Bill to be Filed to Protect Arkansas Concealed Carry Permit Holders Privacy Rights
02 24 2009, 16:48
UPDATE - HB-1623 has been filed. Representatives offering the bill are Stewart, Woods, Adcock, Barnett, Cole, Flowers, House, Cheatham, Kerr, M.Martin, Nix, Perry, Sample, G.Smith, Wells.
ARCCA has learned that a bill will be filed Wednesday by Representative Stewart to protect the privacy rights of Arkansas Concealed Carry holders from further abuses.
The Bill will be modeled after the Tennessee Bill.
This is a good bill, it makes gun-carry permit records confidential and levies fines for publishing them. As soon as we have a number for the bill and a link I'll put it in this post as an update so you can read it.
I'll let you know more as soon as I can. In the meantime you need to contact your Representatives and respectfully request that they become co-sponsors of this legislation. There is going to probably be some stiff opposition to it because of the newspaper industry here.
The more co-sponsors we have the better our chances are.
UPDATE - Arkansas Times defends. / KARN Radio interview. (Max faces outraged callers) "............who the hell do you think you are?!"
UPDATE - KARK picks up the story (with video), "How much privacy do you have when you have a concealed weapon? Recently, a list of Arkansans who carry concealed weapons was published on-line. While some think it's useful, other thinks it could be dangerous.
These lists have been published in several states. Recently, in Arkansas on the Arkansas Times website. They obtained the list legally and say it's important to know who has a gun. They say those wanting to be protected should be exempt from the list. Regardless, a house member filed a bill Tuesday protecting the privacy of those who hold permits.
"The whole idea of a concealed handgun is so people won't know you have it," Representative Randy Stewart(D) of Kirby said. Representative Randy Stewart received several calls after a list of the around 65,000 Arkansans who hold concealed carry permits was published on-line.
"Over the weekend I got several distraught phone calls. They were from people with concealed handgun permits. They were upset their information was on the web," Stewart said.
Since then, the list was taken down, but Stewart wants to make sure this doesn't happen again, mainly for safety reasons.
"Some of these are women who have protective custody order from x-spouses; they now know where they live," Stewart said. Tuesday, Stewart filed a bill that would protect the privacy of those with concealed handgun permits.
"It will still be available to law enforcement, or for any court proceeding, but will not be out there to put on a website for public information," Stewart said.
He says publishing the names and addresses of people with concealed carry permits, is taking part of their liberty.
“I think we're just getting to much information out there that is of critical and sensitive matter and the bill I will file will attempt to prevent that," Stewart said.
A similar bill was recently filed in Tennessee. For 12 years, Tennessee legislators rejected similar legislation, but this year, they've added a fine for unauthorized publication and they say this time it could pass. The bill here in Arkansas should go before the legislature this week."
Al Tompkins of the media training institute Poynter.org seems to think the Tennesee Commercial Appeal overstepped its bounds when it published a list of Tennessee permit holders last week.
This from Poynter.org, "Journalists bring this kind of public backlash on themselves when they publish intrusive data without revealing their thinking about why it is important. If there is reason to believe that a lot of felons have gun permits, then explain that and go aggressively after the story. If a candidate who opposes guns also carries one, then it is fair to report such a story based on the state permit registry. But too often, journalists just publish lists and data because it is easy to do.
It is true that sometimes journalists invade privacy. It is part of what we do. We name names, we poke our noses where people sometimes don't want us. But we should also respect privacy whenever possible. The invasion we cause should always be outweighed by the public service that results from the publication of such information. When journalists publish databases such as the gun permit database, we should explain why we are doing it."
They can all blame the Arkansas Times when the groaning starts.
From the Tolbert Report - Max Brantley Faced the Firing Squad This Morning on KARN
From The Arkansas Project - Lawmaker Moves to Protect Concealed Carry Info
