Maine Increases Data Sharing with FBI to Prevent Gun Violence

Government Technology: Maine police and courts have submitted more than 3,000 mental health records to the FBI’s background check database in recent years as part of the national focus on blocking gun sales to potentially dangerous mentally ill people.

Maine has made substantial progress in notifying federal law enforcement about mentally ill people who should be prohibited from buying a gun in the 2½ years since lawmakers began requiring the reports. But the data-sharing process isn’t as efficient as it could be because of an outdated court record-keeping system that requires state police to manually enter the records in the federal database.

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