another attack on privacy

It seems as though the Commercial Appeal just cannot stop rationalizing away their “logic” for posting the searchable database of handgun carry permit holders… methinks they dost protest too much. Oh well, it gives me blogfodder, and lets me flex my fisking skills.

Encouraged by adverse reaction to a database on this newspaper’s Web site, some Tennessee legislators want to make the list of gun-carry permit holders an exception to the state open records law.

Good. It is our representatives’ jobs to represent the people who elected them, and if those people are upset at tools like you violating their privacy, then the representatives should probably take that annoyance into consideration. Furthermore, it is within the representatives’ self-interest to protect their constituents (tends to engender good will and all that), and your list decidedly puts a large number of people at risk. It sounds to me like the lawmakers in Nashville are actually trying to do their jobs (as opposed to the lawmakers in Washington, unfortunately).

Passage of the exception, one of several bills dealing with gun laws that have been introduced this year, would constitute a hasty retreat from the effort to make state government more transparent.

[sneeze]bullshit[/sneeze] “Transparency” at the cost of people’s safety and privacy is no question at all – privacy and safty win, every time, hands down.

The list of gun permit holders should not be equated with medical records, investigative notes of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, plans for how to handle riots in state prisons and other legitimate exceptions to the open records law.

Yes, actually, it should. The application for my handgun carry permit had a plethora of data on it that should never be released to the public eye, not least of which was my social security number. Thankfully, that data is not within the set of information that is released, but that is besides the point. Names, cities, and zip codes are all stalkers need to find their victims that have once escaped them, that is all the information criminals need to find homes that are guaranteed to have firearms in them, and that is all the information idiots need to unjustly discriminate against others who have decided to lawfully and legally defend themselves.

The public, for any number of reasons, simply has a right to know who has been issued a permit to carry a handgun in public, just as it has a right to know who’s licensed to practice medicine and who knows enough about the law to represent clients in court.

Fail. As a handgun carry permit holder, I do not spend every hour of my working day tending, treating, and dealing with other people, with potentially their lives in my hand. No, I go about my business, just like you or any other person does. The difference is, if someone attempts to cause harm to me, I am in a position (both mentally and physically) to defend myself from that individual and the harm he would cause me. Furthermore, your pointless analogy fails in that we receive no payment, or compensation, for choosing to defend ourselves – short of actually being able to do so, that is. Finally, we do not exercise our skills on a variety of people on a daily basis, like doctors and lawyers do.
As I said, fail.

Making the list confidential would erode Tennessee’s progress on the open government front. It would be a knee-jerk reaction to the recent discovery of a searchable database that has been posted on The Commercial Appeal Web site for two months.

I hate to break your cute little bubble, but you were not the first – in fact, the Tennesseean tried to publish a similar list a year and a half back… and took it down later that day, due to public outcry. I guess their editors have more of a spine than yours do. So, in reality, your database was nothing more than the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s proverbial back.
For that reason, “knee-jerk” is entirely the wrong phrase… “catalyst” would be a lot more appropriate. People like me have been lobbying our local representatives to make these lists private for quite some time now – your paper’s irresponsible actions simply gave us a prime example of how the public nature of these lists can be misused. Thanks for that, by the way.

The database drew little notice until the owner of a handgun-carry permit was charged with a shooting death that ended an argument over a parking space last week at a Cordova restaurant.

Now there is a specious argument… just because we were doing it and no one noticed it, that inherently makes it right? Give me a frakking break. Just because you drive while drunk and do not get caught, that does not make you doing so legal. Just because you do drugs and never pop positive on a screening test, that does not make it right. While both of those hypotheticals are questions of legality, your database is not (yet), but it is a question of whether or not you did the right thing. Not being caught does not make you right, and it does not make the database any more appropriate or “needed”.

Protesters include those who believe it raises the risk of a home burglary for people on the list and those who say it makes a burglary more likely for those who aren’t.

I am quite certain you were trying to be cute here, but, suffice to say, you failed, miserably, again. Both points are quite valid, and both points are worthy of consideration. If a criminal is looking to illegally procure (i.e. steal) a firearm, you have just graciously provided him a list of residences throughout Tennessee wherein they are guaranteed to find firearms. On the flip side, for other criminals who do not want to be shot, you have just provided them a list of locations they should probably avoid while executing their nefarious deeds. Unfortunately for them, a home not having a permit holder does not indicate the lack of firearms… but try not to tell the criminals that.

Proponents of the exception also raise the argument that, like the confidential information on driver’s license records, information on gun carry permit records can be used for illegitimate purposes.

Uhm, you will have to excuse me for being frank, but no shit, genius. Consider a situation wherein an abused ex-wife moves away from her abuser, does not leave him a forwarding address, and procures a handgun carry permit and firearm to defend herself. She has been living peaceably ever since she moved, relatively safe in the knowledge that, unless her abuser took a lot of time and money to track her down, her current whereabouts would be relatively unknown. And here you nimwits, in your infinite wisdom, have provided her abuser a simple, easy-to-use search engine he can use from the comfort of his own easy chair.
Thanks for that.
Seriously, did you all even think about what you were doing before you put this database up?

This page believes the public’s right to the information outweighs those considerations. Handgun-carry permit holders have been granted a privilege that not everyone in the public enjoys, and without the list the public has no way of determining whether permits are being granted to people who shouldn’t have them.

Fail. Fail. And fail.
In this day and age of identity theft, home invasions, criminals assaulting people on the streets, stalkers using every method available to them on the internet, and so many other dangers lurking throughout the digital and carbon worlds, the specious “public’s right to know” does not, in any way, give you the right to invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens and publish their information for the whole world to see. We have broken no laws. We have committed no crimes. We have intimidated or threatened no one by our lawful decision to defend ourselves, and equip ourselves accordingly. We are nothing more than fellow citizens who have decided that our lives are important enough to actively defend, rather than waiting on the response of others. Why do you have such a problem with this?
Discounting the flawed and erroneous logic that carrying a firearm is a “privilege”, that other people are not also so licensed is a matter of choice on their part and should not, in any way, reflect on those of us who are licensed. Getting the permit is really not that hard… never commit a felony requiring a year or more of punishment, never commit a misdemeanor crime of domsetic violence, never be convicted of stalking, do not be under indictment when you apply, do not be the subject of a protective order when you apply, do not have a DUI in the past five years (or two in the past ten), do not be under treatment for addiction to drugs or alcohol within the past 10 years, never get adjudicated as “mentally defective”, never get discharged from the military under dishonorable conditions, never renounce your US citizenship, never receive social security benefits by reason of alcohol or drug dependence or mental disability, do not be a fugitive from justice, be a resident of Tennessee, be over 21 years old, take the appropriate course from a certified teacher, prove you can actually shoot, get fingerprinted, provide positive proof of US Citizenship, fill out a few pages of paperwork, have your entire background and life history scrutinized by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (and, by extension, the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and wait until the state decides to give you the permit (technically within 90 days, but they have been really bad about that recently). Like I said, not that hard… that more people do not choose to get permits is their choice, and your using it as a determination to expose my privacy is simply ludicrous.
As for the public knowing whether or not someone should or should not have a permit, like I already mentioned, both the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation perform background checks on applicants, using their names, social security numbers, addresses over the past five years, and fingerprints to check against criminal history records across the United States. If you are not satisfied with the efficacy and accuracy of those checks, I suggest that you take your concerns up with the above-mentioned organizations, and get your gorramed nose out of my business. I do not have to prove my innocence to the likes of you.
Also, a related note – I am amused that you believe the government cannot do a good job with the background check, but does do a good job with the handgun permit registry. I would point out that the number of permits in your database (184,954) is actually a little shy of the honest number (217,975). Granted, you claim your information is as of 08JUL08, and LegallyArmed.com claims a more logical date of 31DEC08, but I seriously doubt that 33,021 people recieved permits between those two dates.
You did not sacrifice your “journalistic integrity” by… editing… the database, now, did you?

Are dangerous felons somehow obtaining permits to go about armed in public? The public has no way of finding out without access to a list of who has them.

[sneeze]bullshit[/sneeze] *sniffle* Like I already said, both the TBI and the FBI perform background checks on those receiving permits. If you are dissatisfied with their performance, you can reach the TBI here, and the FBI here. Stop violating law-abiding citizens’ privacy simply because you are pissed off at the government for not doing its job.

Neither does this page support a flurry of bills that have been introduced this year to allow handguns to be carried into restaurants that serve alcohol, state and local parks and schools and to exempt from criminal prosecution people who shoot others in the protection of their property.

Somehow, your lack of support for personal rights does not really surprise me. Please, explain to me why I can go shopping at hundreds of different stores throughout the day, but when I want to take my wife to a nice dinner at a restaurant, I should have to disarm? Please explain to me why I can go walking throughout my town’s streets and byways lawfully carrying my firearm, but when I cross over an arbitrary line in the dirt and enter a park, I should have to disarm (especially now that it is legal for me to carry my firearm in federal parks)? Please explain to me why I should have to face criminal prosecution for defending myself and my family from home invaders intent on robbing from me and my family, injuring me and my family, or worse?
I will be waiting with bated breath for your logical, rational, well-thought-out arguments concerning those topics. (Actually, I lied – if I waited with bated breath for that, I would likely pass out a lot.)

Such measures have always had the powerful support of the Tennessee Firearms Association and the National Rifle Association. They’re said to stand a better chance of passing this year as a result of the new Republican majority in the General Assembly.

Right, and just because organizations who support individual rights and a citizen’s right to self defense also support these laws, they must be bad things, right? Wow. What a stunning display of journalistic reasoning powers…
Furthermore, if the Repulicans are going to better-defend my individual rights, more power to them.

But police annals are filled with too many arguments that escalated to deadly violence to justify further proliferation of handguns in public. The cost in lives would be too high.

Oh give me a bloody break. So you all recently reported on one, single, solitary handgun carry permit holder who happened to come unglued and illegally shoot someone. This isolated incident suddenly makes all handgun carry permit holders everywhere dangerous madmen? Of course not. If this flawed and faulty logic is any indication of the writing style of your paper, it is no wonder you have so few advertisers. Furthermore, do you have any idea how many law-abiding citizens’ lives are saved on a daily basis by the legal use of firearms in self defense? Now, compare that to the number of handgun carry permit holders flying off the handle (and actually do your job as a journalist), and get back to me when you are done.
*pants*
Good grief. The sheer quantity of pants-shitting hysterics throughout this editorial is absolutely amazing. No facts. No logic. No rational argument. Just “OMGGUNSISEVIL!!!111!!1one!!11″ Seriously, how did the editors at the Commercial Appeal actually get the job? Or was this newspaper always this pathetic?
As a recap, you can find my letter to most of the staff of the Commercial Appeal here, a listing of most of the rest of the sites throughout the internet who have called them on the carpet for their invasion of law-abiding citizens’ privacy here (though if I omitted anyone, please let me know), a reciprocal database of the Commercial Appeal’s staff here (which will be taken down as soon as they take down their handgun carry permit holder database), and contact information for their few advertisers here.
I really do not think they quite realized what they got themselves into…
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