NRA Reports Data Breach With California’s Assault Weapon Registry

by Tom Knighton: Registering any kind of guns is abhorrent. It’s wrong on every level. There’s absolutely no reason to do so except to know where to go when you’re ready to round up guns for some reason, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. We all know it to be true. The only reason to register guns is to make confiscation easier.

So that’s a big problem with California’s assault weapon registry. However, it’s not the most pressing issue at the moment.

According to the NRA, there’s a serious problem with California’s registry on the technical side. Other than it not working when people needed it to.

Following the closure of the “assault weapon” registration period, NRA and CRPA received complaints from hundreds of individuals who were unable to register their firearms as required because CA DOJ’s online application system was unable to handle the amount of traffic it received. Constant crashes and errors plagued DOJ’s online registration system for weeks leading up to the registration deadline. Because DOJ only provided an electronic means of registration, it was impossible for those who faced these issues to register their firearms.

Another DOJ Data Breach
Possibly even more concerning with DOJ’s online registration system were the reports of the system’s improper disclosure of personal information to other users. There have been confirmed reports of individuals attempting to register their firearms who were improperly given access to the account information associated with another individual, due to a complete breakdown of CA DOJ’s registration application system. In some cases, the system allowed users to see all the personal information (including home address, telephone number, email, and Driver’s License number) for another user and all the information that user had submitted for registering their firearms as “assault weapons”—including the firearms make/model/serial number and all of the photos and attachments to the user’s registration application.

Unsurprisingly, this isn’t the first time CA DOJ has improperly disclosed the personal information of California gun owners. In 2016, CA DOJ admitted to releasing the name, date of birth, and California Driver’s License and/or Identification Card numbers of FSC instructors to a reporter for Southern California Public Radio. In response to that disclosure, CA DOJ offered a one-year membership of Experian’s® ProtectMyID® Alert. Whether CA DOJ will do the same for this blatantly improper disclosure remains to be seen.To err is human. To really foul things up, you need governmental involvement.

Seriously, I can’t even fathom how this is remotely possible. How can any system go live with such obvious and ridiculous faults still within the system? Further, isn’t this the kind of thing you make sure is good to go first?

Yet, California didn’t.

I’m sitting here, writing this, just shaking my head at the stupidity of it. I mean, it’s bad enough that you’re going to make law-abiding citizens register their weapons as if they’re all potential criminals or something, but then you make their personal information accessible to everyone and their brother? Seriously?

Look, I knew California had some serious issues as a state. I didn’t realize that in addition to feeling like they needed to be in every aspect of people’s lives they were this stupid.

It seems I should learn never to underestimate the stupidity of the State of California. Live and learn.
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Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger at Bearing Arms. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia and also contributes to PJ Media.

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Tags: Tom Knighton, Bearing Arms, NRA Reports, Data Breach, California, Assault Weapon Registry To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!