Collegiate Times

Well done. Unfortunately, most of the arguments from people opposed to the free exercise of the Second Amendment rely on emotion. Such people and are not inclined to be swayed by facts or logic.

This argument is weak. Someone's right to privacy ends when they start a business, make a modification to their home, are involved in a lawsuit, speak to a governing body, apply for a driver's license, get a phone line, etc. The only difference is that this involves a gun. Why do I not have a right to know who might shot me?

Are you kidding me anonymous? You want the right to know who might shoot you? Then go to a jail and take down names of CRIMINALS who are to be released soon. Permit holders are NOT the criminals who are going to shoot you. Do yourself a favor and educate yourself before you open your mouth again.

Anonymous, why are you treating law-abiding citizens as if they were hardened criminals? People get permits to protect themselves and their loved ones, not to go around senselessly shooting people. The only time a permit holder would ever even think about pointing a gun at you would be if you were pointing a gun at them. It's a life or death measure, not a toy.

The records should be as accessible as drivers' license information. Gun rights defenders always argue cars are more dangerous than guns (correct) so why should be limited to license information on something less dangerous.

So there has never been a permit holder who has committed a crime with a gun?

Let's take England for an example here: former gun owners were required to register their weapons and their lovely government kept track of this information and eventually used it against gun owners by disarming the entire country. What happened then, you ask? Gun crime sky rocketed!! But how can that be if all the guns are gone?! Oh, the law-abiding citizens were the only ones who followed the laws...criminals didn't care, so they kept their guns. Wow. What a concept. Now why do you think gun owners in America want their privacy and freedom?

Anonymous, there are no guarantees in life about ANYTHING. But research has shown, time and time again, that permit holders are 14% less likely than the general public to commit any crime and 5% less likely to commit a violent crime. And of the 50,000 some permits that were issued in Virginia in 2007, you know how many were revoked because of any crimes (felonies or misdemeanors), stalking incidents, etc? ZERO. It is true that there are no guarantees in life, but that applies to ANYTHING.

I'm allowed to know if my neighbor is putting in a swiming pool, but I'm not allowed to know if he has guns in his pockets while standing in front of my house on the sidewalk?

I, anonymous, expect you, 2nd amendment believers, to submit all your information to a government database for my leisure reading. However, I will post anonymously, so that nobody knows my name as I use the first amendment.

If permit holders are such great law abiding non-violent citizens, why does it seem that they are embarrassed and ashamed to let people know they carry a gun? Why not take pride in being recognized as being a responsible gun owner? There are public databases about campaign donations, land ownership, government salaries, even Dean's List. There obviously needs to be restrictions on the 2nd amendment; and no where does it say you have the right to carry a handgun without a permit. It seems entirely reasonable that permit application data is disclosed as part of the 'freedom of information' movement.

"The records should be as accessible as drivers' license information. Gun rights defenders always argue cars are more dangerous than guns (correct) so why should be limited to license information on something less dangerous." That would be because gun rights are protected by the Constitution, whereas, as any judge will tell you, driving is a privilege. "There obviously needs to be restrictions on the 2nd amendment." Perhaps you should look up "infringed." As in, "shall not be infringed."

Eric Wood: first of all, since when were privacy and embarrassment the same thing? And second, why in the world would I be proud to announce that I carry a concealed weapon if I've been raped and mugged before and am carrying to keep that from happening again? I certainly don't want the criminals who see me as a target to know my weapon of choice so that they can just get a bigger one to take me out with. Or better yet, they can try to break into my house while I'm gone and steal my weapons to use against me. Great idea Eric, great idea.

The set of 'Responsible gun owners' and the set of 'gun owners with CCW permits' are not equal, Eric - keep in mind, there's leakage on both ends of the spectrum. Lots of responsible gun owners don't have CCW permits, and I'm sure a handful of irresponsible owners do have CCW permits. That sort of thing tends to happen when you let a bureaucracy with only limited interest in individuals run a program like this. Be that as it may, what is the compelling interest behind making public the list of CCW permit holders? It seems like the intent here is to specifically target and demonize a group of people you'd never have known existed otherwise. By the way, the FOIA is a federal law which compels the federal government to release certain public records which don't constitute a compelling threat to our national security interests - ie, they aren't obligated to tell you about the terrorists they intercepted planting a bomb, but they are obligated to tell you how much of your money they spent on useless crap. How is CCW in Virginia a FOIA issue?

"the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You have the right to own and carry a gun(s) but it says nothing about keeping gun owner information private. It just that CCW permit holders want anonymity as an extension to that right. Frankly, anyone sane enough to do the research won't bother you and a paranoid schizophrenic (last mass shootings) won't care. A concern if you are a woman being stalked, but you can be tracked down just as easily with Intellius.

Bottom line is that the Roanoke Times published the list of CCW permit holders in an attempt to intimidate them because they disagree with gun rights. Yes, CCW permit holders want privacy – that’s the whole point behind concealed carry. If they wanted to be public about it they’d simply carry openly, which requires no permit. The downside of this is that it tends to make irrational people uneasy to see a handgun. I fail to see the compelling public interest in publicizing CCW permit holders’ information. As I have said before, the real outrage is that one is required to get a permit to exercise a Constitutional right in the first place. The CT’s position on gun rights is well known and their advocating for public access of a CCW database is a thinly-veiled attempt to intimidate, just like the Roanoke Times’ stunt. Unfortunately for them, while permit holders would prefer their private information remains private, the kind of person who bothers to jump through all of the hoops the Commonwealth requires is generally not so easily deterred.

Hey anonymous, I also didn't give you the right to make ignorant comments on a school newspaper without using your real name. Does that mean you can't get it? Get over it.. YOU wanted your privacy in posting this comment, WE want our privacy in defending ourselves. Hypocritical people annoy me..

Anonymous, you're reason we want our names to be hidden, we're tired of your irrational nonsense. We just want to own our guns without you knowing so we don't have to deal with your reasonless hysterics. You mention that you feel you have a right to know whether your neighbor is carrying a gun. No you don't, if your neighbor wants to carry a gun or do anything, you have no right to do anything about it until it starts to affect you personally. Carrying a concealed firearm isn't even obvious to you, by definition, much less impacting your life in any way. You should ask yourself why you have such a dread of firearms. It's honestly pretty sad and pathetic that you apparently sit around and think about how much danger law abiding gun owners are putting you in.

I think a truly interesting study would be to compare the number of new STD infections per year with the number of casualties of gun violence due to CCW permit holders (or, perhaps, even expand that to all gun carriers). The reason behind this is simple - if you want to contend a right to privacy exists, you've got to be willing to have it cover pretty much everything you do. If you want to use the 'public's right to know' escape clause, you need to be able to present a compelling public interest in order to override your privacy clause. Now, we all know that your medical information is confidential - but I'd contend that the rate of STD infection in this country (and globally) presents a compelling public interest in ensuring the diseases don't get spread. So what's the fundamental difference between that and a CCW permit? Philosophically, there is none - if your medical information is private, you are carrying a potentially dangerous disease which presents a public health risk. . . .

Chip: Perhaps you should look up "arms", as in "the government shall infringe upon your right to bear chemical, biological, and nuclear arms." If you are outraged that you need a permit to carry a concealed weapon, I assume you are also outraged that you need to become a registered voter before you can vote. Sarah: Your idea that being known as a concealed weapon carrier will increase the likelihood of being target of crime is backwards from logic and an insult to our reason. Kyle: I never brought up the FOIA, I just referenced the spirit of it. If taxpayers finance a database, then those taxpayers should have access to that database (except for national security concerns). Medical information was not collected with public funds, so the public should not have access to that. Besides, people who contracted an STD did so unwillingly; people who got a CCW permit did so willingly and knowing that it was to be publicly disclosed.

Eric: I did not say that simply being a concealed carry permit holder will make me a target for crime. If I'm carrying to protect myself from my abusive ex-husband, however, that's a different story. Sorry, but I don't want him to know that I'm carrying! And I also don't want him to have my address and information that I've changed numerous times because of him!

Perhaps YOU should look up "arms." In common usage, the term arms generally refers to firearms or other personal weapons. NBC devices are almost universally referred to as weapons. You still never answered the question as to what the compelling public interest is in making a database of CCW holders is. Your point about medical records is also ridiculous. What does the funding source have to do with anything? I’m in the Army; by your logic, my medical records should be accessible to the general public because taxpayer money pays for my medical care. Do only people with private health insurance deserve privacy? Additionally, one of the 34,958,156 problems (more or less) President Obama intends to fix with his first budget is digitizing ALL medical records. Once this occurs, will the public have a right to access them? After all, they’ll be publically funded. Incidentally, I don’t have a CCW permit, but what business is it of yours if I did?

Chip, you beat me to the punch only because I can't use my work computer to post comments here. Your point about public funding was EXACTLY the counterargument I was planning on offering. Eric, the spirit of FOIA was in making it harder for the government to keep secrets from the public - and its most direct application is usually in the disclosure of budgets and actions of Congress. FOIA has nothing whatsoever to do with personal interests - the fact that the government maintains a database of certain things, with CCW permits as an example but fingerprints and Social Security Numbers as other notable examples, doesn't necessarily imply that it is in the purview of FOIA, or the 'public's right to know,' for that matter, to demand that the records be exposed for all to access. Voter registration is an invalid point as well, since voter registration establishes a residence and jurisdiction. That is to say, you have to register to vote so that other citizens can be assured that you are actually supposed to have that right.

Sounds like a lot of these CC people like fish sticks.

Wanna bet all these people claiming they have a "right to privacy" would also be the first to point out the constitution doesn't say anything about separation of church and state nor abortion?

Actually, the Constitution is very explicit about the nature of the Separation of Church and State (CONGRESS shall make no law establishing a religion, nor preventing the free exercise thereof), and the Constitution also quite explicitly omits entirely the concept of abortion. The 'right to privacy' was established in Griswold v. Connecticut based on very tenuous Constitutional grounds (the 'umbrella of protections' principle), which is odd considering that Amendment IX would have been a much more legitimate legal justification. Even so, Amendment X makes it pretty explicit that the Federal Constitution only 'trickles down' to the states when it specifically says to do so (like in terms of coining money, declaring war, maintaining a standing army, conducting diplomacy, etc.) - but we've had fairly incompetent SCOTUS justices for the last century or so. . .

But to address the point more directly, the question here isn't a 'right to privacy' issue a priori. The issue really has more to do with whether it is ethical for the government to disclose information about private citizens without a truly compelling reason to do so. Nobody has challenged the publishing of the list on legal grounds - but that fact that something is legal doesn't necessarily imply that it is 'the right thing to do.' I tend to err on the side of a personal expectation of privacy in such circumstances - wouldn't you?

My main point of contention is that the state government took information that was publicly available and then made it secret. My understanding is that this CCW database was open to the public for many years without any problems. When Kaine signed this bill, he removed information from the public domain with the intention to create a less informed citizenry. I believe that is a step in the wrong direction.

The problem is that the CCW database is made up exclusively of information about private citizens. The "less informed citizenry" argument is specious for that reason. It isn’t the same as the government keeping its own activities secret. Using your logic, making medical records public would create a better informed citizenry because we’d have more information available. In addition, the fact that the information was “open to the public for many years” is irrelevant. Slavery and voting rights exclusively for white landed males were the law “for many years,” but that doesn’t make it right.

Medical records should not be made public because of doctor-patient confidentiality. No such confidentiality agreement exists for firearms or CCW, but that is besides the point. In fact, when those people applied for the permit, they should have been fully aware that this was not a private act. The CCW database was not much different than other databases of land ownership or political campaign contributions, which you seem to have no problem with.

Again, what is the compelling public interest in making the database public? What business is it of yours if I do or do not have a CCW permit?

I don't like the fact that my property records are available on a publically-accessable database. I want my privacy protected. I don't want my medical records available for the same reason. The compelling public interest in making political campaign contributions public is transparency in government. I want to know which politicians are being bought off. For example, it's nothing if not interesting that Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was the largest recipient of AIG campaign contributions. Who then authored an ammendment in the "stimulus" bill which specifically authorized bonuses in a way that seem suspiciously tailored for AIG executives. Coincidence, I'm sure. Personally, I'm OK with the bonuses - they were contractually obligated - but it sure looks fishy the way it went down.

Eric, you can't have it both ways here with the confidentiality argument. If you are a true supporter of the 'right to privacy' conjured by the Burger court (I think. . .), then that umbrella of protections extends to more than your abortions but also to pretty much anything you, as a private citizen, opt to do. You use the notion of doctor-patient confidentiality as a justification for your argument, when the right to that confidentiality is not a priori granted. Should personal incomes be public knowledge? How about Social Security numbers? Your credit history? The only reason the government has to maintain ANY given database is to ensure that people are not wrongly accused of something to which they are otherwise entitled - the CCW database exists NOT as a service to the public, but rather as a service to CCW permit holders so that, in the event that they are arrested and charged with illegally concealing a weapon, it can be readily shown that they are entitled to do so. I don't hate the government by any means, but I sure as hell don't trust it when it wants to compile a bunch of information about me 'for my own good.' In this age of the internet, that information has a tendency to leak out every so often. . .

It's just another database, like every other government database. Get over it. You could replace the word "gun" or any variant thereof in your sentence with the word "amateur radio", and it still works. 1. Amateur Radio operators in other countries have coordinated terrorist attacks over this service. 2. The government (FCC) keeps an active database of all Ham operators, and their addresses. ---- Does this mean that I should feel my rights are violated? not particularly. -- You aren't angered by privacy, you are angered that the 2nd amendment is interpreted differently by different people. You should look at the database as a happy thing, say one of your neighbors looks you up and sees you in it, he/she will know who to go to when they feel threatened!

How in the hell did my comment on students or teachers being permitted to carry on campus violate the rules. If any deletion should be going on here it should be erasing your current god awful staff...all of them. In fact, I think I am going to write an letter in next week suggesting that your staff deserve privacy and should withhold their names from future articles because nobody should have to have their name associated with the crap the CT prints 4 days a week. And now that I think about it, how does the ct manage to blow so much when you are only printing half the week?

Right, Matt. I'll be looking forward to pulling up the SSN database and making sure I have yours correct when I open some credit cards in your name. All databases are not created equal, and the public's interest in each database is not equal. There's a significant difference between, say, the database of licensed dentists in a state, and the database of SSNs of citizens of a state. One list the public has a compelling interest in seeing (perhaps), and the other the public does not. Personally, I'd rather the government not have ANY databases and let it all be contracted out to private companies. When profit is the motive, things tend to be done to a far higher standard. . .

I got my concealed carry permit from Nerf when I was 10, I wonder if I'll end up in this database? 12 years with the Nerf Eagle Eye Dart Zag with light bulb night scope and extra nerf dart clip tucked into my pants and I've never had to use it. Hope I never do.

Let's hope that known of these gun/Nerf -carrying guys know SQL... then THEY will be the ones creating the databases. Then they get the power. Then they get the women.

all this talk with the comparison of pool permits, drivers licenses, and such.... and you kids are supposed to be the bright ones continuing your educations by taking advanced college courses? Where's the Constitutional Amendment that protects your right to own a pool, or drive a car? Suppose it was suggested that everyone here was required to add their social security number, driver license number, or student I.D. number to every comment that is posted here? How many comments do you suppose we'd have?

There is a Constitutional Amendment that allows for the freedom of speech, but yet anything I say in a public venue can be recorded, and is open to everyone. So why not allow the same for someone who gets a CC permit?

what is the best place to carry a gun? i tried sticking it in my pocket, but then there was no space for my wallet and my bag of skittles. so i stuck it in the front so the waistband of my pants could hold it, but i was worried it would go off and shoot my dong. right now it's tucked in my sock. help, anyone, please! where do you keep your guns?

There is a Constitutional Amendment that allows for the freedom of speech, but yet anything I say in a public venue can be recorded, and is open to everyone. So why not allow the same for someone who gets a CC permit?------------------------------------------------------------ There's nothing that says you have to sign what you post here with your name, and address though... is there?

Conceal and carry is for noobs. Got my brandish and carry permit last week. I go to work swinging my AK like some kind of Somalian pirate every day now.

Exactly. A froum like this is A "concealed carry" version of the First Amendment. This post is addressed to those who want the names of carry permit holders released, yet sigN their names here as ANONYMOUS. In reality they they should be signing their names as HYPOCRITE.

What's a hypocrite? is that like a hypopotamus? I shot one of those once