Ahhh, there was more to the story than WSP first let out. They "misplaced" and AR15 and was trying to "quietly" find it.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.flash.net%2F%7Ecsmkersh%2FPics%2FLMFAO.gif&hash=20067bfb27d1e273b17ca260541a239e52e9360f)
The Washington State Patrol has issued a mea culpa letter that acknowledges the agency “clearly caused concern” among Evergreen State firearms dealers over a request that they provide names, addresses and other information about every AR-15 sale since last July 1.
The letter (see complete text below) comes after more than 200 messages flooded the voice mailbox of a WSP detective who was working on the case of a missing AR-15 rifle that – as this column suggested here – was a WSP-owned rifle. The WSP letter has been reproduced on the Seattleguns.net forum here.
The rest of the story is here (http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/wa-state-patrol-issues-mea-culpa-letter-over-ar-15-flap)