Albany Times Union Say Gun Database is Fine
Posted by FirearmsTruth on August 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment
In an editorial for The Albany Times Union, Jim McGrath defends public access to New York’s database of handgun permits. The editorial quotes Sen. Eric Adams, Brooklyn Democrat, as saying, “when you go the handgun permit, you should know that the information will be out there.”
McGrath uses a sort of twisted logic stating:
“That point of the Freedom of Information Law is to let the public know that a person in possession of a gun permit — Mr. Griffo, Mr. Adams and more than a million other New Yorkers — has met the appropriate conditions for obtaining one. The larger point of FOIL, though, is to give New Yorkers the information they need to make intelligent choices as citizens. It’s no less important for the public to know who can carry a handgun than who has a license to practice medicine or drive a car.”
The problem with this argument is that only those law-abiding citizens would actually appear in a database. And couldn’t the permit be used by criminals to determine who might not be in possession of a gun permit? This is quite a difference from practicing medicine or even driving a car.
And maybe McGrath and Sen. Eric Adams can suggest how law-abiding citizens are to know if criminals are packing heat?
