Washington court system outage disrupts firearm sales

CLARK COUNTY Wash. (KPTV) - The Washington State court's online systems have been down for nearly two weeks after unauthorized activity was detected on its electronic network.

But what that means for Clark County is still unclear.

Clark County's court office said they are continuing to run as usual, however one thing the downed system did affect is the ability to approve background checks for firearms purchases.

Washington State Patrol said they receive 400 to 1,000 background checks daily.

Daniel Mitchell, the owner of Sporting Systems, a gun shop in the Hazel Dell neighborhood, said he has never experienced a background approval shutdown before.

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"People are apprehensive about submitting a background check in a system that is not providing any results," said Mitchell. On Nov. 4 the Washington Court's Facebook page announced the administrative office of the courts recently identified unauthorized activity on the Washington Court's network. On Tuesday, they gave an update saying the outage will continue throughout the week and are working to get the network back up. They said there is no evidence any court or personal data has been accessed or altered. However, the Washington State Patrol said they cannot access the secure automated firearms e-check system to approve background checks to buy firearms.

Mitchell said his business is seasonal but over the past weeks, foot traffic has slowed down. "Realistically, since just over the last couple of weeks were probably down 60% to 75%," Mitchell said. He said beginning this week his shop will see the repercussions of the outage.

"It's an instant background check system. So sometimes we have approvals on these things inside 24 hours. But Washington state has a 10-day business day mandatory waiting. This Friday we run into those ten-day periods where people should be allowed to pick up their firearms but because we can't get approvals," said Mitchell.

Mitchell said in the meantime he will sell ammunition, cleaning supplies, and gun safes, and explain to customers why he cannot sell firearms without approval. "If they purchased it on November first, anything that was purchased after November first wasn't even in process so it's just sitting in a pending status with the state," Mitchell said. "Some will understand, some won't be very happy and others will be absolutely irate and will take the brunt of it."

Washington State Patrol said they got word today that the administrative office of the courts hope to have their system back up and running on Nov. 18.