Editorial: List of permit holders shouldn't be a secret

August 26, 2004
Toledo City Paper

"Morons" was all the letter said, but we knew immediately what had made the writer so angry.

The anonymous letter, actually an e-mail, was one of many angry missives directed at the City Paper after we made the list of concealed-carry permit holders in Lucas County available on our Web site. The list included permit holders’ names, dates of birth and counties of residence.

Responses by Chad D. Baus in blue:

The biggest complaint from these letter writers? That now people with permits to carry concealed weapons would be the victims of crime. They said we had just placed a figurative bull’s-eye on the hundreds of people on the list. Criminals would now know where to find guns to steal. Plus, we had violated the spirit of the exception granted to media agencies for access to the information.

The argument that criminals will suddenly descend on hundreds of homes in a weapons-stealing frenzy is suspect at best. If, as many gun-rights proponents argue, criminals stay away from people who are armed, why would they chance crossing paths with a homeowner who has a firearm at the ready?

Ask any law enforcement officer if criminals want to risk facing ANY homeowner, armed or otherwise, and they will tell you "no". These same law enforcement experts will also say that criminals are well-known for casing their targets, figuring schedules for when they can expect the dwelling to be unoccupied. Criminals who want to steal guns are being aided by the Toledo City Paper by identifying their targets. Now all they have to do is wait until they leave home.

Another argument says the concealed-carry law gives all of us protection because criminals don’t know who’s packing heat. This gives the armed citizen the crucial element of surprise and makes criminals less likely to accost all citizens because anybody could be armed. But who’s to say that the publication of a list of permit holders changes that?

Wanna run that by us again?

When the Legislature passed the concealed-carry law, it allowed the press but not the general public access to the list of permit holders. The Cleveland Plain Dealer defended its printing of the list for several Cleveland-area counties in part by saying there shouldn’t be public-access exceptions for some parts of the public, meaning the press and not others.

That’s a reasonable argument. The government should not make certain people the custodians of public information at the exclusion of others. When a reporter requests information about a municipal budget or asks whether someone is being held at the local jail, he may be a journalist just doing his job, but he’s also gathering information that’s legally available to anyone. Access to the concealed-carry list may primarily be requested by media outlets, but regular citizens should enjoy the same access rights.

Sorry, folks but the General Assembly flat out disagrees. Our elected officials made the decision to pass a law which would protect the privacy of concealed handgun license-holders. At the demands of Gov. Taft, succeptible to arm-twisting by the Ohio Newspaper Association, they added an exception to the privacy clause for media. Upon passage, sponsors of the bill also expressed that publishing entire lists would be considered an abuse of the privilege, and cause for removal of the exception.

The concealed-carry law enjoys considerable support in Ohio as evidenced by the hate mail received by the City Paper and other media outlets that made the lists available, but the law doesn’t have universal support. Critics say keeping the identities of people who can carry weapons secret puts most Ohioans at risk. These critics want access to this information. Why should we deny them?

Because the Ohio General Assembly requests that you do.

Media outlets process tons of information. What makes it into print or onto a Web site should have some general news value beyond just being available. It’s the reason we don’t publish lists of streets or the names of all people employed by a city.

16 year-old drivers kill far more innocent people in Ohio than CHL-holders ever will. Has the newspaper ever published lists of these new drivers as a public service? What? That information is protected, you say? Indeed it is - the information was protected by the Federal government in the 1990's, after a stalker used the once-public information to track down and kill actress Rebecca Schaefer. One CHL-holder has already been ambused and killed just days after being listed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is not yet known if his attackers knew he was armed.

In the case of the concealed-carry list, we had access to the information, while average county residents did not because of a choice made by our legislators. As unreasonable as the printing of the list appears to some, we believe it’s more unreasonable to deny the bulk of Ohio’s population access to the most important commodity in our open society — information. It’s especially unreasonable when certain other members of society are given that access. The media is often accused of being elitist, but we shouldn’t allow government action to make that notion a reality.

The media is also often accused of being anti-gun, and anti-establishment, and your blatant abuse of this privilege proves that notion a reality.

We believe average residents can judge for themselves the value of the information in the concealed-carry lists.

It isn't average residents that victims of crime are worried about, folks. It is quite certain that criminals will also judge for themselves the value of this protected information. And that is what the General Assembly was concerned with when it passed this law.

Related Story: More than 600 Lucas Co. CHL-holders' names published by Toledo freebie rag