On Sunday, Roanoke Times editorial writer Christian Trejbal decided in the spirit of the “Sunshine Laws” and to show the kind of information that you can obtain under it, that it would be appropriate to post a database of all holders of Concealed Carry Permits in Virginia, and write a rather…interesting…column to go along with it. I’m sure happy to know he puts sex offenders in the same category as CCP holders. The database has since been removed, ostensibly to have it “verified for accuracy” by the Virginia State Police.
Now, I do not have a concealed carry permit, as I do not even own a gun at this time. In the future, it is highly likely I will have both. I have friends who have guns and CCP’s, and I don’t think it is the Roanoke Times business to be throwing their names and addresses out there, even if it IS public data that can be obtained with a little legwork. Should I ever have a concealed carry permit, I feel that no one needs to know besides my family and the authorities that issued the permit.
This entire situation seriously infuriated me, and I did something I only reserve for when I am REALLY angry - I got in touch with my state representatives. Yesterday I faxed off a letter to Senator Ken Cuccinelli, II (R) and Delegate Dave Marsden (D), simply asking if there was some way that a balance could be achieved between the FOIA/Sunshine Laws and citizen privacy in this matter.
To be honest, I wasn’t even sure I’d get a response, or if it would be anything more than a “we got your fax” form letter. My phone rang today, and it was Delegate Marsden. We had a good conversation, and he agreed this was an issue and that he could definitely “get behind” doing something to protect citizen privacy when it comes to this. He said he supports the CCP process, as it requires folks to actually work for it and he couldn’t think of a reason that anyone should be able to get the entire list as the Mr. Trejbal did, nor any real reason that you’d need to know if anyone in particular has a CCP, given that you can have a gun and no CCP. He is going to get in touch with Legislative Services and try and get the ball rolling for the next session. Even though that will be a little while, he says it’s better to get started now, and said he would get back in contact with me in a couple weeks.
So, it never hurts to get in touch with the reps, even if you’re not on the same side of the political fence on everything.
