The tragic shooting deaths of 26 people — including 20 children — at a school in Connecticut have some calling for a discussion of new gun control laws.
The federal government, meanwhile, remains in a freeze regarding weapons available through a federal military surplus program while it attempts to account for missing guns it has given to police agencies across the country.
Indiana is missing nearly twice as many guns obtained through the federal program as two neighboring states combined, an investigation by this newspaper has discovered. The frequency of guns coming up missing has increased greatly since the chore of administering the program was taken from the Indiana National Guard in 2005.
In Indiana, no law enforcement or military agency is involved in the administration of the federal program. Instead, the program has been operated through the Indiana Department of Administration’s Indiana Federal Surplus Donation Program since October 2005, according to Department of Administration communications manager Connie Smith.
Indiana federal surplus clerk Christina Hamilton said her office considers 23 guns it has procured for law enforcement agencies in the state to be missing or stolen since the program’s inception —nearly twice the number of missing or stolen guns in Michigan and Ohio combined.
According to Hamilton, Indiana considers 17 .45-caliber handguns, three M-16 rifles, two M-14 rifles and one shotgun to be missing.
From 1990 through 2005, Indiana’s program was administered through the Indiana National Guard, Smith said.
According to Hamilton, there were two years in that 15-year span in which guns were reported missing — 1998 and 2005. Since the Indiana Department of Administration took over the program, guns have been reported missing in four of the last seven years, including 2010, 2011 and this year, Hamilton said.
When asked to comment on the number of guns Indiana considers missing, Smith said more than 4,000 weapons have been distributed to Indiana law enforcement agencies. She added that Indiana complies with all federal requirements for the program.
Citing the number of missing guns nationwide, the federal government temporarily halted the procurement of all weapons through the program in May.
The National Defense Authorization Acts of 1990 and 1991 authorized the transfer of excess Department of Defense property for federal and state law enforcement agencies to use in counter-drug activities. In 1997, the program was changed to allow the property to be used for counter-terrorism in addition to counter-drug activities.
Items obtained through the Law Enforcement Support Office program, including weapons, don’t cost a dime — with the exception of shipping costs.
The federal acts require each governor to appoint a person to administer that state’s participation in the program, including accountability for items obtained. Different governors have taken different approaches as to running the program.
In Michigan, the program is administered through the Michigan National Guard. Since the program’s inception, according to National Guard deputy of public affairs Capt. Corissa Barton, that state has seen two guns reported stolen or missing.
In Ohio, the program is administered through the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Ohio Highway Patrol and the Ohio Department of Homeland Security. According to Department of Public Safety spokesman Geoff Dutton, Ohio has 11 firearms it considers missing or stolen.
“Transfer of the program to the state police or National Guard would not insure that weapons are not stolen or lost,” Smith said. “Only individual law enforcement agencies can ensure that weapons are not stolen or lost.”
State Sen. Sue Glick, R-Howe, said she is not sure why Indiana has more missing guns than two neighboring states.
“Some have better tracking measures than we do,” Glick said.
The LESO program is administered under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Defense through the DoD’s Defense Logistics Agency.
DLA communications chief Michelle McCaskill said federal inspectors do on-site, item-by-item inventories in roughly half of the states and U.S. territories that participate in the program each year.
In March 2011, DLA inspectors visited five of the 590 law enforcement agencies that are registered with the program in Indiana.
When asked what criteria are used to select which agencies would be subject to compliance review, she said, “The amount/types of commodities on hand were reviewed, as well as which law enforcement agencies had aircraft, weapons… or other high visibility equipment, or generally high volumes of equipment.
“In addition, the ability of the state coordinator to accompany the (inspection) teams efficiently on a daily basis was considered. As such, most were located within a two-hour driving radius of the state coordinator’s office.”
Indiana’s state coordinator, Robert Flake, has his office in Indianapolis.
Agencies inspected in 2011 by the DLA were the Indiana State Police, the Middletown Police Department, the Zionsville Police Department, Marion County Sheriff’s Department and the Metro Police Department in Indianapolis.
McCaskill said the Marion County Sheriff’s Department was suspended as a result of the program compliance review.
Indiana State Police spokesman Capt. David Bursten said the DLA and state coordinator spent two days going over lists of items that had been procured by the state police and matching them with present inventories.
“They said it was thorough,” Bursten said.
The Indiana State Police was found to be in good standing after the review.
All agencies that receive weapons through the program in Indiana are required to send in an affidavit signed by two officers saying the weapons they procured are still accounted for, but only those five agencies went through an on-site compliance review.
No DLA performance compliance reviews were scheduled for Indiana in 2012.
According to Hamilton, the Federal Surplus and LESO office for the state of Indiana has only four employees, and simply does not have enough manpower to do many on-site inspections.
Asked how many on-site inspections her office does in an average year, Hamilton said, “One or two. If that.”
Hamilton said staffing is a big issue, since an on-site review takes at least two staff members away from the office. She also said they would have to use their personal vehicles to make the trips.
“The Indiana Federal Surplus Program is operated according to federal guidelines,” Smith said.
Prior to budget cuts two years ago, the Ohio Department of Public Safety annually visited approximately 50 departments to perform on-site inventories of weapons, Dutton said. After a position was left dormant in that office for two years, it has now been filled, and Dutton said a similar inspection schedule would resume soon.
In Michigan, that state’s National Guard relies on affidavits similar to those Indiana requires for weapons verifications, Barton said.
This year, the Defense Logistics Agency changed its policy to require photos of guns showing the serial numbers to be returned with the affidavits.
Curious case of Middletown
In at least one past instance, problems may have started even before the first weapon was sent to the requesting agency.
Hamilton said the town of Middletown’s police department submitted a request March 4, 2004, to receive 25 .45-caliber handguns.
In its 2004 application to join the LESO program, the Middletown police department told state officials it had “25 sworn officers, five sworn narcotic officers and five sworn tactical officers,” Hamilton said.
The request was approved June 11, 2004, and the guns were received Sept. 14, 2004.
Located southeast of Anderson, the town of Middletown had a population of 2,322 in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That figure was down 6.7 percent from 2000.
A town roughly the size of Avilla or Fremont claimed to employ 35 police officers.
An updated, current application on file with the LESO office in Indianapolis, according to Hamilton, shows the Middletown Police Department with four full-time officers and eight reserves.
Hamilton said some of Middletown’s 25 handguns received through the LESO program were reported missing, but all have recently been recovered.
Current Middletown Clerk-Treasurer Drew Cooper said he has lived in the community for longer than 20 years, and he does not remember ever having more than five full-time police officers.
Asked to comment on the Middletown situation, Smith said, “The executive officer of each law enforcement agency is responsible for providing accurate information on their application and on their request for property.”
Glick said the problem with the missing guns does not lie with state officials.
“They’re just the conduit,” Glick said. “They don’t have the power to say, ‘You’re off the program.’”
The Department of Defense, with its own limited resource issues, does not offer much in the way of inspections, either.
“There’s no teeth between the Department of Defense and local law enforcement,” Glick said.
Local law enforcement agencies operate on the honor system, to a great extent, in providing inventory information to the state. The state passes on the information to the Department of Defense through the Defense Logistics Agency.
“Nobody’s accountable,” Glick said.