Names of gun-totin’ citizens published

The following is not a full transcript; for full story, listen to audio.

If your neighbor or your boss carried a weapon to work everyday would you want to know about it? A Memphis, Tennessee newspaper, "The Commercial Appeal," published on it’s website a database that reveals the names of Tennesseans who have permits to carry a concealed weapon. All you need is a name and city or zip code and the database searches public records from the Tennessee Department of Safety to find out who has a valid permit.

The paper’s move has started a firestorm (pun intended) among gun owners and non gun owners alike. On "The Takeaway," Thomas Hargrove, National Correspondent for the Scripps Howard News Service, talks us through this public-private quagmire. The Commercial Appeal is owned by the E.W Scripps Company and Tom has written a piece putting the debate in Tennessee into a national context.

The "The Commercial Appeal" posted the database in December, and according to Hargrove, things quickly got ugly for the paper. He reads from an article that the paper’s editor wrote about the situation: "This past week it has been ugly at the newspaper. Pro-gun groups orchestrated a protest campaign that has spread nationwide. By late last week, ‘Commercial Appeal’ executives were receiving as many as 600 emails a day, along with dozens of phone calls at home, at work and on their cell phones. Maps to their houses with ominous warnings have been posted online."

Hargrove explains why the "Commercial Appeal" posted the database: "The argument for making a government record public is you improve the quality of that record, and certainly that’s been the case with concealed weapons. When you scrutinize these lists, you find people who had no business getting them." 

Read Hargrove’s article, ‘Gun-rights advocates take on newspapers.’

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