VIDEO: P.I.C.S. problems plague Harrisburg Gun Show

[FOACPAC]

Many other gun dealers were complaining about issues with the Pennsylvania Instant Check System but were afraid to say anything on camera due to fears that there would be repercussions from the state police on their shops.

I also received a phone call from Chris Smith that they were having problems at Ace Sporting Goods and Kim Stolfer told me he received complaints from others in Erie as well.

When I was at the Bloomsburg gun show a few weeks ago the system was down altogether for 2 hours on the first day of the show.

[Robert Kayland]

As an alternative to "phoning it in", they should set up some sort of go/nogo PICS check through the internet... all things considered, compared to some of the big shopping sites that work seamlessly in Cyberia, traffic wouldn't be all that much, so bandwidth would never be an issue... and there could easily be a secure login system set up for registered dealers.

I'd be surprised if something of the sort wasn't already in the works.

[JayBell]

a better title would be "VIDEO: P.I.C.S. problems plague entire state of PA"... PICS outages are not geographical in nature.... they are statewide.

if its down in Erie... its down by Philly, and its down in harrisburg... its noyt at all show related.

[gnbrotz]

a better title would be "VIDEO: P.I.C.S. problems plague entire state of PA"... PICS outages are not geographical in nature.... they are statewide.

if its down in Erie... its down by Philly, and its down in harrisburg... its noyt at all show related.

Agreed. I think these problems are much more prominent than many realize, but shows just make a consistent problem much more 'visible.'

[HiredGoon]

From the "2009 Pennsylvania State Police Firearms Annual Report"

[pyld]

Two nines is not impressive uptime. At all. Especially given what this crap actually costs.

[son of the revolution]

Ok, so fill me in on something since I found this board way after PICS was in place. We have the same State "go between " in the PSRNJ that acts as a middle man to the Fed NICS as PICS is in PA. In NJ its well known it was nothing more then a cash grab and yet another un-necessary hurdle to toss in the path of legitimate gun ownership. Even most of the municipal staff and local CLEO's I've talked to despise the thing.

So what was the rationalization over in PA for needing to do it when it was proposed ? Same reasoning as in Jersey ? Was it supposed to eventually be phased out at some point and grew a life of its own like toll roads do ?

With the focus on Castle Doctrine and FFA and some other prominent things I confess that I may have missed a thread or something, but is there any serious effort at this time to eliminate it ? The argument we are using over here is cobbled together as a cost saving measure, freeing staff in the SP to handle actual cases, needlessly duplicative, etc

[IronSight]

With the focus on Castle Doctrine and FFA and some other prominent things I confess that I may have missed a thread or something, but is there any serious effort at this time to eliminate it ?

Yes. I'm not privy to a lot of the details, but big steps are being taken to get rid of it.

[son of the revolution]

Yes. I'm not privy to a lot of the details, but big steps are being taken to get rid of it.

Remind me to ask Kim about this at the Delias meet up, I'd be interested in learning what "pitch " was used to the Legislature if your successful in eliminating it, might be useful for over here.

[tacticalreload]

I tried to run two PICS checks yesterday. The first one was automated and ran fine. The second one went to an operator and too 12 minutes of ringing before someone picked up.