I’ve said before that no gun owner ever complained about permits being public record until newspapers decided to be bozos and publish lists of permit holders. If the Brady Campaign and MAIG were smart, they’d be the first on the phone to these papers telling them to knock it off. I would have no problem with papers iterating through the permits finding and reporting on people who legitimately should not have them. But that’s not what they do. That’s what we would call real reporting, and no newspaper has the money to do that these days.
But why should the Bradys be against publishing? Because that will create a backlash that will cause the law to change.
Thursday, a House committee voted 11-0 to keep information about gun permits from being released to the public — information The Indianapolis Star has used to document how guns have fallen into violent hands.
The NRA lobbyist for Indiana is Ashley Varner, mentioned in the article, who used to handle NRA’s media relations with bloggers when she was working in ILA’s Public Affairs office. A lot of us bloggers know her, so I think I can speak for us all when I say “Go get em Ashley!”
Yes, having Ashley work for us here in Indiana has definitely been a boon for our local gun rights movement. I do believe the best way to describe her performance is “kicking ass and taking names”.
I am pleased to see this progress.
Quite frankly … if there are issues regarding felons receiving permits, it’s a flaw of the permitting system. I am not sure it behooves public access to permitting data simply so anti-gunners can point out faults with the system. Trouble is, they simply use it to editorialize on the dangers of concealed carry in general. They don’t want the system corrected … they want it eliminated.
Eventual expansion of VT-style carry would eliminate a great amount of this.
Our Rendezvouser Ashley?! Great going girl!!
Count me as the rule that proves the exception. It’s true I never protested the fact that gun permits were public record before newspapers started acting like bozos, but that was because until then I had naively assumed they weren’t public. AFAIK no newspaper ever published home addresses of everyone in their state who held driver licenses, but fat a lot of good that did Rebecca Schaeffer.