Treating gun owners like sex offenders in the name of "sunshine"

Excerpt from Michelle Malkin

Last Sunday, its columnist Christian Trejbal published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the New River Valley under the sanctimonious guise of "Sunshine Week:"

Today is the start of Sunshine Week, the annual week in which we reflect on the importance of open government and public records. To mark the occasion, I want to take you on an excursion into freedom of information land. We're going to find out who in the New River Valley has a concealed handgun permit. I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It's nobody's business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone's business.

There are good reasons the records are open to public scrutiny. People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box. Employers might like to know if employees are bringing weapons to the office. And all Virginians have a stake in checking that their government is not making mistakes, for example, by issuing permits to convicted felons. Open records allow the media or any private citizen to check.

Trejbal denied that exposing concealed carry permit holders was "about being for or against guns." But he exposed his true agenda when he compared law-abiding gun owners to...sex offenders:

A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not

He showed reckless disregard for the safety of the license holders and reckless disregard for accuracy. In his column, he admitted that he knew some of the information he had obtained was inaccurate:

Read more here




Review: "Armed America": "Did you know that in New York City through 1969 virtually all the public high schools had riflery teams? Thousands of students carried their rifles on subways, buses and streets on their way to school, when they went to practice in the afternoon and on their way home. And until 1963, all commercial pilots were required to carry guns and were allowed to carry guns until 1987. Gun laws have certainly changed over time. ... Clayton Cramer's terrific new book, 'Armed America,' shows that, in fact, gun ownership has been deeply woven into this country's fabric since the colonial period."