Virginia passes law making gun records private, causes inadvertant rush to obtain those records

[Robb]

In less than two weeks, Virginians with handgun permits will no longer have to fear the release of such information. But that privacy comes at the price of limiting the public's right to know, an ongoing tension between open-government advocates and those who say it's no one's business that they're secretly armed.

Several clerks say they had received no requests for a full list of handgun permits until the legislation was passed this year.

(snip)

Permit records drew fresh attention this spring after the Virginia Republican Party filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the data with 121 circuit courts around the state ahead of the July 1 deadline.

The state GOP later rescinded those requests after receiving about three dozen responses - some outright rejections, others offering to provide records for a fee that averaged $1,000 per court.

Similarly, The Pilot found that a full list of handgun permits for a given city or county is hard to come by....

Read More: http://hamptonroads.com/2013/06/whos-packin-concealed-gun-permit-rush-find-out

Unintended consequences.