News station WRAL has caused outrage amongst gun rights activists by listing address details of firearms owners in Raleigh, North Carolina – prompting critics to complain they are being treated like sex offenders and left open to criminal predation.
In an article about firearms training, a WRAL.com article homes in on the fact that rural areas have a much higher per capita rate of concealed carry permit holders.
The story also mentions efforts to increase regulation
on concealed carry permit holders and quotes Gail Neely, executive
director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, who claims that
“concealed weapons permit holders aren’t as law-abiding as they are
reputed to be.”
However, the part that really has second amendment
proponents up in arms is a searchable box that allows the public to
identify where concealed carry permit holders live, by typing in the
street name, city, county and zip code.
Although concealed carry permit holders cannot be
identified down their precise address, in many rural areas there are
just a handful of houses on one street, and sometimes just one or two,
leaving gun owners open to criminal predation.
As concerned resident David Knight told us via email,
“Although street numbers are not shown (yet), as they point out most of
the carry permits are in rural areas. On my road for example, there are
only 4 home sites. On many rural roads there are only 1 or 2 houses.
This information has previously only been available by written request
from the State Bureau of Investigation.”
Indeed, when activist group Grass Roots Norths Carolina (GRNC) complained to WRAL,
the news station responded by erroneously claiming the data was
publicly available, when in fact it can only be obtained via an
application to the SBI.
Knight says the news station’s act of helping the public identify gun owners is an attempt to name and shame while suggesting that second amendment advocates “pose a potential threat akin to sex offenders.”
GRNC’s F. Paul Valone wrote an email to WRAL demanding
that the search function be removed and that WRAL issue a public apology
to gun owners in North Carolina, noting that the group had received
dozens of complaints focused around concern that the search box would
potentially expose “concealed handgun permit-holders to criminal
predation.”
The group also threatened to use its database of 60,000
gun owners to target WRAL’s advertisers for a boycott unless the search
feature was removed.
READ MORE
http://www.infowars.com/outrage-after-news-channel-helps-public-identify-gun-owners/
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