This from the Patriot Post, Press Stupidity

Kelly J

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Patriot Vol. 07 No. 11 | 16 March 2007 | PatriotPost.US | Subscribe - It's Right, It's Free
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The Foundation
“Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” —Thomas Jefferson

Friday Digest
PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Right to carry v. right to know
In a St. Louis suburb this week, Riccardo Crossland was charged with robbery and assault after he and another thug held a 23-year-old Florida man at gunpoint, demanding his money. After obtaining his wallet and watch, Crossland turned and took a few steps away from the robbery victim, then turned back and raised his weapon.

Unfortunately for Crossland, the man he was robbing was legally permitted to carry a concealed handgun—and was carrying one at the time. (Florida permits are honored by Missouri. In fact, most Southeastern states—where constitutional rule of law still prevails—have reciprocity agreements for concealed carry permits.)

As Crossland brandished his weapon, the “victim” drew his weapon and opened fire, wounding Crossland. Police arrived soon thereafter, transported Crossland to the hospital, and congratulated his intended victim. Bridgeton Police Major Don Steinman told reporters, “Here was a robbery where we have a good ending.”

In a footnote to this crime, it turns out that Crossland was carrying a pellet gun modeled after a.45 caliber automatic. A shoe-in for the Non Compos Mentis Award, you say? Granted, Crossland was ignorant of the fact that his intended victim could defend himself, but I relate his story only as a segue to introduce the real winner.

That would be one Christian Trejbal, a writer with the Roanoke Times in Virginia.

Trejbal describes himself in his bio as “a philosopher and historian who discovered editorial writing.” He queries, “Who needs to finish a Ph.D.?” Apparently not Trejbal, who is already “piling it higher and deeper” as an editorialist.

Trejbal is the Don Quixote de la Roanoke, who jousts with government-database windmills using the Freedom of Information Act lance. In an editorial last Sunday celebrating “Sunshine Week, the annual week in which we reflect on the importance of open government and public records,” Trejbal boldly went where no man had before. “To mark the occasion,” he wrote, “I want to take you on an excursion into freedom of information land.”

And that he did.

In the interest of public safety, Trejbal and the Roanoke Times would have done a fine public service by launching, say, an Internet database listing paroled violent felons, stalkers and murderers. Instead, however, he went after what he apparently considers an equally dangerous lot.

Trejbal wrote, “A state that puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not... There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership, too.”

That’s right. After obtaining a list of all 135,789 Virginians who are permitted to carry a concealed weapon, Trejbal and his employer posted them in a searchable online database.

According to Trejbal, “People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box. Employees might like to know if employers are bringing weapons to the office.”

One would hope that someone in the Roanoke Times editorial room would have weighed the risk that stalkers, rapists and murderers might also like to know whether a potential victim had a carry permit. Trejbal unintentionally created a “do not mess with” list of Virginians, but what about all the folks who are not on that list?

The paper’s publisher, Debbie Meade, says that she, Editorial Page Editor Dan Radmacher, and Trejbal discussed the pros and cons before posting the database. “I think Dan would say that we probably underestimated the kind of response that this would prompt,” Meade said. “I think we could have asked for a broader and deeper discussion.”

“Underestimated” does not quite capture the tone of the thousands of objections, legal, moral and ethical, the paper received.

As it turns out, the database was only up for about 24 hours before Meade had it removed, “out of a sense of caution and concern for the public.” Perhaps Meade removed the database not “out of a sense of caution” but “out of common sense.” After all, wasn’t the paper’s “concern for the public” the reason it posted the names in the first place? Perhaps it hit too close to home when Meade realized that neither she, nor Radmacher and Trejbal, are listed as permit holders.

Trejbal feigns concern that “so many people have missed the point about the column. It was not fundamentally about guns. It was fundamentally about open government.”

No, it was fundamentally a hit piece against not only those who have concealed carry permits, but any gun owner. As noted above, Trejbal’s original essay justified posting the database because, “There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership.”

Trejbal is one of those nescient libs who think that crime is a “gun problem”. Using his logic, one may conclude that black leather gloves cause stabbings, matches cause arson, vehicles cause wrecks, cameras cause pornography, swimsuits cause drowning, cigarette lighters cause cancer, wine glasses cause alcoholism, spoons cause obesity, credit cards cause bankruptcy, elections cause corruption, ad nauseum...

Had “philosopher and historian” Trejbal pursued his Ph.D., he might have come across these words from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, circa 45 AD “Quemadmoeum gladuis neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.” (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands.)

I contacted Trejbal and asked him to outline his views on Second Amendment rights, but received no answer. I suspect he doesn’t know that by conservative estimates, handguns are used more than 1.3 million times each year in self-defense. He must not know that convicted violent felons tell researchers that they choose victims they believe are least able to defend themselves, avoiding those likely to have a gun.

Trejbal may not realize that his chances of becoming a victim are significantly reduced by the fact that violent offenders do not know who is likely to be carrying a weapon—well, before Trejbal identified who, in Virginia, is not permitted to carry a concealed weapon.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the criminal use of firearms declined as the number of states issuing concealed-carry permits increased. Yale researcher John Lott addressed the relationship between gun possession and crime, and summed up his research with the title of his book, More Guns, Less Crime.

The relationship between victimization and the ability to defend oneself is timeless. In Commonplace Book, Thomas Jefferson quotes Cesare Beccaria from his seminal work, On Crimes and Punishment: “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Despite last week’s legal victory for gun-owning residents in Washington, DC, Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, with help from Leftmedia trucklings like Trejbal, are now trying to reincarnate the Feinstein-Schumer gun ban, which expired 13 September 2004.

In the words of Patrick Henry, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.”

Quote of the week
“You won’t get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There’s only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up, and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time... It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience.” —Ronald Reagan, 1983
 
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klambpix, Just to clear up the impression I wish I had written this article but in fact it was extracted from the Patriot Post. Not my work.
 
especially since I was on Trejbal's list!
Maybe a class action suit could be brought by the people on the list...

I wonder if the ACLU will help y'all do it? :D

It would sure scare the hell out of Trejbal if they did...;)
 
This article does little to help gun rights. Those on this board will get a good kick out of it. But for all the people against gun ownership, or still on the fence...

Don't get me wrong - I totally agree with it. It's just that the article is very vindictive and not level-headed enough to reach out to ordinary people.

It's full of rhetoric and biased talk. There's even that tidbit about spoons making people fat. I think I saw something like that on a bumper sticker once. Next to an NRA sticker. On an old, rusty Ford Bronco. I think the driver was wearing overalls, ZZ Top's beard, and no shirt.
 
Applesanity; Maybe you missed the point of this:

From the posted article:

"After obtaining a list of all 135,789 Virginians who are permitted to carry a concealed weapon, Trejbal and his employer posted them in a searchable online database".

Now that you can see the error of this would you still hold that it is not much in the way of Promoting gun Rights and I really don't get the connection between the bumper sticker and the ZZ Top appearing character.

Personally I found the Article to be very informative and telling that these list are available to the Public, which I don't think that they should be, it sort of defeats the point of Concealed Carry, Operative word here is Concealed.
 
Applesanity,

You may be right, however the tone of the article is not as "mean spirited" as the original one written by Trejbal.

And the press must be accountable for its own stupidity. In an age where the press jumps up and down, slavering for the crucifixion of a man who reportedly "outed" a sole CIA agent, they are not entitled to a "free pass" for outing thousands of CCW permit holders. Especially when some of those folks have relocated due to credible threats on their safety or the safety of their families.

As I've been taught from childhood, freedom of speech does not mean you have a freedom from the consequences of that speech.

In this case Trejbal and the Times published the list after meeting and deciding to do so. Which tells me that they either acted negligently in the public interest by not considering the impact to those protecting against a credible threat) or they acted malicously with the intent to subject permit holders to unnecessary scrutiny and ridicule.

For this, they deserve to be raked over the coals. Repeatedly.
 
Sorry if I misspoke. I haven't read Trejbal's article, but I'm sure it's even worse than this one, considering how idiotic you have to be to publish a database of CCW permit holders.

That being said, a vindictive article about a stupid newspaper company doesn't solve much.

The anecdote about rednecks driving rusty trucks is to point out that more often than not, those advocating gun rights sound more like crazed yokels than level-headed, ordinary citizens.

Compare:

"It's just that I believe I have the natural right to protect myself and my family"

vs.

"blaming guns for columbine is like blaming spoons for making rosie o'donell fat."

This article leaned more on making statements like the latter.
 
Applesanity; Responses like that, are not actually stupid but they do point out the stupidity of the statements, that have been made, such as Guns kill people when we all know that Guns do not kill people; people kill people they just happened to use a gun to do so.

Like the statement that my pencil is responsible for all misspelled words, is a similar statement, meant to show the folly of the misstated facts, if you do not understand that, then there is no way we can explain it to you.

I am pretty sure the jist, of the article was posted in my, origional post. You may want to revisit it to refresh your ideas. Or maybe this would help.

http://archive.patriotpost.us/pub/07-11_Digest/index.php#continued
 
The latest article on this is "Should gun data lists be muzzled?"
at http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/109163

The Times still tries to blame removal of the list on the State Police, saying their concern was that crime victim's names were on the list, a violation of Virginia law. I think that's just a plain cop-out (no pun intended).

I think the Times missed the point too, based on everything I've read from them on the subject. While public records can be a good thing in some cases, they can be detrimental too. It's one thing to have the local paper publish, say building permits for indoor hot-tubs that hold more than 4 people. They may insinuate something sleazy going on but that only affects someone's reputation. On the other hand, revealing the names & addresses of permit holders can result in a serious threat to someone's life. In several cases, people said they'd have to move. In one case, a woman said her abusive ex showed up at her published (former) address saying something like "that b---h better know how to use that gun!" It's one thing to reveal building plans or that they're late on property taxes, but quite another to put them in physical danger.
 
I may be totally wrong here but I was under the Impression that no CCW list was to be available to the Public view, even under the Freedom of Information Act.

If this is incorrect, it should be the fact; it serves no purpose to make, or even be able to make, these records Public, to me it should be a Criminal Offence to do so, and I also thought these records were to be treated like the NICS list not kept.

I know here in Missouri if you have a CCW permit it is posted on the MULES list accessible to Law Enforcement Officers, and the CCW Permit is on our Drivers Licenses, or a separate ID card issued by the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, but I don't think the list is available to the Public.

This was a compromise if I remember correctly to get the CCW Law Passed, at any rate if you are stopped by Missouri LEO for any reason and they check your Motor Vehicle License the Mules System will show that you have a CCW License, if of course you are a resident of the state. In this situation the don’t ask, don’t tell, does not apply here.
 
Nope... CCW permit holder information may be public record. This varies from state to state. What is actually released varies too. Some states it's just a name or name/city/zip. Typically the information does not include what you're allowed to carry or restrictions.

Many states have tied CCW info to a driver's license (ID). If a LEO has your ID he can certainly be notified if you have a permit. In states that require you to notify the officer, he should already know if you're carrying.
 
badbob, Sorry I must have done something wrong, as there is no link to this, it is a stand alone article, that I coppied and pasted frm the Patriot Post. Sorry about the error.
 
BillCA, I was afraid of that being the case, seems that if the CCW permit holders are a matter of Public Information maybe we should push for open Carry then it would not matter, as a simple glance would answer the question of who is and who isn't packing.
 
Where's the stupidity key?

You musta just hit it.

ZING!

Just kidding, of course.

The paper’s publisher, Debbie Meade, says that she, Editorial Page Editor Dan Radmacher, and Trejbal discussed the pros and cons before posting the database. “I think Dan would say that we probably underestimated the kind of response that this would prompt,” Meade said. “I think we could have asked for a broader and deeper discussion.”

Ya don't say?

I also think it's interesting that this article focuses entirely on the Trejbal, rather than pointing out that it's the State of Virginia that made these records available in aggregate to him. Despite the fact that there are other states where this information isn't even public record. I'm guessing he just makes an easier target.
 
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