CHP on the Internet
by Jon Walker
An article in the Roanoke Times was passed onto me by someone who lives in Roanoke. The article is titled: Shedding light on concealed handguns by Christian Trejbal who claims:
"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."
Actually, that's an invalid argument. The records, for the most part, require some effort to obtain, and thus are protected from casual access by the public at large. The conceal carry records were not readily available on-line since, after all, we're talking about people who are obeying the law and fortunately the task of putting everyone's total life onto the net is far from complete. In the article he claims to have no bias, but one may wonder when they read:
"This is not about being for or against guns. There are plenty of reasons people choose to carry weapons: fear of a violent ex-lover, concern about criminals or worry that the king of England might try to get into your house."
The "king of England" remark clearly, to a reasonable individual, demonstrates a bias against the rights of gun owners. Mr. Trejbal seems to believe that government is there to protect us. Unfortunately he, like many, forget that democracies are a contrivance of man and therefore are subject to change or dissolution at the whim of man. The fact that the United States has the second amendment is quite possibly the most powerful argument as to why we are still a democracy. He then blithely compares concealed handgun permit holders with sex offenders by saying:
"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."
Sadly he seems to forget that sex offenders are convicted criminals and there are some very weak arguments and strong laws that mandate that this information be posted on the internet. Fortunately for us, there are no such laws regarding lists of concealed carry holders who by definition are law abiding citizens. Mr. Trejbal seems to think such people need to be exposed. His seemingly obvious distrust towards a class of people makes me wonder who's next? Will he now write about people who buy liquor, vote, or even hate the letter M? Mr. Trejbal seems to demonstrated his ignorance and loathing for the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment, and those who obey the laws of the Commonwealth.
His story is thinly disguised as his quest to obtain, through the Freedom of Information Act, a list of all 135,789 concealed carry gun owners in the state. He then provides a link to a Roanoke Times form that lets you search, by locality and last name, for those with concealed carry permits. One might believe he could provide cover by arguing that he's doing a service by providing this information as-is to illustrate government's obvious lack of concern over what personal information is released. Again, this is a specious argument as no locality has placed this information onto the web, rather he has. The fault for this is his and the people who own Roanoke times web site.
Actually, one could contend that he did this to make gun owners duck and cover. However, in reality, I wonder if perhaps he's just opened himself and the Roanoke times up to a very large lawsuit should anyone be hurt or killed based on this information.
As far as being disturbing to anyone, the only things I found disturbing was:
1) There are only 135,789 concealed carry holders in the state.
2) His editor seems to think this is real reporting.
3) That the state police maintain such a dirty list (lots of misspellings).
4) That I was not initially disturbed knowing the state police maintains a master list.
I've corrected the last point, I'm not surprised by the second or third and am actively working to improve (upward) the numbers of the first point. Unfortunately, I suspect people are going to take offense to Mr Trejbal's tone more than the information he provides. His "quest for truth" has actually enlightened me and provided me with two really valuable things to act upon. The first is that we all need to be a little more concerned about anyone who maintains a master list of law abiding citizens and that for only $100 I can get a list of people who need to be approached by the Libertarian Party.
By the way, Leonard, you need to reapply for your permit, it expires in July.
News Article: http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/trejbal/wb/108160
Permit Database: http://www.roanoke.com/gunpermits/
Jon Walker
Chairman
Richmond Libertarian Party
www.RichmondLP.com