Sunday, March 18, 2007

Gun Fun

While considering whether to carry a gun, I've been doing some research that includes becoming familiar with local gun issues. Wow, there is a low-key war in this country between gun owners and gun grabbers that is fascinating! Last week, a guy named Christian Trejbal wrote an opinion column for the Roanoke Times about "open government." As part of the article, this guy thought it necessary to publish on the paper's web site a list of 135,000 Virginians who have concealed carry permits -- just as an example of open government, mind you. The list included people's names and addresses. It was like setting off a nuclear bomb. The paper deleted the list the very next day. What they did not consider, or did not care about, is that such a list could be used by abusive spouses or stalkers to track down their victims. It could also be used by criminals to identify homes that have guns in them that could be stolen. We also have a little problem in the DC metro area with criminals killing trial witnesses. Even people who don't carry guns were upset because now, a criminal could just consult the list and find that they were defenseless. Some women who were hiding from abusive husbands said they would now have to move -- again. And, it didn't help that the name and address of the Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court was published. The result of this stupid and mean-spirited move is that the VA legislature is going to consider next year whether to either make the concealed carry list private or to eliminate gun permits entirely. Wouldn't that upset the weasel who published the column in the first place -- knowing that because of him any law abiding citizen of Virginia could carry a gun with no regulation whatsoever?

4 comments:

Mark said...

I have just been informed that it is actually common in Virginia for newspapres to publish lists of gun owners in Virginia. My fiancee, who has lived in Virginia all her life, says the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star, publishes the entire list every few months or so.

Their reasoning is that the list is public record anyway, and that anyone who wants to view the list can go search it out at the courthouse.

She owns a gun. She said she didn't even have to take the test. She only mentioned what street she lived on and they gave her the permit.

Lone Ranger said...

Yes, the Fredericksburg Freelance-Press and the King George
Journal-Press do it. But this fiasco has drawn the attention of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a state gun rights group. They have given those papers two days to reconsider their policy or they'll rain fire down on their heads too with demonstrations, sponsor boycotts, etc.

Tonto said...

In this day and age I understand POSSIBLY a published list with NAMES but to include addresses is ridiculous and serves NO public purpose to keep it public!!!...go ahead and keep their addresses but kept privately.

These people are not child molesters or criminals so why do we need their addresses?? but just a list of names is not much better but I can understand that.

Nowadays with credit theft etc. you are not even suppose to list your year of birth near your name!!! AND SHRED YOUR TRASH...SO by publishing a list of names and addresses in a paper for any loser to find who wouldn't take the trouble of looking up in public records...makes no sense...isn't the name enough anyway? Good grief!

DAKOTARANGER said...

Tonto, the thing is according to Roe v. Wade we have the right to privacy. What I have on my hip is my business, not my neighbors. You wouoldn't print a list of women that had abortions because of Roe.

I say keep government out of our holsters!!!


Ok now that I have that out of my system, the newspaper published LAW ABIDING CITIZENS names that have passed a stringent background check and testing.

If they wanted to do something special for Sunshine week they should publish the names and addresses of sex offenders, muggers,drunk drivers, or murderers. By violating the civl rights and Constitutional rights of law abiding citizens they are acting no different than the USSR.