Ohio’s Attorney General office has built an electronic tool that will enable would-be used firearms buyers to determine whether the potential purchase is possibly a stolen rifle, shotgun or handgun.
Called the “Ohio Stolen Gun Portal”, it is a “searchable website designed to increase public safety by helping to identify and recover stolen firearms,” said Ohio Attorney General David Yost in a prepared statement.
The strictly voluntary system is available to individuals as well as firearms collectors, gun shops and pawn shops. It is available at www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/stolengun.
“With our new portal, when buying a used firearm, private citizens and firearms dealers can instantly check to see whether a gun was previously reported as stolen,” Yost said in his comments.
“This is a tool for gun buyers and law enforcement alike that will lead to the recovery of stolen firearms and serve as a deterrent for criminals seeking to make a quick buck.”
Importantly, also says Yost’s chief of communications, Steve Irwin, there is no electronic “finger-printing” of the portal inquirer. Nor is there any maintaining of a data base of who possesses what firearm; legitimately or possibly stolen.
Simply, Irwin said that when a user inputs a serial number, the portal searches that number against the serial numbers of firearms that have been reported as stolen.
Since a serial number may exist on different firearms made my different manufacturers, that data is provided.
“If there is a match, the portal provides the user the serial number, make and model of the firearm, the name of the law enforcement agency that entered the gun as stolen and the agency’s contact information,” Irwin says. “No notification is made by the portal to the law enforcement agency that there has been a match.”
In all, Irwin also said the Stolen Gun Portal is to-date linked to 99,484 records of stolen firearms entered into the LEADS (Law Enforcement Automated Data System) by Ohio’s various law enforcement agencies.
“The data file is updated each day,” Irwin likewise told “Ohio Outdoor News,” noting as well to avoid calling between 11 p.m. and midnight when any new information is being inputted.
Praising the project is Eric Delbert, executive officer of Columbus-based LEPD Firearms.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office said it was Delbert who brought the issue to the agency’s attention.
“Our Attorney General couldn’t believe Ohio hadn’t been doing to all along,” Delbert said.
“We sell perhaps one thousand used firearms every year; they come in the door and then out so it’s possible some of them may have been stolen. Now we have a way to check them.”
A bonus, says Delbert, is that such a system puts the “bad guys on notice” that should they steal a firearm and then attempt to sell it at a gun show, gun shop or to an individual the thief runs the risk of being discovered by someone who undertakes the voluntary serial number check.
“It mirrors what other states like Florida are all ready doing,” Delbert said.
The Ohio Attorney General’s office is also making another on-line tool available to assist a gun owner in recovering a stolen firearm. This form is called the Personal Firearms Inventory. It is available at: https://www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Files/Publications-Files/Publications-for-Law-Enforcement/Concealed-Carry-Publications/Personal-Firearms-Inventory-Booklet.
“It’s a handy tool for firearm owners to record their serial numbers, model, make and other information so that if something happens, they can quickly and accurately report the information to law enforcement,” Irwin says.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com
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