People's Republic of Massachusetts and Gun Control - or Lack Thereof

This one ring the bell. I thought "holy crap" when I found this linked at SayUncle.

I'll put in the whole article except for the title:

Massachusetts may have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, but the state is woefully inept at keeping track of the whereabouts of guns seized by local police departments.

An expose in The Sunday Sun (July 2) revealed that thousands of guns confiscated from individuals facing domestic-abuse violations wind up in bonded public warehouses for firearmas and are rarely, if ever, returned to their rightful owners.

So what happens to the guns?

Sun reporter Rita Savard posed the question to countless police, state officials and warehouse owners over three months. Incredibly, no one could give an exact answer.

Despite a comprehensive gun law enacted in 1998, Savard found there is no trail of public records on the seized guns, nor is there a state agency monitoring the storage, disposal or resale of the guns.

The findings are alarming, leaving police and gun-control advocates wondering whether the seized guns are being recycled into the population through auctions or Internet sales offered by owners of the bonded public warehouses.

In 1998, the Legislature enacted the Gun Control Act to toughen requirements for the purchase and sales of legal weapons. Under the law, bonded public warehouses -- run by private gun dealers -- were created to store the guns seized by local police departments lacking space for their weapons stockpiles.

While the state Executive Office of Public Safety has the responsibility of implementing the law, Savard found officials to be clueless about the gun-warehousing provision. After repeated inquiries, officials admitted finally that because no public records existed to document the transfer of the seized guns from local police departments to the bonded public warehouses. The admission was surprising, since public warehouses charge a $20 transfer fee for each gun to cover the costs of paperwork, specifically federal and state forms.

Once told about the inconsistency, the Office of Public Safety issued a statement saying the 1998 Gun Control Act doesn't require the state to monitor seized guns.

If you can't own up to the responsibility, just dismiss it entirely. That's basically what the Office of Public Safety is saying.

Rep. Paul Casey, D-Winchester, wrote the 1998 gun-control legislation. He said it was up to the Office of Public Safety to write the rules and regulations for the law's implementation. "The bill was for gun reform. If we haven't been able to monitor where secondary or third guns go, there's a problem."

Indeed there is.

As it stands now, the public bonded warehouses aren't being audited for their inventories of seized guns. The law permits warehouse proprietors to sell the guns if owners fail to pay storage fees. Once again, Savard found no public records as to whether a single gun was ever returned to its rightful owner or sold at public auction.

Savard's investigation has disclosed an inexcusable lack of follow-through on the part of the Office of Public Safety. The trail of seized guns should be monitored from beginning to end, and bonded public warehouses should not be allowed to operate below the radar screen.

The Legislature should investigate this sloth and remedy the situation immediately.

I wonder what Mumbles Menino has to say on this. But to him the Boston Crime problem comes from certain states to the north with loose gun control laws. Of course, with the perspective of this, I wonder just how many of these guns have gone missing. Probably never will know since they aren't required to keep records.

Wonder if these bonded warehouse owners also have FFLs? Here's a link to Savards original article.

Local police departments, including Billerica, Methuen, Tewksbury, Westford, Wilmington, Littleton and Lowell, have emptied evidence lockers and poured seized guns into the Village Vault, a bonded public warehouse for firearms in Northboro.

Building owner and licensed gun dealer Peter Dowd also operates Village Gun Shop at the same address. Signs posted over a dark window list phone numbers and a string of messages: Closed. Semi-retired. At-home appointment arranged.

Dowd said the bonded public warehouse was born out of tougher gun-control laws that require any subject of a restraining order to surrender firearms.

"We recognized police were getting overloaded with guns and that there was a need to set up a facility to serve them," said Dowd. "Restraining orders are the primary focus of our business."

Well, what do you know.

Massachusetts requires all gun sales to be recorded and all sellers to be licensed. Private sales, along with sales at flea markets, gun shows and auctions, are harder to follow.

"The record-keeping requirements on guns sold at auctions are not the same as they are for dealers," Rep. Casey said. "In some cases it's impossible to trace them."

Ron Glidden, police chief in Lee and chairman of the state Gun Control Advisory Board, admits there are loopholes in the current law.

What? Are they trying to say that an auctioned gun doesn't require the record keeping as a gun sold from a store-front? I'm going to throw the B.S. Flag here. Maybe not at the state level, but the Federal Firearms laws don't make any allowances.

Doesn't this just make you feel all warm and comfortable knowing that there isn't any records kept?

You can read the rest.