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Article: Senate Puts Condition On State Police Funds
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- March 27, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The Maryland Senate voted yesterday to withhold $1 million from
next year's state police budget unless the agency can prove it has
fixed problems in the way it conducts criminal background checks of
handgun buyers.
Police acknowledged last week that between December and mid-
March,
the agency failed to make thousands of background checks within the
state-mandated seven-day waiting period for purchasing handguns --
mistakes that enabled dozens of convicted criminals and other
ineligible buyers to purchase weapons.
Police said they have since eliminated a backlog of about 1,500
overdue background checks, attributing the delays in part to a new
computer system. Legislators said they had ...