(Updated to include response from Mo. Sen. Kurt Schaefer)
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is denying claims that it took part in a joint request for Missouri’s list of conceal carry weapons holders.
State Senator Kurt Schaefer said Tuesday that while reviewing documents from the Department of Revenue they found an email request for the list as part of a, quote, “joint venture” between the Social Security Administration and the ATF.
ATF spokesman Mike Campbell says that’s not the case.
“We’ve researched this matter internally, along with our external partners, and we have determined that no one in ATF ever received an email regarding this investigation, nor did we ever take part in this investigation,” Campbell said.
Campbell also says the ATF does not possess any copies of Missouri’s conceal carry weapons (CCW) holders’ list. The head of the Missouri Highway Patrol told a State Senate committee last week that an investigator with the Social Security Administration requested the list, and that it was compiled by the Department of Revenue before the Patrol sent it to the federal government.
State Senator Kurt Schaefer (R, Columbia) maintains the internal emails his committee possesses state that a Social Security investigator claimed that the ATF was jointly requesting Missouri's list of CCW holders. He says, though, it's possible that the investigator lied about the ATF's alleged involvement.
"I don't know if it went to ATF or not," Schaefer said. "I don't know why, apparently, the person from Social Security would say that ATF was part of the project if, in fact, they weren't, other than to apparently maybe mislead the Highway Patrol into producing the information. I don't know the answer to that, but we will find out as we go forward."
Follow Marshall Griffin on Twitter: @MarshallGReport
