Lawmakers in seven states are pushing to give confidentiality to people who have obtained permits to carry concealed handguns in a dispute that pits gun-rights advocates against several newspapers and open-government groups.
The drive to make gun-permit records confidential resulted from emotional, often angry objections after newspapers posted government records on the Internet that showed who had gun permits.
"The press wants to put a scarlet letter on these people," said Chris W. Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. "This serves no public good. It's potentially dangerous to post these lists."
On the other side are newspapers like the St. Petersburg Times, which recently urged the Florida Legislature to roll back the 2006 ban on public scrutiny of handgun permits under the headline "Guess which ones carry guns."
"The right to carry a concealed weapon should not trample the right to know who has a permit to carry one," the newspaper said. "Those carrying guns might feel safer, but what about everyone else who cannot know if their neighbor or co-worker is carrying one?"
Currently, 28 states have made gun permits confidential, 12 states treat them as open public records and 10 states generally do not grant permits to carry concealed weapons, according to the National Rifle Association.
One of the hotspots in the fight is Memphis, Tenn., where The Commercial Appeal newspaper in December posted a searchable online database listing the names of those with concealed-weapons permits.
The newspaper's action drew little attention until the Feb. 8 arrest of Harry Coleman, 59, who was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Robert "Dutch" Schwerin, 52, after the two men had argued over how close their vehicles were parked. The newspaper noted that Coleman was "granted a state permit to carry a handgun in June 2006."
Readers began demanding how newspaper reporters knew who had gun permits. What followed was a blizzard of angry letters, e-mails and phone calls.
Commercial Appeal Editor Chris Peck said that what followed was an "ugly" week in which gun-rights organizations "fanned the frenzy against our Web site posting of the permit-to-carry list."
Some people posted maps online showing the locations of the top newspaper executives, raising fears among the staff of violence.
However, Peck said the newspaper has no plans to remove the database from its Web site. The Commercial Appeal is owned by the E.W. Scripps Co., also owner of Scripps Howard News Service.
Frank Gibson, executive director of the pro-press Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said journalists have used the database to show that state officials do "a lousy job" keeping gun permits from people with mental-health problems. "The fact that these records are public" allowed the press to prove that the Tennessee Department of Safety "was issuing permits to convicted felons."
But dozens of state lawmakers are unsympathetic to these arguments as they push bills to end public access to gun permits in Alabama, Arkansas, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Virginia.
"Citizens deserve privacy and the general public has no legitimate interest in knowing who does and does not have a concealed-weapons permit," said Oregon state Rep. Jeff Barker, a Democrat.
The issue arose in Oregon when The Medford (Ore.) Mail Tribune asked the Jackson County Sheriff's Office for a list of everyone in the county who had a gun permit. The sheriff refused in 2007, but a circuit judge ruled last year the records were public information. The case currently rests with the Oregon Court of Appeals.
Some news organizations have changed positions on the issue. The Roanoke (Va.) Times last year posted a list of Virginians with gun permits, but quickly removed the post after readers complained the list contained errors.
"By publishing that list, you've created a windfall for criminals," the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League told the newspaper.
(E-mail Thomas Hargrove at hargrovet(at)shns.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
Endangering Battered Women
Publishing the names and addresses of those who have gone through the multiple hoops required to get a carry permit puts many women at risk. Already we are hearing from women who have escaped from violent husbands and boyfriends -- men who have put these women in the hospital -- women who have "disappeared" in fear for their lives.
Now, the Memphis newspaper has put the names and addresses of these women in an online, searchable, database. This makes it easy for the attackers to locate the women who have run away.
The idea of the public's "right to know" is a fiction. There is no such thing.
Chris Peck, editor of the Commercial Appeal, should be ashamed for putting people at risk. Isn't it interesting that newspaper editors feel vulnerable when THEIR names and addresses are made public, yet they revel in the mythical "right" to expose victims to more abuse or even death?
It's time for the Legislature to block this sensitive information from the media which clearly lacks judgement and self restraint.
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