US Park Police has lost control of firearm inventory

The US Park Police has no system in place to categorize, inventory or control the firearms – including fully automatic rifles – they may or may not have in their possession. These are the kind of mistakes that can shut down a small business with a federal firearms license forever. Who is responsible?

From the Office of Inspector General’s website.

An anonymous complaint led the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate the management and supervision of the U.S. Park Police (USPP) firearms program. Simultaneous, unannounced inspections of unassigned weapons at USPP facilities revealed that USPP could not account for Government-issued military-style rifles. It also showed that its weapons inventory was incomplete. Incomplete weapons inventories undermine USPP accountability for all of its weapons, and allow for the possibility that weapons that cannot be located and may not be in safe keeping.

During our site visits and subsequent interviews with key USPP firearms program personnel, OIG identified systemic internal control weaknesses. Our review revealed that USPP had no proper accounting for hundreds of weapons. We discovered hundreds of handguns, rifles, and shotguns not accounted for on the official USPP inventory. As recently as April 2013, two automatic rifles were discovered during a firearms search for which USPP had no prior knowledge.

We also found that individuals appointed to oversee the program, including senior command officers, gave only minimal supervision to officers and other program staff who had access to unassigned weapons. This report, following our earlier reviews in 2008 and 2009, underscores a theme of inaction and indifference by USPP leadership and a lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management. We provided 10 recommendations to improve firearms management and accountability throughout USPP.

Click here to read the full report. Can you imagine keeping your job in the private sector if this statement was included in your review?

This report further underscores the decade-long theme of inaction and indifference of USPP leadership and management at all levels. Basic tenets of property management and supervisory oversight are missing in their simplest forms, Commanders, up to and including the Chief of Police, have a lackadaisical attitude toward firearms management. Historical evidence indicates that this indifference is a product of years of inattention to administrative detail and management principles.

The inventory management problems go back at least five years, and they have been told about the issues for five years. They don’t care. They think this is stupid. During a four day period this February, the IG …

… conducted unannounced reviews of USPP weapons storage areas … We discovered that hundreds of handguns, rifles and shotguns were not listed on official USPP inventory records.

More … no effective firearms inventory program.

Section 9.1 of the National Park Service (NPS) Handbook 44 limits firearm acquisition to the minimum necessary for an effective law enforcement program. During our reviews … we discovered more than 1,400 extra weapons. These included 477 military-style automatic and semi-automatic rifles. The USPP has a force of approximately 640 sworn officers.

That’s right, on top of the weapons that are actually issued to the officers, they have at least two or three more just lying around and not inventoried.

Look, I understand these firearms are simply tools used during their day-to-day job, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to put up with the extreme anti-gun legislation being pushed on regular folk while at the same time the federal government is so dismissive of basic inventory control of firearms – including fully-automatic rifles – in their own house.

More at CBS News, The Washington Post, and Fox News.