North Dakota Game & Fish Still Can't Find Ten Missing Guns

A recent audit of the North Dakota Game & Fish Department listed among 44 significant findings of problems that over 100 guns were missing. Now months after the audit report was completed and weeks after it was made public the folks at Game & Fish still can’t find 10 of the missing guns.

The State Auditor’s Office wrote in a performance audit report that the Game and Fish Department was unaware of the location of more than 100 guns used in its volunteer hunter education program.

The department is required to take an annual inventory of the guns, but auditors found no documentation of that ever happening, according to the April 9 audit report.

As of noon Wednesday, the Game and Fish Department had collected all but 10 of the 748 guns on its master list, spokesman Craig Bihrle said, adding the department is cross-checking multiple databases to ensure that the 748 number is accurate.

Game wardens worked with certified hunter education instructors to locate the guns, Bihrle said. The 10 guns that haven’t been collected may or may not be among the more than 100 cited in the audit report, he said.

“We’re trying to verify that through the checking we’re doing,” he said.

Can you imagine what would happen to a gun dealer if they didn’t have an accurate inventory of their guns? If they couldn’t account for over 100 guns when audited? If they couldn’t even find 10 guns after searching?

They’d be shut down. They’d lose their firearms license.

But the government, I guess, has a greater latitude for incompetence and error than the private sector does.