An on-going dust-up between the San Francisco Chronicle and gun owners illustrates that while some records may be considered “public,” there are more than copy fees associated with requesting the records. After the Chronicle requested information about the 3,700 concealed weapons permit holders in Sutter County, CA, County Sheriff Brandon Barnes notified concealed weapons permit holders that the information had been requested and announced on Facebook that he was legally obligated to provide the names to the Chronicle. Barnes’ post prompted “a cascade of threats and vitriol” that resulted in the Chronicle being forced to increase security at its newsroom and for its reporters.
The Chronicle has insisted that it does not intend to publish a database containing the names of concealed weapons permit holders, instead saying that it will use the information in the aggregate to look for trends and ensure the concealed weapons system isn’t being abused. Second amendment advocates even while acknowledging that the request is most likely innocuous, nonetheless have expressed fear about being “doxed” (or identified publicly) by the “liberal media.”
The incident has renewed an ongoing debate between First and Second Amendment advocates. Gun owners have argued that records of firearm ownership should be private, in part because the Second Amendment protects their right to bear arms and in part due to fear that publicly reporting weapon ownership could lead to owners being targeted with theft or violence. Meanwhile, newspaper and good government advocates have argued that gun permits should remain part of the public record to guard against corruption and to spot larger trends. For instance, last year an investigation was launched to look into the Santa Clara County Sheriff after concealed weapons permits were granted to a security company executive who contributed $45,000 to the Sheriff’s 2018 re-election campaign.
This debate is neither new, nor confined to California. Journalists and gun permit holders have clashed over the public release of gun ownership records in both Indiana and New York. In both cases, the controversy was ultimately taken up by the legislature, which passed laws further protecting gun owners. In 2009, the Indianapolis Star newspaper used handgun permit records to show that the Indiana State Police agency had issued permits to people with troubled and violent pasts, sometimes despite objections from local police. The state legislature – dominated by conservative Second Amendment advocates – responded by voting to prohibit the release of the information. In 2013, the Journal News (New York) published an interactive map including names and addresses of 33,614 gun permit holders, covering a two-county area. Gun owners responded to the story – published under the ominous title “The gun owner next door: What You Don’t Know About the Weapons in Your Neighborhood” – by publicizing editors’ and writers’ personal information, including their home addresses and information about where their children attended school. The state legislature passed emergency regulations that included a moratorium on releasing the records, which prompted the paper to take the database down.
As the conflict between the Chronicle and gun owners and the conflicts in Indiana and New York demonstrate the tension between what information is releasable and the people that information once released puts them in danger isn’t likely to go away anytime soon.