JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Attorney General Eric Schmitt said Wednesday the FBI was planning to illegally “harvest” information on Missouri concealed carry permits next month through a series of audits at county sheriff’s offices.
His office said Schmitt sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday telling him to “cease their attempts to illegally obtain information from local sheriffs” on Missouri concealed carry permitholders, according to a news release.
“The FBI has absolutely no business poking around in the private information of those who have obtained a concealed carry permit in Missouri,” said Schmitt, who is one of more than 20 Republicans running for Senate in the Aug. 2 primary.
The release said the attorney general’s office “became aware” the FBI intended to conduct audits in August at sheriff's departments.
Nuelle forwarded a July 9 email sent by Roger Shaw, an auditor for the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) Audit Unit, to the Platte County Sheriff.
The email said the FBI “will be conducting NICS audits,” or National Instant Criminal Background Check System audits, during the week of Aug. 8.
“The audit includes an onsite review of your Concealed Carry Weapons Permits ...,” the email said.
“Your contact information was provided to us by Missouri State Highway Patrol,” the email said. “Your agency, Platte County Sheriff Office, has been selected as a local Missouri agency reviewed for the access to the NICS.”
A spokeswoman for the FBI in St. Louis did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
“Let me be perfectly clear. Allowing federal agents from the FBI to have access to records of Missourians who have a permit to carry a concealed weapon violates Missouri law and infringes on our Second Amendment rights,” the letter to Wray said, according to Schmitt’s news release.
Schmitt went on to cite the state’s concealed carry permit law, which states in part that “Information retained in the concealed carry permit system under this subsection shall not be distributed to any federal, state, or private entities.”
“The Second Amendment rights of Missourians will absolutely not be infringed on my watch,” he said in a news release. “I will use the full power of my Office to stop the FBI, which has become relentlessly politicized and has virtually no credibility, from illegally prying around in the personal information of Missouri gun owners.”
Missouri lawmakers in 2016 approved a law, over the veto of then-Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, allowing people to carry concealed weapons without permits.
In 2013, the Missouri Highway Patrol acknowledged it had turned over concealed carry permit information to a Social Security Administration agent in St. Louis investigating disability fraud.
The top budget official in the Missouri Senate said at the time that he believed the release violated state law, but the then-director of the Department of Public Safety disputed this.
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