The director of training and security at the National Armory gun store wears a handgun as he teaches a concealed weapons permit class.

Florida failed to do national background checks for people who applied for concealed weapons permits for a full year, meaning hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would have been disqualified may have been approved to carry guns.

The reason: The lone employee in charge of running names through the FBI database wasn't able to log in for over a year, a state report found. During that time, anyone with a criminal record or who had been banned from possessing a firearm because of a mental health issue could have slipped through the system.

The lapse, which was detailed in a Florida Office of Inspector General report from June 2017, was first reported Friday by the Tampa Bay Times after obtaining the report through a public records request.



The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which issues concealed weapons permits, stopped running the names of applicants through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System in February 2016, yet continued to approve hundreds of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits, according to the report.

Criminal background checks were done on all applications, officials told BuzzFeed News, but the national database would have assured the applicant had no criminal record or other disqualifying red flags in other states.

The lone employee responsible for running the names through the system at the time, Lisa Wilde, told investigators that she had a "login issue and they were unable to access the database."

Another employee, who acted as her backup when she was not in the office, also couldn't log into the system, but Wilde told investigators she "never followed up to resolve the issue."

Wilde was terminated after the mistake was found.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is run by the FBI, flags people who are buying firearms or applying for a criminal background check if they have a criminal record or have been banned from possessing a firearm because of a mental health issue.



After the error was discovered, the Florida Department of Agriculture reviewed 365 applications that should have been, but weren't, run through the national database, Commissioner Adam Putnam told BuzzFeed News in a statement.

That review resulted in 291 applications that were revoked, he said.