Last weekend, Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections, an agency not usually known for its transparency and user-friendliness, unveiled a new web app that displays licensing, permit and violation information on a (relatively) easy-to-use interactive map. One of the more interesting aspects to this new data transparency is an array of gun permit appeals, essentially a list of Philadelphians who have been denied a gun permit or had their permit revoked and who have appealed to have the decision overturned.
This is completely illegal, and there are penalties. Allow me to point you to the Uniform Firearms Act of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Code. From the UFA:
(i) Confidentiality.–All information provided by the potential purchaser, transferee or applicant, including, but not limited to, the potential purchaser, transferee or applicant’s name or identity, furnished by a potential purchaser or transferee under this section or any applicant for a license to carry a firearm as provided by section 6109 shall be confidential and not subject to public disclosure. In addition to any other sanction or penalty imposed by this chapter, any person, licensed dealer, State or local governmental agency or department that violates this subsection shall be liable in civil damages in the amount of $1,000 per occurrence or three times the actual damages incurred as a result of the violation, whichever is greater, as well as reasonable attorney fees.
If I were one of these people listed, I’d be filing the lawsuit right now. This is unconscionable. The criminals that run that city clearly think they are above the law. I say we ought to show them who can get away with what. I count at least $29,000 dollars worth of violations here, and attorneys fees will probably drive that higher by orders of magnitude. They should be made to pay for this.
That is scary! Regardless of if you were denied or not, that is going a tad too far with transperancy!
As an unfortunate Philly resident, I have forwarded to the author of this Phillymag article (Victor Fiorillo) the links that you had provided to the Uniform Firearms Act, Pennsylvania Code and the specific subsection that the City of Philly had violated.
I will be interested to see if he updates his article with this information.
Update from said article/author:
“UPDATE [8/15/12, 1:30 p.m.]: L&I spokesperson Maura Kennedy confirms that the information was removed from the city’s website at the request of the police department. The police referred me to the mayor’s office, and the mayor’s office says it is reviewing the matter.”
That tells me the mayor’s office is behind this.
2nd Update from Author/Article:
“UPDATE [8/15/12, 4:40 p.m.]: Mark McDonald from the mayor’s press office called with the following explanation: “The legal department has determined that this is public information. Its publication is legal. An individual who is denied a permit and files an appeal, that person has waived their right to confidentiality. All that said, within the government, there is a concern about the propriety of publishing the information, and so we’re looking at this again. On the one hand, city government wants to be transparent and believes in the concept of open data. Access to information makes for strong citizenry and effective government. But on the other hand, there are public safety concerns with regard to this information. Perhaps some of it should be redacted, although we haven’t made a conclusion that way. We’ll work toward a decision to whether this stuff gets put back up.â€
This City Hall is really a bunch of dopes…they don’t even know they are in violation of the Uniform Firearms Act/PA Code…
Wow, I’ve never heard anyone assert that a person waives any right by appealing anything – whether a court order or an administrative decision. In fact, such a rule would constitute a violation of due process. One can’t help but think that this is an intimidation tactic by anti-gun bureaucrats.
I wonder what precedent is being relied on by their legal department.
You only need to look up the Schuylkill to see what happens when you use the LTCF database for “other” reasons.
Google Barry Jozwiak posse
Our firm would be happy to talk to anyone interested in challenging this.
contact us at wally@sigzim.com
…But no tracking of criminals, since they don’t apply for permits. The leftists are doing what happens in all totalitarian power grabs…sure glad I moved out of the northeastern socialist states of America
So, how about listing the names and district addresses of criminals with illegal alien status? Still concerned about transparency?
That logic, if applied at the Federal level, would seem to require that ICE public the names and addresses of the portion of the 1.7 million “Dreamers” that apply for a waiver of illegal status.
They have a MAIG staffer in the mayor’s office?
From everything we’ve heard, they don’t need the help of “outside agitators”, on their own they’re abusive enough.
the big city urbanites of the economically declining Northeast long ago exchanged the Bill of Rights and the entire Constitution for a mess of potage, government deficit financed welfare stimulus “security”.
Now the pols of the clueless northeastern electorate through the federal governmnet want to impose their self-created tyranny on the rest of the country who the northeastern corridor psuedo sophisticate electorate see as bitter clingers.
Worse yet is the fact that the economic refugee idiots from the Northeast and the left coast head out to “flyover country” seeking better opportunities afforded by freedom out here bringing their nasty liberty destroying penchants for totalitarian statism with them to inflict on we rubes at the polls.
Laws or for Little People, not Liberals or Govt… The many Layers of Govt and the armies of parasite Bureaucrats that inhabit them are Americas gravest threat…
No need to be surprised this is exactly what the Roman Catholic Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and Mussolini did right before they slaughtered 55 million people. Just bury your head in the sand, say 5 hail marys and keep going to the catholic church oh wise ones.
Listen up jackass! Adolph Hitler murdered hundreds of thousands of Catholics simply because they were Catholic. That of course included priests and nuns who were both tortured and murdered.
You are a vile bigot and I hope your ignorance and bigotry reflect back on your sorry self.
We should always remember that these sort of anti-church attitudes in their extreme examples have resulted in many shootings in churches, which should guide our attitudes towards everything from not letting ourselves get disarmed to laws WRT to guns in churches.
Lenin’s father was Russian Orthodox, his mother “who had been raised a Lutheran, was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced the beliefs of her children.” (Wikipedia.) Stalin is infamous for being expelled from a Georgian Orthodox seminary.
Hitler and company were none too fond of Christianity since Jesus was a Jew, “The fifth commandment: Thou shalt not kill, is no commandment of God but a Jewish invention”. That quote is in reference to Action T4, the Nazi euthanasia program; more than anything else, Catholic opposition stopped it (in the Nazis’ mind, for the duration of the war…).
Try again.