Gun Licensee Lists Published To Promote Renewal Legislation
January 20, 2007

by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor

One person’s privacy may be another’s secrecy. What’s the difference? Well, when many journalists use the word “secrecy” when referring to gunowners’ interests in sealing or restricting access to public records for concealed carry licenses for “privacy,” the word is designed to elicit an unfavorable image of gunowners.

It is comparable to another media favorite: “hidden,” as a substitute for “concealed.” Hidden and secrecy conjure in the public mind suspicions of evil intent. These word games are not objective journalism, but subjective. They reflect an anti-gun bias by a media that should be objective but frequently is not.

Privacy, secrecy and security are all linked. A handgun isn’t carried concealed, or hidden, with intent to deceive, but for security reasons. The handgun is concealed for the security of the law-abiding armed citizen, to prevent causing concern or panic among unarmed citizens and to keep predatory criminals from knowing which innocent prey might be a danger to criminal intent. When criminals know that one or more of a group of potential victims may be armed, but don’t know which ones, that is crime deterrence for the whole group.

Similarly, when licensees strive to keep their ownership of a concealed carry license private they do so for security reasons; their own personal security, the security of their property and their families. That is why they get so upset about newspapers publishing lists of concealed carry licensees. And that is why gunowners in many states which have recently enacted “shall-issue” concealed carry laws have striven to limit public access to the lists of licensees.

Newspapers Publish Lists
The whole subject arises again because at least two newspapers in New York state have recently published on-line lists of pistol licensees thinly justified as part of a story about the lack of a state system to track the deaths of license holders. Needless to say, gunowners in the lower Hudson Valley area of the state registered their complaints.

The Rockland Journal News, part of the Gannett Suburban Newspapers group and one of the ones which published the list, on Dec. 17 took note of the fact that handgun owners became irate over having names published on-line.

“Dozens of readers have taken issue with The Journal News over its decision to run a list of pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties as part of a wider investigative article, the newspaper reported.

“The names of more than 30,000 licensed handgun owners were posted on-line as part of ‘Falling Through the Cracks,’ the paper’s Dec. 10 report that found that thousands of registered handguns were unaccounted for because there is no system to secure the weapons of permit holders who die. The articles can be found by clicking the ‘Gun Control’ icon at: www.lohud.com.

“Some readers, particularly those on the list of licensed pistol owners, suggested that the newspaper erred in publishing the names. They said it may target their homes for theft, although the paper did not publish their home addresses,” The Journal News continued.

Some pistol owners remain irate at the newspaper, some are even more upset than the newspaper told its readers.

The Journal News said the lists were obtained through Freedom of Information Law requests. New York state pistol licenses are public records, as are the names and home addresses of all permit holders. The Journal News said it chose to withhold the street addresses, using only the names and municipalities where the license holders live.

“The Constitution gives people the right to own guns in this country, and it also gives people the right to know whether they own a gun or not,” said Henry Freeman, editor and vice president/news at The Journal News, responded to complaints. “This is a public record. People have a right to know that.

“We did take it into consideration and did not publish your street address, which is also public information.”

What Purpose?
The question I have for Freeman and other editors who want to publish the names of license holders is: Why? What useful purpose does it serve. The claim that it is somehow linked to keeping tabs on which licensees have died, doesn’t really wash.

New York state pistol licensees are among the state’s most law-abiding citizens. They have been photographed and fingerprinted, and those fingerprints have been checked against FBI and State Police data banks. Local police have spoken privately with the four character witness references supplied by the license applicants. Outside of the five counties which make up New York City plus Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, judges in the other 55 counties have also scrutinized the applications and the reports of investigators. And when the licensees were issued a license, they still had to be cleared through the National Instant Check System (NICS) before they could take possession of a handgun.

That’s certainly closer scrutiny of the character of pistol license holders than anyone practicing any trade or profession in the state, including journalists and politicians. If the newspapers in New York and other states were to run the lists announcing that the people named were the most squeaky clean and honorable in the respective state (without including addresses and without mentioning guns), I probably would not have a problem with their invasion of the security of those citizens. But that’s not what they did, not how they did it, and that’s not why they did it.

The Gannett Suburban newspapers claim that they published the lists in order to prove that New York state needs to do a better job of keeping pistol permit records up-to-date. That’s also the purpose claimed by lawmakers from the Lower Hudson Valley, when told The Journal News found that thousands of registered handguns were unaccounted for in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties because the list of permit holders is not kept current.

Outside of New York City plus Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties, pistol licenses issued in New York state’s 54 other counties are essentially good for life. They are marked “Good Until Revoked” when issued and the licensee is required to notify the state and county licensing office of any change in employment or residence.

In the case of the death of the licensee, the spouse or executors of the estate are required to surrender the license to the authorities, and either sell the registered handguns to another licensee or a firearms dealer, or surrender the handguns to the authorities.

Renewal Agenda
In its investigation, The Journal News claimed it found that there is no system to alert authorities when a permit holder dies, leaving it up to what it called an “honor system” that the family itself notify officials that a permit is no longer active.

However, that has not proved to be a problem throughout the almost 100-year history of the Sullivan Law, which is why the law was never changed before.

But what The Journal News and anti-gunners in and out of government really want is renewable licenses throughout the state. Currently, only Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk counties and New York City require pistol licenses to be renewed.

Renewable licenses will increase the licensing fees, increase the bureaucracy and cost of administering the system at both the state and county levels, make pistol or revolver ownership in the state much more onerous, even causing people to lose work more frequently, and do nothing to reduce criminal misuse of firearms.

There will be many new legislative proposals advanced again this year in Albany; this is not the first time that license renewals statewide has been proposed. Even The Journal News, which published comments from various state Assembly and Senate members on the issue, realizes that not all lawmakers are in favor of changes, and some would prefer a verification system other than renewals.

With a new governor, who can tell what will happen?
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