UPDATE - Arkansas Code 5-73-307 states, "The Department of Arkansas State Police shall maintain an automated listing of license holders and this information shall be available on-line, upon request, at anytime, to any law enforcement agency through the Arkansas Crime Information Center." This does not sound like the list would be subject to the "public document" argument and used to attack the privacy of law abiding gun owners and people who have orders of protection does it?

The Arkansas Times blogger and uber leftist Max Brantly, gleefully put up a link to the excel file that holds every Arkansas Concealed Carry License holders name & address.

The Times didn't even bother to scrub the address of the permit holders, have they ever heard of identity theft? And what about my privacy rights?

As Arkansas Project Contributor and State Representative Dan Greenberg notes, "Max’s glee in communicating public information wasn’t in evidence a week or two ago, when my bill to make the criminal records of public officials available to the public came before the House Judiciary Committee. At that point, Max said that that bill “simply has an aura of meanness.” (Of course, he’s hardly the only person who didn’t like the idea; the bill got voted down by the House Friday.)What drives Max’s shifting moods on the freedom of public information? Is it just a matter of what he had for breakfast that day?"

Not only is Max obviously biased in his intrepetation of freedom of public information he seems to have quite a distaste for the privacy rights of lawabiding gun owners.

Maybe we should look at getting a bill through that keeps law abiding gun owners personal information private?

I think a call to Rep Greenbergs office might find a sympathetic ear, no?

UPDATE - (See update at top of page)It should be noted that there is nothing "illegal" about what the Times did. In Arkansas this is considered a matter of public record like say, marriage licenses. On the other hand if you look up marriage licenses in Arkansas all you would get is a name and a county or city. This list that was published had full names and addresses.

And I am sensitive to the argument that the government shouldnt be keeping "lists" in secret, but perhaps there could be a happy medium here. Perhaps the informaion should not be barred from FOIA requests but merely kept from being published in the irrespoinsible manner highlighted above?

Some states have barred this kind of informtion from being published altogether.

UPDATE 2 - A couple of good articles on why it's a bad Idea to publish the names and address of permit holders. Apparently Florida has a provision in their state concealed carry law which keeps the records public but does not allow them to be published en masse. I like that Idea.

Related -States Act to Shield Gun Holders. Should Gun Data Lists be Muzzled? 

UPDATE 3 -The Tennessee House just pushed through legislation protecting permit holders names from being published.

UPDATE 4- Max has scrubbed the information from his website.  Glad I captured a screenshot. Other news breaking is that the outrage over this has not gone unnoticed. Tomorrow legislation will be introduced to stop this kind of irreponsibility and I hear it wil be modled after the Tennesse bill, great work guys. Now you must call your representation and ask them to be co-sponsors of the bill. There will likely be heavy oppositon from the news community. I'll let you know as soon as possible what the bills number is and where you can find it. Keep checking our blog.

Discuss.