Newspaper Publishes Gun Owners’ Names and Addresses

[LooseWilly]

233. You strongly believe it shouldn't've been a public record. Fair enough. Agitate to change it...

I also know women who've had to go into virtual hiding to escape stalkers &/or abuse, as well as men who've had to go into virtual hiding to avoid paying child support. For whatever reasons, people often choose to go into hiding.

If we, as a society, want those in hiding to be able to legally own a firearm while in hiding, then the regulatory legislation needs to be changed.

In the meantime, gun registration information is Not private, no matter how non-public the citizen owning the gun might otherwise be.

In fact, I have no opinion one way or the other as to the standing of gun registrations viz a viz Public Records. I simply don't care, personally.

I do, however, very much believe in the accessibility of public records. If a record is Public, then I support the right to publish it by anyone anywhere for any reason, or even for no reason whatsoever.

I am fine with deciding that gun registrations be removed from the lists of Public Records. I am also fine with sex offenders registrations being removed from the list of Public Records. Or leave them all on... whatever.

I will never endorse, however, the notion that Public Records should be made LESS ACCESSIBLE...

If you can't convince a court or legislative body to make a given set of records private... then I will endorse the right of any asshat to hire planes to skybanner the information above the local sporting arena if they want. Trying to obfuscate Public information simply because you can think of ways the information could be abused is a license to surreptitiously Un-Public-ize all information.