapons. Attorney General Bob Butterworth rebutted that idea in a legal opinion, saying state law does not require deleting records after 48 hours.
The FDLE should fight the NRA tooth and nail on this controversy, even if it means expensive litigation. So should local police agencies, like the Palm Beach and Broward County sheriff’s offices, which keep records of pawned guns indefinitely in their own computer databases.
The Florida Law Enforcement Property Recovery Unit, a nonprofit association of police detectives, is starting a mail campaign to try to head off any possible NRA efforts to limit firearm information in local police databases.
Gov. Jeb Bush should order Moore to reverse his bad decision immediately.
Michael Barnes, president of Handgun Control Inc., said it best: “The state should be listening to the men and women in blue who enforce our laws, not the NRA.”
