Should the names of those with a concealed carry permit be public?

The gist of the article deals with what information might be released. At the end of the article is the "verdict"



So what info might be public?



I have the feeling the Reno Gazette-Journal has little problem with making a list publicly available that might lead to the possibility of firearms theft, an attack on the permit holder in order to obtain his firearm or an employer who opposed RKBA searching the list to find if any of his employees had a carry permit. It might also help an abusive husband find where his wife was hiding or aid a stalker.

But to be fair, the newspaper has no intentions of publishing a list of those with concealed permits:



I would argue that allowing the names and addresses of concealed carry permit holders to be public is a poor idea. Still many states do allow public review of such records. For a list visit: http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Public_access_to_concealed_carry_lists

Disclaimer: I live in Florida where the information on who has a concealed permit is not available. I do know people who have permits but avoid telling others. I have never hidden the fact that I have a carry permit and in fact I often advertise it. That's my choice. Still, many people have good reason to keep the CCW permit secret. For example, an employer who opposes RBBA would be far more likely to lay off a person with a permit than another individual without one.

1. Obtain the names and contact info of CHL owners, claiming their records do not afford them a right to privacy.
2. Make sure everyone else knows about the CHL owner's identity - her friends, her family, her boss, her fiance.
3. Push anti-CHL propaganda in order to paint CHL owners as a threat to public safety.

Then just sit back and watch as they either get ostracized or relinquish their licenses. It's a bullying campaign with plausible deniability, where the instigator can say "Who, me? All I did was warn people in the community of the dangers of gun violence."

And there you have it.

There's a web site http://www.gunguys.com/ where despite the title "Gun Guys - Where Everyone's a Straight Shooter, the owners oppose RKBA.

They posted an article on this subject and said:

In fact, I don't see so much as a name on their "About Us" page (http://www.gunguys.com/?page_id=3598). In fact, the only identifying information the "Gun Guys" are willing to disclose about themselves is one first name: "mike." All of "mike"'s posts are listed on this page http://www.gunguys.com/?author=1 but curiously, there is no "?author=2" page, which suggests one of two possibilities: a) that there is, in fact, only one "Gun Guy" or b) that "mike" isn't the name of an actual person, but merely the login account.

Either way, it's... remarkable that a person (or persons) who are so cavalier about other people's privacy are so guarded about their own. But given that the number of people killed by licensed drivers in motor vehicle collisions every year far outnumbers the number of people killed by CCW permit holders, I think the "Gun Guys" should be completely open about the "actions" they take "that put us all at risk" and publish their driving records and information by which to identify them and their vehicles. If they don't like it, they can just "get rid of the car."

n/t

In my county, anyone can go to the courthouse to view the list of CCW holders. A couple of years ago the local newspaper did a story in which they published the list as well as interviewed some of the permit holders. LOTS of people objected to having their names revealed, but in the end, public records are public records. If you want to keep secrets, don't apply for public documents.

Firstly, you shouldn't need a permit to exercise a Civil Right.

Secondly, Private Citizens do have an expectation of privacy.

Thirdly, please explain how this would benefit society? If you have an overwhelmingly good reason, then you have a talking point. Otherwise, public listings of private rights and property are not beneficial to the common good.

or impede others. It's more about scheduling and not interfereing with the rest of the public.

My personal arms, concealed or open, do not interfere with the general public.

ranting about the cause-du-jour is a lot different from a hundred or a thousand doing so on the same location.

I think we should be focusing on remedying that, rather than infringing upon further rights.

The potential employer might decide to check your health records before he hired you. Given a choice, he might hire another individual who had a better heath record.

The employer could also check to see if you had a carry permit. If he opposed RKBA and had a paranoid fear of gun owners, he might decide to pick someone else who didn't have a permit.

...I can access the records of any voter within my precinct, but only because my position burdens me with the responsibility of validating their information is current and correct. I have no desire to use the information for any other purpose, and to do so may be illegal.

And yet, those are also considered "public records," IIRC. The average citizen has no need to access this information as it could be subjected to abuse or misuse. Same with CHL records.

for the simple reason that you feared your anti RKBA boss might find out and lay you off. Or if you were a woman who moved because of the fear of an abusive husband or a stalker, you might avoid getting a carry permit as the person you feared might find your address and attack you.

I can understand why you would want permits to be a public record if you oppose concealed carry. If nothing else, some people will decide not to get one.

But the records can be used to find out if YOU have a carry permit by someone who might want to attack you. Obviously, you are easier prey if you are unarmed. Of course, if an attacker realizes that you have a carry permit, he may just decide to shoot you in the back.

Social security is the obvious example. That is why we have the privacy act.

If not, should they?

Congress passed the "Driver's Privacy Protection Act" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_Act) in 1994 after the murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer. The murderer, who had been stalking her for three years, acquired her address by paying a private detective agency in Tucson, AZ to get it from the California DMV.

all public records should be free and open to the public...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Schaeffer#Death



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_Act

What (if anything), do these people have to hide?
:shrug:

I demand that this information should be available to everyone and anyone upon request... and news agencies should have the right to exercise their 1st amendment rights and publish that information,

For reasons that seem to me altogether obvious.

http://co.humboldt.ca.us/recorder/docs/vital_records.asp

How about making car registrations searchable so that every would be car thief knows who in the neighborhood owns a Ferrari?

Several years back, you could call up the Department of Public Safety in Texas and give the operator the license plate number of a vehicle you happened to see, and would get in return the name and address of the person who paid for the license. That went on until it was shown that wife-beaters/killers were using the "public document" to track down their victims.

You can't do that anymore, and I think you would agree with making this information PRIVATE as it now is.

No, the move to reveal concealed-carry permit holders is an attempt to embarrass and shame those who have them; it's just another facet of the war on guns culture war. And MSM is especially guilty of this tactic.

"Available-on-the-internet public"? Or "saunter down to the County Records Office" public?


Should the on-line records only be available to a person with an ISP in the juristiction in question?

accessible.

that info was not not available to the public.

Now that we all know that you had one, is really a secret anymore?

Is having a CCW permit a national security issue?

accessible."

I pointed out one example of where you were wrong.

Too much scrutiny and surveillance over American citizens, not enough over the government or big business. That's why Julian Assange and Wikileaks are your friends.

Hell, the govt post information all the time, why would people how have a CCW be more special then the rest?

Revealing classified or priviledged information is illegal. Would it be okay with you if Wikileaks published all your tax returns? How about posting the names of Food Stamp recipients?

Having lived in and visited various other countries (including the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates), I have yet to come across a country where the government is as subject to both public scrutiny and legal restraint as it is in the United States. My general complaint about the American system is that while it does a (comparatively) excellent job of keeping the government's power over its citizens in check, it does very little to restrain the power private actors exercise over each other.

In this regard, I wholeheartedly agree with the way former ACLU president Nadine Strossen put it in an interview with Reason magazine in 1994 (http://reason.com/archives/1994/10/01/life-liberty-and-the-aclu):

I take the view that if there are certain things the government cannot do to me, like search my car without probable cause or tell me which books I cannot read, no private actor should be able to either. The government, after all, is at least notionally acting in the public interest, whereas any private actor is ultimately acting in his own. That goes beyond corporate entities, I might add, and extends to individual private citizens. As I've remarked elsewhere in this thread, the assertion that "the public has a right to know" is all too often a fig leaf for a sense of entitlement to have one's personal curiosity satisfied.

I for one do not consider Julian Assange and Wikileaks to be my friends; the system WikiLeaks has constructed to insulate itself from illegitimate attempts to suppress it also serves to protect it against being held to account by anyone with a legitimate grievance. WikiLeaks assiduously avoids having the same exposure, transparency and accountability it seeks to impose on others imposed on itself. Having in the past been involved in the prosecution and conviction of a number of former Yugoslav war criminals, which might conceivably have made me a target (albeit a low-priority one) of any nationalist seeking to carry out reprisals on those involved, I would have been terrified if WikiLeaks had been around at the time and gotten hold of some of my organization's internal e-mail traffic.

Much food for thought. Thank you! :hi:

that one might keep in one's home or on one's person would require registration with civil authority?

have a CCW than having one.

Say, you intend to kidnap a wealthy person for ransom, you begin compiling a list of potential victims, would you not immediately eliminate those that might be armed?

See, my dad (who works in personal security) says, "it is not important that someone knows you are armed. What is important is that they do not know you are not."

well.

Or the tattoos the Jews received in the concentration camps.

A Nazi concentration camp identification tattoo

to mind.

but sometimes it's good to remember past atrocities.

We never want to see those dark days again.

and it seems women wear them well.

Then there is having a retail item.

You can't stop being a Jew, but you can stop being a pacifist or a socialist, possibly even a homosexual. Nevertheless, they all got their own special badges http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges along with the tattoos.

None, of course. I suppose a union membership card might be an item that marks trade unionists as a distinct group, and party membership cards and copies of Das Kapital or the Communist Manifesto might mark communists as a distinct group, and copies of The Watchtower Jehova's Witnesses.

But I think spin's point, and certainly mine, is not so much to draw a comparison between CCW permit holders and Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, but rather, to draw a comparison between various people who espouse the notion that those members of society whom they regard as "asocial elements" or "undesirables" may reasonably be forced to wear insignia marking them as such.

I will begin to lobby immediately for special protection for Hummer owners. They have been greatly maligned over the years at DU.

The default state of affairs is that nobody can force anybody whom they consider to be an "asocial element" (or an inferior member of society in any other fashion) to wear a mark--a patch sewn to clothing, a tattoo, a brand, whatever--identifying them as such. You can scorn and ridicule Hummer owners all you like, but arguing that they cannot legitimately be required to wear a scarlet "H" (or "GG" for "gas guzzler") at all times while in public is not advocating "special protection," any more than arguing that same sex couples should be able to marry is advocating for "special rights for gays" (like many opponents of same-sex marriage falsely claim). It's simply arguing that they should be afforded the same freedoms as everybody else.

My family definitely stopped being Jews.

Your family might have stopped self-identifying as Jews, and refrained from engaging in behavior that would mark them as Jews, and certain (possibly all) other Jews might consequently not regard them as Jews either, and any reasonable person would agree that they were therefore no longer Jews. However, under Nazi doctrine concerning "race," they would still be regarded as Jews (because "their blood carries the taint of Jewry" or some such Nazi garbage), and while any reasonable person would disagree, the Nazis were the ones deciding who had to wear the star.

And, that said, if the Nazis threw you in a concentration camp for being a pacifist or a socialist or a Bible Student, it's not as if they'd let you out if you said you'd renounced your convictions either.

Just thought you were making a general statement that "you can't stop being a Jew."

That said, I was born long after my family converted from Judaism, and people still ask me "are you Jewish."

When I ask why they ask, they usually respond, "well, you kinda look Jewish."

Funny, she doesn't look Druish?

Being Jewish is such an odd duck, because it's both a label of religious and ethnic identity. You can renounce the Jewish religion, but you're still going to be descended from people who were identified as ethnically Jewish. That's rather an artificial construct, I concede, given that various groups like Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrahim, let alone Youtal (Chinese Jews) and various sub-Saharan African Jews, can at most be ethnically related in an extremely broad sense.

To compare, even if I were to give up my Dutch citizenship and stop speaking Dutch, I'd still be (in crude terms) ethnically "Dutch," of (partly German) Saxon descent on my father's side and of Friesian descent on my mother's (with a few eclectic dashes of Bantam Indonesian, Portuguese Jew and various German mercenaries thrown in to spice things up). I can't stop being Dutch as far as my genetic makeup is concerned. Whether anyone can stop being Jewish in that regard probably depends very greatly on how much weight you accord to genetics as informing one's identity as a Jew.

And I hasten to clarify that that's not a question I'm qualified to answer on anyone else's behalf. My statement "you can't stop being a Jew" was intended not as an absolute pronouncement, but rather in comparison to the condition of being a pacifist or a communist or a Bible Student, which have no ethnic/genetic component.

Sure, I can see it's in the public interest for a news medium to be able to determine whether or not issuing authorities are playing fast and loose with the requirements for any kind of license when it comes to their cronies, but I think the hazards associated with making CCW permit records accessible to the public far outweigh any benefits.

Let's take driver's licenses as an analogy. Imagine a newspaper suspected that a local government official had gone through some crony at the DMV to get a commercial goods vehicle license without actually passing the test, or registered a private vehicle without paying the full fee required or despite failing to pass a smog check. Would that justify throwing open the entire registry of licensed drivers and vehicles to the public? Think about the consequences: do you want any Tom, Dick or Harry, armed with only your license plate number, to be able to pull your records and find out where you live, what you look like, what traffic violations you've been nailed for? Does the idea that some guy you flipped off on the freeway can look up where you live not make you at least a little uncomfortable?

Frankly, I don't want the government disclosing any of my personal information to some unaccountable private actor, whether it's my driver license details, the registration on my Honda Civic, my Concealed Pistol License, my immigration and naturalization paperwork, whatever. All too often, the claim "the public has a right to know" actually means "I feel entitled to know." Well, you're not; it is none of your fucking business.

But I am willing to entertain a compromise; if it's in the public interest to make certain records and information accessible to the general public, then surely it is also in the public interest to know who's been looking into those records. So I propose a little quid pro quo: in order to snoop into my records, you will be required to submit your name, sex, date of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color, home address, driver's license/state picture ID number (if any), and a print of the index finger of your dominant hand to the government record-keeping agency; said agency will inform me of the fact that you looked into may records, and provide me with a copy of said identifying information. It seems fair to me that if you want to breach my privacy, you don't get to keep yours. And if my house gets broken into and any of my guns stolen, or they find me face down in an alley with my holster and mag pouch empty, the cops will know who to bring in for questioning first (and whose house and car to search). You've got nothing to hide, right? Right?

Common sense.

In my county, birth records and death certificates are in the public record, but you have to go to a courthouse in person and identify yourself, after which you are allowed to examine a specific record; or you can mail in a request for a copy, with payment, and have a specific record mailed to you.

There is no general browsing of those records permitted, and with good reason. Information gathered from birth or death certificates could be misused by scammers and con artists, or for even more nefarious purposes like blackmail.

Obviously some people who have concealed weapons permits have been victims of crimes, or are being stalked.

should receive government services.

Would you be opposed to people in those "high risk" categories having to provide all of that information as well and having them be a determinant in public benefits?

"Yes. That way progressive decisions could be made as to whether they should receive government services."

"They could be put in to a "High Risk" category."


Are you deliberatly trying to get someone to reinforce Godwin's Law?

Do you realize how your statements sound?

See, we're talking about people who have been issued a license by the state to carry a concealed firearm, and as a precondition to being issued that license, they have to have met certain requirements to demonstrate specifically that they not in a "high risk" category. They have to have undergone state and federal background checks and come up free of outstanding warrants, felony convictions, misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence, restraining orders against partners, children, and children of partners; they have to have allowed a state or federal law enforcement agency to place their fingerprints on file; in most jurisdictions, they have to have successfully completed training courses instructing them on firearm safety, when it's legal to use lethal force in self-defense, and demonstrated the ability to put their shots inside a man-sized target.

So what you're advocating is that the state should class these same people as "high risk" on the basis that they have gone to the trouble to demonstrate to that same state that they are not "high risk."

Frankly, you could make a stronger case that homosexuals should be placed in a "high risk" category because it's "common knowledge" that homosexuals are a higher risk of contracting AIDS. (I hasten to note that that's not true, which is precisely my point.)

Those in the "high risk" class might not be willing to volunteer the information, so let's make it mandatory.

Yeah, that's the ticket!

I don't follow what you are saying.

As should all things that require a license. Remember, licenses are issued for privileges, not rights. If you wish to exercise any privilege, than you should have that privilege that you seek to be open to public scrutiny.

If you want a CCW license, those records should be made public.
If you want a drivers license, those records should be made public.
If you want a pilots license, those records should be made public.
If you want a license to practice medicine, those records should be made public.
If you want a business license, those records should be made public.
If you want a teaching license, those records should be made public.
If you want a journalism license, those records should be made public. (http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/michigan-to-consider-law-requiring-licensing-of-journalists_06022010)
If you want a marriage license, those records should be made public.
If you want a hunting or fishing license, those records should be made public.
If you want a physical therapist license, those records should be made public.

All of the above and whatever else you can think of that requires a license should be open to the public for scrutiny. All related information in regards to those licenses should be available as well. Full Name, Address, height, weight, sex, eye color, DOB, blood type, persons marrying, etc...

If there is one thing I learned from the Bush administration, it is that "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about.". Nobody is making you go out and get any of these things. All of these things above, you do not have to do. You are doing it by choice. The public has a right to know who is carrying, getting married, flying a plane, practicing medicine, teaching, hunting, fishing, etc... But not only that, the public has a right to know everything about those people. Who they are, what they look like, where they work, where they went to school, who they are married to, etc... Again, if they have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to worry about.

And anyone who has ever been arrested (even in cases of mistaken identity), ever had a government clearance, ever had a secure job that required an FBI background check, or ever had a CCW license should have their fingerprints and security photos released as well.

The public has a need for your fingerprint records.

<Whispering> wouldn't it be fun to leave the district attorney's fingerprints at a crime scene? Or the chief of police's, or the governor's?<Whispering/>

And you're right of course: "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about."

Of all of the journalists, editors, and owners of all of the media.

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

at the same time that they wish to invade the privacy of those with concealed carry permits.

Sad.

We are branded paranoid.

Because we challenge the laws that would affect our privacy, we are deemed unreasonable.

"Why do you want guns for everybody?!"
"Why does your NRA not want to help catch a serial killer?!"
"If you have nothing to hide, then what are you worried about?!"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8923012&mesg_id=8923012

;-)

Sweet. You can publish a list of moochers on the public's dime and cross reference it with the CCW database. That way you can deny them either of the benefits. "If you can't afford food, you can't afford a gun." "If you can afford a gun, you can afford food."

You have a double list so to speak. One where you can hold people up to public ridicule because they are worthless and don't want a job, and you know who your future criminals are because they have guns and no jobs. Right? Who's with me? I'll bring the pitchforks and torches.

After all, they have guns as well.




We should also put up the names, photos, and address of everybody with a sexually transmitted disease. Yanno, in the public interest.

Another example of celebrity hypocrisy:

http://blog.riflegear.com/articles/the-hypocrisy-of-sylvester-stallone.aspx

Nobody needs to know this any more than the public needs to know someone's social security number.

it is illegal and I certainly hope no one is stupid enough to change that.

mark

FWIW, I have been carrying a firearm legally every day for over 15 years.

You are obviously an ill on society making it more deadly for people to be around you. You sir are a risk.

:sarcasm:

I would want the names and home addresses of all public employees made known also. Police, firemen, judges,DHS workers, everyone.

If people think that that would be a bad idea, they may think that publishing CCL license info is bad also.