MA Launching Electronic Fingerprint Checks
By Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
As this issue of Gun Week went to press on Dec. 1, Massachusetts Public Safety Director Ed Flynn was about to begin a scheduled demonstration of the nation’s first electronic fingerprint scan system for gun dealers and police departments.
The demonstration was scheduled to take place starting at 2 p.m. at the Four Seasons Firearms store in Woburn.
If it works as advertised, firearms retailers in Massachusetts will know immediately if a customer is eligible to buy a firearm after a quick electronic scan of a fingerprint.
The Massachusetts Instant Record Check System, developed over the past six years with nearly $7 million in technology grant money, according to Associated Press (AP), will be in place in all police departments and gun shops across the state by next summer. It is currently operating in three shops and about 140 police departments.
The system gives police and gun shop owners instant access to updated information about arrest warrants and restraining orders which was not readily accessible under the old paperwork-intensive system.
“It represents a real quantum leap in public-safety information-technology applications,” said Flynn before the demonstration, which was expected to be attended by law enforcement officials, federal firearms licensees, representatives of the Gun Owners Action League (GOAL) of Massachusetts and the media.
“This enables us to make sure that the only people bearing arms in the commonwealth have the right to bear arms,” Flynn said, according to AP.
The new system will make Massachusetts the first state in the nation with a biometric-based firearms license and sales application, Flynn said. Biometrics are physical identifiers, such as facial photographs and fingerprints.
Bay State gunowners have long complained that the process of getting a license is cumbersome and time-consuming, often taking weeks or months.
Under the old system, individual police departments, as the licensing authority, had to take a fingerprint manually, submit it to state and federal agencies for possible matches, and paste a photograph onto a gun license.
Under the new system, local police will still be the licensing authority, but fingerprints and photographs will be taken electronically and stored in the statewide system. The license will be produced by the state’s Criminal History Systems Board and fit into a wallet, much like a driver’s license.
Philip Mahoney, police chief in Woburn, one of the first communities in the state to test the system, said one of the biggest benefits is knowing immediately if a person licensed through that city has become ineligible. Under the old system, a person’s criminal history would only be updated after the license expired, or if police happened to learn of an arrest or restraining order.
“Until he came in for renewal, we would not have had any knowledge of that,” Mahoney said. “Now it would be an automatic suspension.”
That would also show up at a gun shop. For example, if a restraining order is issued at midnight against someone with a gun license that license record would be updated immediately. If that person tried to buy a gun the next day, he would be denied.
The new electronic system is in addition to a federal instant check that is conducted by telephone or Internet connection by the dealer before a firearm sale is completed. Massachusetts is working with federal authorities to further streamline that process.
Jim Wallace, executive director of the GOAL, said the state had not involved gunowners in the development of the technology. But he was looking forward to Flynn’s demonstration, which he told Gun Week he was attending. He said he hoped the system would cut down on the wait and paperwork for licensing gunowners in the state.
“We don’t support licensing anyway, but it’s a fact of life here in Massachusetts,” Wallace said, “and if you’re going to mandate it, you better provide it.”
Wallace promised Gun Week a fuller report after the demonstration.
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