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You are here: Home / Gun Control / Florida Had No Gun Background Checks for a Year

Florida Had No Gun Background Checks for a Year

June 9, 2018 at 8:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“For more than a year, the state of Florida failed to conduct national background checks on tens of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits, potentially allowing drug addicts or people with a mental illness to carry firearms in public,” the Tampa Bay Times reports.

“The employee in charge of the background checks could not log into the system… The problem went unresolved until discovered by another worker in March 2017 — meaning that for more than a year applications got approved without the required background check.”

“Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam (R) has made it a priority to speed up the issuing of concealed weapons permits since he was elected in 2010… Now running for Florida governor as a Republican, Putnam’s campaign touts his expansion of concealed carry permits as one of his top accomplishments.”

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Filed Under: Gun Control

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About Political Wire

Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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