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| [Ben]: | Editorial Shown to be Utter Bologna by Area Blog | Discuss This [0 comments so far] View Comments | Nate recently made me aware of an editorial response to complaints that a newspaper had made available a web-based system for publishing information about people who possess carry permits in Tennessee.
This calls for a Fisking.
| Inside the Newsroom: Case for gun-permit listings trumps emotional opposition |
We begin with the title asserting that opposition to this newspaper's case is based solely on emotion and is thus "trumped" by the superior logic of the decision they've made. Let's keep this argument against emotional rational in mind.
| Misunderstandings with people who carry guns can turn ugly. |
This statement in the article sets a scene. There is a clear implication that simply disagreeing with someone who carries a gun might result in conflict. This plays well on a number of levels. On the one hand it paints the picture of folks who carry guns as unstable. On a deeper level, it implies that disagreeing with someone who carries a gun may lead to gun play.
This past week it has been ugly at the newspaper, after passionate gun owners latched onto three very wrong ideas about why The Commercial Appeal's Web site now lists all those in Tennessee who have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
-- Wrong idea No. 1: The newspaper is against the Second Amendment that gives Americans the right to keep and bear arms.
-- Wrong idea No. 2: The newspaper is invading people's privacy by posting the permit-to-carry-guns list on its Web site.
-- Wrong idea No. 3: Posting the list is empowering criminals. |
Let's examine Mr. Peck's reasoning as to why these are such wrong ideas.
The Tennessee Firearms Association and others have fanned the frenzy against our Web site posting of the permit-to-carry list. Pro-gun groups orchestrated a protest campaign that has spread nationwide. By late last week, Commercial Appeal executives were receiving as many as 600 e-mails a day, along with dozens of phone calls at home, at work and on their cell phones. Maps to their houses, with ominous warnings, had been posted online.
Our crime? Putting up a Web-only database that allows people to search by name or ZIP code for those who have a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Tennessee. The list came from the Tennessee Department of Safety and is available to anyone who wants it, simply by contacting the agency's office. The state of Tennessee, to this point, has decided that the right to carry a concealed weapon comes with the responsibility of agreeing to have a public record of who is packing. |
Yadda, yadda ... just back story and appeal to authority.
| The newspaper did edit the state's publicly available list. We removed street addresses and birth dates from the information to lessen any chance that somebody might use information on the list for identify theft. As a result, our posted list of permit holders for concealed weapons has less information about individuals than the phone book, your voter registration form or the credit card you use to buy dinner at a restaurant. |
Like it or not, carrying a gun is (or should be) an intensely personal thing. Making a comparison to other public information is a poor argument because while the information about the individuals that is returned by their system may be innocuous, the real issue is the identification of which individuals are licensed to carry a firearm. Thus, this entire bit about how responsible the newspaper is being is missing the point.
No matter. The posting of this list somehow conjured up deep fears about personal safety, criminals and the media being soft on crime and hard on the Second Amendment.
This newspaper isn't soft on crime. We know that crime is the No. 1 issue that needs to be addressed in Memphis. We urge public officials to get tough on crime. We back Republican-led efforts to take a hard line on gun crimes and repeat offenders. Only last week we gave prominent coverage to Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton's call for a tougher gun-offender registry in Tennessee. We hope that proposal comes to pass so we can post the names of all who commit gun offenses and the names of all those arrested for carrying a gun without a permit. |
Does anyone else see a trend here? A gun permit database. A gun offense database. A carrying without a permit database. The focus seems to be not on crime in general but on guns in general. Whatever the newspaper's stance on crime, there does seem to be a focus on firearms, and not a neutral focus either.
| And we're not enabling criminals by posting the list of Tennesseans who have carry permits. |
So you say.
| Think about it for a minute. Many, if not most, households in Memphis possess a firearm. So you don't really need a list to find a house with a gun. |
This doesn't really make sense. A criminal may have a better than even chance of finding a gun in a random house, but if they're looking for a gun wouldn't a permit-holder list save them time and trouble? Whatever. Just remember this bit, because we will be coming back to it in a moment.
| And, if criminals were checking the permit-to-carry list before picking a target, would they likely choose a house where they know the owner could be carrying a gun, or would they more likely steer away from that house to avoid a possible confrontation? |
This depends no a large number of variables. If a criminal wanted to obtain a gun, hitting the house of a permit holder after they left their home might be a fantastic way of getting some guns. On the other hand, you're right, they might just pick another house to burgle - which negates an element of the umbrella of protection that gun owners can bring. So instead of risking that Bubba is going to come home early and waste them with a .357, maybe they'll just go take Grandma Jenkins' silver ... unless Grandma Jenkins is on that list. Is giving criminals that kind of intell really a good thing?
| Neither logic nor common sense is carrying the day on this issue. |
Clearly.
Again, clearly. In a minute we'll get a heaping helping from Mr. Peck.
After listening to dozens of phone calls, it seems that the issue, for them, boils down to a simple core equation: I have a constitutional right to possess a firearm; any effort to infringe on that right will be opposed.
For all those who are a notch or two away from a strict black-and-white view of gun rights, there's a powerful case to be made both for a permitting process to carry concealed weapons and for keeping that permitting process public. |
Okay, let's hear that case.
| To begin with, the permit-to-carry law helps identify responsible gun owners. If you are a felon, have committed a crime with a gun, have a history of mental problems, etc., you can't get a permit. That's good for society. |
Fine points, sir. Fine points. And given that the pen is mightier than the sword, should we not put some permitting in place for journalists? Or would you get testy about the First Amendment if journalists had to be vetted by a government entity as "responsible" before being allowed to write?
| Next, violation of the permit-to-carry law can lead to an arrest. In other words, somebody stopped for a traffic violation or frisked at a bar, who has a gun but no permit, can be busted right there. Another plus. |
The assumption here seems to be that anyone who would dare carry a gun without a permit is automatically a bad person. In many cases this might be true, but not in all.
| Finally, when somebody who has a permit for a concealed weapon messes up with a gun, they lose their right to have that concealed weapon. For example, Harry Raymond "Ray" Coleman, the Cordova man charged recently with shooting a man to death after an argument about whether the dead man's SUV was parked too close to Coleman's vehicle, will lose his permit to carry a concealed weapon. Isn't that the way it should be? |
Oh certainly, Mr. Peck. Of course, losing his permit does not stop "Ray" from carrying a gun criminally, it merely makes it an offense.
| That's a good segue into why the permit-to-carry list needs to stay public. |
This I've got to hear.
News events like the Feb. 6 shooting at Trinity Commons shopping center led many people to wonder, logically and instantly, who else might be packing a gun. At the point of that shooting, the online list of who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon became a matter of deep public interest. That's why, during the past week, thousands of people looked at the list that had been sitting mostly unnoticed on the Web site for two months.
A mom might now check the list to see if the parents at her kid's sleep-over next door had a concealed weapon permit. If so, maybe it would be worth talking to them to make sure the gun is locked up. |
Wait just a minute! Earlier you were lecturing us on how "[m]any, if not most, households in Memphis possess a firearm [...]" Assuming that Memphis is something like Indianapolis where the majority of households with guns don't have an occupant with a permit, most of the people who do have firearms wouldn't show up on the list. So wouldn't the concerned mother be better off checking with everyone her kids stay with to ensure that if they do have guns (which, we're told, is likely) they are safely stored? Along with all the other questions that should be asked, of course.
Oh, and: appeal to emotion.
| A school official, concerned about whether teachers were bringing guns onto school grounds, might check the list to see whether anyone on the staff has a permit to carry, and then have a discussion about it. |
Once again, the assumption is that if someone has a gun and is willing to go through the process to get permitted for it, that they should be under greater scrutiny. No wonder people don't want newspapers printing this list! Mr. Peck once again illustrates how he would tend to assume wrongdoing on the part of someone that he knows carries a gun.
For the folks on the slow side, consider this: whether or not teachers are illegally carrying a gun onto school property, chances are astronomically good that permitted carriers of firearms are not - on average - the ones you need to be worried about. Administrators focusing on teachers with gun permits are spending their time and concern in the wrong spot.
Guess what?: appeal to emotion.
| Business people who sell goods and services that might be of interest to those who carry concealed weapons might use the list to generate new leads. |
Lead generation should not be the purpose of State government, should it?
| But there is one overriding, enduring reason the permit-to-carry list needs to be public. Once a concealed weapon is pulled out at a shopping center, a hospital or a business, what happens next with that gun becomes a matter of public concern to everyone. |
That makes zero sense whatsoever. Is the assumption that anyone who pulls a gun in a "shopping center, a hospital or a business" absolutely going to be a permit holder? Does the publicized list of permit holders somehow change how that person will act? Does knowing who carries a gun change the outcome of that scenario?
Of course not. If someone pulls a gun in public, then sure it is news. It is news whether they are a permit holder or not. It is news whether they are acting in self defense or criminally. In no way does the list of people who are allowed to own a gun being public help that situation. Using that theoretical situation demonstrates once more a very negative presumption about people who are on that list.
By the way: appeal to emotion.
That's why commercialappeal.com posted the list. It's a tiny bit of local information, and we're in that business of gathering and distributing local information.
Granted, news organizations do have some things to learn about this changing media world where print is about stories and online is about data and search. We need to learn how to massage databases more efficiently to tease out particular information, such as how many convicted felons in Shelby County have a concealed weapons permit. (Nine, as it turned out when we did this story back in August 2008.)
We'll learn. The feedback, flaming and otherwise, from gun owners concerned about this issue has been helpful. But there isn't much room to go back on this mixing of news in print with data online. If it's not The Commercial Appeal doing this, then it will be Google or a hundred Web sites. As more news and information gathering shifts online, local newspapers like this one simply must make sure that those who are searching for information about local communities are directed to newspaper-based information sources. That's why we continue to add databases to our Web site for people to use. We've already got restaurant cleanliness scores, missing IRS refund checks and school test score results. We're working on addresses of sex offenders, real estate transactions and more.
So can we exhale on this? |
Not likely.
| The newspaper isn't anti-gun. We are pro-news and information. That's our job, and we want to do it right. |
I can't speak for the newspaper, but the attitude of this particular columnist is clearly anti-gun. The assumptions made and the implications concocted reveal a number of things about the author's prejudices. And hypocrisy. |
| 2009-02-16
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Editorial Shown to be Utter Bologna by Area Blog |
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