CHICAGO—Owning firearms is supposed to make you safe. Except when it doesn’t.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s ruling last week that the names of the 1.3 million people with Firearm Owners Identification cards (FOID) in the state is public information has gun owners up in arms, pun intended.
The same groups that declare no one would put a sign in front of their home saying NO GUN now fear the opposite. They’re no longer worried about their right to bear arms, they’re worried about their right to bear arms anonymously. Their right to privacy.
One thousand to 1,500 gun owners converged on the statehouse last week in Springfield to oppose the decision and push for conceal and carry laws. In Peoria, Circuit Judge Scott Shore halted disclosure with a temporary restraining order. And in a related privacy concern, Amish Illinois residents lobbied their state representatives and law enforcement officers to keep their photos off their FOID cards after former Illinois State Police Director Jonathon Monken said the policy would be reversed.
The Illinois State Police’s Firearms Services Bureau conducts background checks and updates FBI databases on the 230,000 gun owner applications it receives a year. That amount rose to 326,000 in 2009, says bureau chief Lt. John Coffman, which he attributes to last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Chicago’s handgun ban and extension of the card’s validity to 10 years, reports the State Journal-Register.
In 2005, Illinois State Police procedures were also under scrutiny when an employee with guns in his truck at the agency’s training academy shot his girlfriend and himself, says the Chicago Tribune. A state police firearms official said the agency could have confiscated the man’s weapons but didn’t, in a different court case.
Two years ago a similar name disclosure flap occurred when the Memphis Commercial Appeal decided to publish a searchable base of state firearm permit holders, despite gun owner identity protection laws in states like Florida, Ohio and South Dakota that sealed names. The Appeal found that 70 of 154 state permit holders had criminal records, including Bernard Avery (arrested 25 times with a murder charge dismissed on mental competency) and Reginald Miller (a felon with 11 arrests). Oops.
Chris Cox, then executive director of Illinois’ NRA, wrote the Appeal after the disclosures and called the decision “dangerous”—as if gun safety advocates and employers were armed instead of gun-owners. Hello?
Even though 25 other states call gun owner information public or do not specifically call it private, pro-gun Illinois politicians say the public has no right to the information and have introduced counter legislation to Madigan’s ruling. The Illinois State Police has also refused to release the information, which it has held confidential for 40 years, in defiance of Madigan’s ruling and a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press.
Pro-disclosure and gun safety activists, on the other hand, say knowing whether a neighbor, daycare worker or the kid sitting next to your son or daughter at community college is armed is very much their business. Especially since 10,222 firearm applications the Illinois State Police received in 2009 were denied and 5,952 were outright revoked.
Though the firearm owner information which Madigan wants to release would not include addresses, phone numbers or photos, gun activists worry they will be harassed in their community, by gun control activists or by anti-gun employers. They also worry that criminals will break into their houses and steal their weapons.
In fact, gun activists are so worried about others knowing they’re armed, you have to wonder if the weapons make them safe—or unsafe. And if they need to buy more weapons to defend their weapons.
Martha Rosenberg is a Chicago columnist/cartoonist who writes about public health. She may be reached at martharosenberg@sbcglobal.net.
The hysterical tone of this anti-firearm article puts me in mind of the other side of the coin in our nation’s cultural wars, the anti-abortion folk. Both feed on half-truths which are then magnified to the point of demonization of their opponents. BOTH issues are effectively used by our fascist oligarchy to divide working people and turn them against one another. In the first place, urban “liberals” don’t seem to comprehend that firearms have been and are a nornmal part of rural life, that hunting, for instance, is an important econonic and psychological activity for those who have access to hunting grounds (I recommend “Deer Huntin with Jesus” by Joe Bageant). Threats to this activity evoke the same resentment as threats to abortion rights do to feminists. In the second place, are you all so sure your government is entirely committed to your safety? My wife and were volunteers at a Hurricane Katrina evacuee shelter in Jennings, Louisiana in the immediate aftermath of the storm. The horrendous stories that we heard of the violent anarchy which resulted with the absolute failure of government following the declaration of martial law there convinced us of the need to be able to use firearms should the need arise. Let me say that I feel no need to carry a weapon on my person at the moment and those that do so in a time of peace endanger themselves more than anyone else. But if anyone wishes to point to the number of casualties that are caused by firearms in our country, and they are substantial, I would reply that Canada, which has approximately the same percentage of firearm ownership as the USA, has a tiny fraction of our firearms deaths. Unlike us, they have a functioning universal health care system which includes full psychiatic care and medication. There is the root of the problem. I short, I ask progressives to review their attitude toward this issue and not indulge in cultural war issues that further divide our working classes. There is NO hope of eliminating weapons from this country and the failed effort to do so cripples efforts to achieve real reform such as universal health care. Tony Vodvarka