After a fearsome farrago of fury over the state’s complicity in providing information on Missouri CCW holders to feds at the Social Security Administration, DHS and your friendly neighborhood Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Governor Jeremiah “Jay” Nixon (D-Mizzoura) is walking things back. To those of you just tuning in, the Department of Revenue — after much legislative poking and prodding — finally admitted last month that it was scanning CCW endorsement holders’ personal identification documents and funneling them to the busy little drones D.C. And since one blatant violation of state law wasn’t enough, the Highway Patrol figured that sharing lists of CCW holders with our benevolent overlords too would be twice the fun. To top off the nose-thumbing, when a Senate committee finally dragged Revenue Department Director Brian Long before them last week, he told them to FOAD as he had no intention of halting the program . . .
That’s the same Brian Long who announced his resignation Monday after all of three months on the job. Poor Bri. It looks like the job just proved to be too much for him.
“My brief tenure as director has taken a toll on me and my family that I could not have anticipated when I accepted the position in December of 2012,” Long said in his resignation letter, addressed to Nixon. “I leave with great admiration for the dedicated and hard-working employees at the Department of Revenue and for the leadership of your administration.”
Chalk it up to wanting to spend more time with his family. That, and a call he no doubt got over the weekend from the Gov’s chief of staff trying to staunch some serious bleeding.
Speaking of the Jay-bird, he’s poo-poo’d the whole mess as a tempest in a Tenifer teapot since the story originally broke.
“This Department of Revenue and this state of Missouri is not collecting a bunch of un-useful data to send to some sort of magical database someplace to mess with people – it’s not happening, okay?” Nixon said. “They’re just not doing it, I mean, you know that and I know that.”
Making the boss a blatant liar is never good for your career. Hence Long’s exit, stage left.
Now Nixy seems to have concluded the heat he’s getting for ratting out Show Me State concealed carriers more than outweighs any perceived benefits the state may be getting from its supine federal cooperation. He’s decided to shut down the DOR shredding scanning party and promised to delete concealed carriers’ documents fromt the DOR system.
From riverfronttimes.com:
Gov. Jay Nixon announced today that the Department of Revenue will no longer scan or retain certificates of qualification for Concealed Carry Weapon (CCW) endorsements.
“It has been determined that the scanning and retention of concealed carry certificates are not essential to the integrity of the license issuance process,” Gov. Nixon said. “We will continue to work with policymakers to ensure the security and privacy of our license issuance process.”
Still, state Republicans aren’t happy. The DOR’s activities appear to be in direct contravention of a Missouri law prohibiting compliance with the federal REAL ID act and they’ve shared their thoughts on the matter with the newly named interim director. And while Mr. Long becoming a speedbump under the Governor’s bus is intended to cool things down a little, this doesn’t appear to be going away any time soon.
as MO CCW holder, I am pissed off. Nixon claimed the DOR wasn’t scanning records, when it turns out they are. Either he is incompetent or a liar – pick one. He better get with the CCW program and start signing off on some bills from Jeff City . . . . or he should be impeached.
oh, and that sucking sound, is Nixon’s 2016 Veep aspirations going down the drain quickly. . . . . he is term limited in MO so he was considered one of the top potential veep candidates with his midwest street cred . . . . oooops – folks here don’t take kindly to their rights being violated.
How about I pick both?
And let’s all play another round of “Name That Party”.
You’re right. Fixed.
Or he was told by the DOR that it wasn’t happening.
While he is accountable in the same way as is a ship captain, he is no more a liar or oncompetent than is a ship captain telling a passenger “it’ll be smooth sailing” when it won’t because the sonar operator lied to him.
Disapprove all you want, but stick to facts. A governor has to delegate, and the delegates sometimes fu<k up.
“The Buck Stops ….” – some other demcrap.
The commander is responsible for everything that the troops do or fail to do.
And the backups remain, in accordance with data integrity laws of course.
Government doesn’t hold its own accountable.
The damage is already done. Everybody who is anybody knows who has the guns come confiscation time!
what guns? I lost all mine in a boating accident while cleaning them during a storm. I am so lucky I swam to shore.
My guns got up and walked away & I haven’t seen them since. I guess it’s pure luck they haven’t shot anyone yet.
Shame on you, you have failed to control your guns, Randy
Coffee spew!
Officer, I had a “St. Paul on the Road to Damascus” moment while target shooting, and for the sake of the children, I decided to sell all of my guns out of state, and donated the profits from those evil death machines of war between the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and Mayors Against Illegal Guns.
and Officer, seeing what a warm hearted (and well fed) individual you are, would you care to donate any spare cash in your pocket for the collection I am taking up for the children(TM)??
Disclosure of CCW holders’ personal information gives a whole new meaning to “Show Me State.”
And Nixon is just another Democrat playing Democrat games.
A time will come when hanging these politicians will be perfectly legal.
So you’re telling me that the government doesn’t follow it’s own laws? But, but, M-T…
Tonight’s Episode: “Why I’ve Never Applied For My MO CCW”
Better than not getting your CCW, don’t have any guns, or talk about them, or visit websites about them. Then you can be extra safe.
I’m not hiding, but I’m also not going to actively endeavor to place myself at the top of the cull list.
Thing about being on the cull list, there could be some shooting and there are a bunch of good old boys who think that isnt such a bad thing!
I am deeply suspicious when politicians get really specific that records are being deleted from a specific database.
Know how long it takes to electronically transmit an entire data set? To some other system?
That. Fast.
These people are basically animals. Meanwhile, criminals run amok and their efforts do nothing to reign them in.
Yep. Wrote my house and senate legislators regarding this issue. My house member told me they are on top of this. I had told him that I thought that people need to resign if nothing more due to incompetence. (Not that I think this was done ignorantly.) Of course the Lib’s are trying to pass this off as no big deal, it was an innocent mistake. Hope to hear of more resignations in the near future.
I also am glad I haven’t obtain my CCW in MO when I moved here 2 years ago.
I also encouraged my legislator’s to looking into Constitutional Carry.
This data sharing of Missouri CCW holders’ firearm information and personally identifiable information (PII) with the feds comes as no surprise at all.
As I’ve stated on these pages before, the gun control clowns in government will not abstain from storing and data mining information collected in the course of firearms transactions conducted under code requirements that require divulging PII. If it furthers their agenda, they will find a way to do it.
Despite promises not to use PII to identify targeted firearms owners, if the government, whether it is state or federal, finds a need for that information and a gun grabbing administration is in power, they will either surreptitiously or openly use it. The only factors in the process are how the political winds are blowing and how securely the grabbers feel they are positioned in office when they compromise the data. The Democratic People’s Republic of CA is a perfect example of that.
Yeah, but, there will be a 15 year penalty for the manchin toomy obamabortion violation. Maybe the pres can prosecute & pardon himself at the same time, pop the popcorn, it sure will be a nail biter, Randy
Requiring a license to carry is in itself unconstitutional, so the outrage over this is a secondary grievance at best. Where’s the outrage for needing a carry license in the first place?
It is and sadly it’ll never happen in FL, because Disney and NBCUniversal came out against it the last time.
“My brief tenure as director has taken a toll on me and my family that I could not have anticipated when I accepted the position …” — Brian Long
Hmm. I wonder if several citizens were pretty pissed-off about Mr. Longs actions — which broke Missouri Law and put several citizen’s lives at risk — and shared their feelings with him.
Personally I think it would have been appropriate to literally tar and feather him.
+1 on the Tar and Feathering
PUT THESE CROOKS IN JAIL!
DEMAND THE BE HELD REPSONSIBLE!!!
I just thought of an almost iron-clad argument against registration of any kind and probably even all forms of licensing: a “leak” along the lines of wiki-leaks.
We all saw what happened when a New York media company mined public information to publish a list/map of handgun license holders in the greater New York City metropolitan area. Imagine if someone who hated citizens having guns (not hard to imagine) obtained a statewide or federal database? They would publish it in a heartbeat and put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk.
The general public thinks in ideal terms. Ideally, a government would never use a registry to confiscate guns. Indeed it is next to impossible to convince a majority of people — even people who own firearms — that our government would ever come to confiscate their guns. But I think it is quite easy to convince everyone that a leak could occur — with deadly results. (This should be easy because the media company in New York already did it.) That should be our new strategy going forward.
My only question is if that is enough incentive to go to constitutional carry and eliminate concealed carry licensing.
I renewed my MO CCW in Nov. of 2011. The St Charles County Sheriffs office told me to take all of my personal info (birth certificate, SS card etc,) to the license bureau when applying for my new permit. I thought this was odd, since I had just passed a background check verifying that I was a citizen, and not a criminal. So I showed up with the paperwork and asked the nice young lady why I needed that info, she responded that I didn’t, and wished the Sheriffs office would quit telling people they needed it. Now did she scan my certificate, I don’t know, but no other information was given that day to the license bureau!
And it’s MISSOUREEEEEEE!
Does anybody really believe these people don’t know exactly what they are doing?
That what they are doing is simply a bunch of mistakes?
That they should be given another chance?
That’s exactly what they are trying to buy with their lies.
They know exactly what they are doing and they meant to do it.