Seminole
Member
This article, one of two on CCW in today's Memphis' Commercial Appeal, seems to be intended to delegitimize handgun-carry permits (in TN licensure allows one to carry a pistol either concealed or openly). The other article, which I'll post momentarily, is about how prevalent handgun carry permits are in Shelby County, where Memphis is located.
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/aug/03/wrong-fingers-are-on-the-triggers/
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2008/aug/03/wrong-fingers-are-on-the-triggers/
Twenty years ago, after being shot in the face at point-blank range with a .38-caliber revolver, Antonio Bedford, then 21, vowed never to be defenseless again.
From that day forward, he made sure he could protect himself and his family. For Bedford, living in North Memphis, that often meant carrying a gun.
But earlier this year, Bedford lost the right to carry his weapon of choice, a .380-caliber automatic pistol. On Feb. 4, the Department of Safety sent a letter informing him that his state-issued handgun permit had been revoked because of a felony reckless endangerment charge he pleaded guilty to in 1995.
It took one year from the date Bedford was issued a permit for Tennessee officials to determine that he should have been barred from carrying a gun.
"Until I got the letter, I didn't know I couldn't have a gun," Bedford said. "I was trying to do things right to protect myself, my family and my neighbors, but come to find out I wasn't allowed."
The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms, requiring individual states to thoroughly vet applicants for gun permits.
"I really feel like they could have easily -- instead of taking me through all this trouble -- got on the computer, punched up some numbers, get all the information they need and tell me, 'No, you have been denied.' "
Bedford is one of nine convicted felons in Shelby County who received letters this year demanding they surrender their handgun permits, illustrating the difficulty Tennessee has had in keeping firearms out of the hands of felons.
A Commercial Appeal review of the nine permit mistakes in Shelby County revealed just how inefficient agencies have been in sharing information about convicted felons that could bolster public safety.
Four of the nine accidentally given permits had felony convictions recorded in Shelby County Criminal Court -- convictions that were also recorded in a database maintained by the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts in Nashville.
What's more, three of the nine felons mistakenly given permits spent time in the custody of the state Department of Corrections, meaning their felony records were available through an additional state database in Nashville.
The problem, according to state officials, began in September 2006, when the Department of Safety's handgun unit lost its subscription to the FBI's National Crime and Information Center database. Since the Department of Safety was part of the state's driver's license division, it did not qualify as a law enforcement agency -- a requirement to access the federal database.
Without access to the database, state safety officials said they couldn't conduct background checks on permit holders seeking renewals -- even though they could have had easy access from other state agencies to felony records from Tennessee, where most of the applicants would have committed crimes.
Safety Department officials, who are not required by law to conduct background checks for permit renewals, said they sent letters to local law enforcement agencies about the problem in August 2007, but spokesmen for the Shelby County Sheriff's Office and the Memphis Police Department said they were unaware of any such notification.
As the situation allowed, if a Tennessee resident already possessed a handgun permit when he or she committed a felony after September 2006, the citizen had a good chance of keeping the gun permit despite the felony conviction.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has access to the national database and runs background checks when a gun permit is issued for the first time -- a legal requirement. But Bedford was issued an original permit in 2007 and his background would have been run through the NCIC database, suggesting that inefficiencies in the information exchange go beyond the state level.
These breakdowns in communication have allowed some felons to stay legally armed.
Take, for example, the case of Dementrius Roberson, who received a gun permit in May 2005. Nearly two years later, on March 6, 2007, the 58-year-old Memphian was in a traffic accident. During a dispute with the other driver, Roberson pulled out his gun and fired, accidentally wounding a bystander. Roberson pleaded guilty to felony reckless endangerment and is now on probation.
According to state records, however, Roberson's gun permit won't expire until 2009.
Lisa Knight, manager of the state's handgun unit, said officials were aware felons might be able to renew permits after September 2006 -- yet those same officials did not correct the problem until February of this year. That's when the handgun permits unit merged with the Tennessee Highway Patrol's Criminal Investigations Division, qualifying the unit as a law enforcement agency and giving it access once again to the FBI's national database.
The department is also now comparing its gun-permit data with felony data maintained by the state Department of Corrections.
Since the reviews began earlier this year, the Department of Safety has sent out 99 permit-revocation letters statewide, though not all are for felony convictions. Some permits are being revoked because of DUI charges and orders of protection.
However, until recently, the Department of Safety's director was unaware a problem even existed.
Dave Mitchell, appointed director in January 2007, did not learn until earlier this year that his department issued gun permits to felons.
"We are, and have been since I became aware of the situation," Mitchell said, "aggressively making sure that those people that don't lawfully deserve to have a handgun permit in their possession don't."
-- Lani Lester: 529-2395 and Megan Harris: 529-2701
