Concealed carry permit: One woman’s experience

Locker Room’s Julie Gilstrap describes her experience when obtaining a concealed carry permit:

There were four of us there being fingerprinted for concealed carry permits, and there were two people in handcuffs being fingerprinted and, seemingly, booked. Those in custody went first, which gave me plenty of time to consider the situation. In our society, we don’t routinely fingerprint people unless they’re suspected of committing crimes, and that’s a good thing. It protects individuals’ privacy. But here were the four of us, wishing to exercise what is a constitutional right, and we were funneled in with those suspected of crimes to have our identifying information entered into some big database. In order to exercise a constitutional right to gun ownership, we had to sacrifice our right to privacy.

I’ve chosen to make that trade-off, but it concerns me greatly that I’m asked to. The Constitution and the rights it protects are important. When we have to sacrifice some rights to gain others, we’re not made more free. People who want to carry a concealed handgun shouldn’t be treated as if they are suspects or criminals. They shouldn’t be fingerprinted and entered into a database. They shouldn’t have their right to privacy infringed. Instead, we should respect the principle of constitutional rights, which means all of them, whether gun ownership or free speech or jury trial. For when we accept that the government can limit some of those rights, we open ourselves up to the notion that perhaps they could limit them all.

Lost in last week’s debate over WRAL’s publication of the concealed carry database was the question of whether or not there should be a database at all. I think that question is now answered.

Still searching for District 27 push pollers

The state Board of Elections investigation into push polls in the Senate District 27 race between Greensboro City Council member Trudy Wade and opponent Myra Slone isn’t getting very far because —you guessed it —no one’s been able to produce a recording of the alleged phone calls.

Meanwhile, an N.C. coordinator for Americans for Prosperity says they weren’t placing the calls, in the process explaining how the group’s “Freedom Phone” system works.

Chick-fil-A: One man’s opinion

As it was around the country, business was booming at the Friendly Center Chick-fil-A as protesters expressed their displeasure with president Dan Cathy’s recent comments on same-sex marriage.

One disinterested bystander’s point of view:

Not far from the main protest body, a shoeless man named David Emigh held a sign that said “homeless, hungry, anything helps, thank you.”

Emigh said he didn’t have an opinion on the Chik-fil-A controversy, and restaurant customers and employees often gave him free food.

“Everything’s fine with me,” Emigh said.

Guilford Green executive director Shane Burton said he thinks “people can be a little misguided in where they place their support.” That’s an awful lot of misguided people. Some might say the same of the 2,000-plus people who turned out at UNCG’s Fleming Gymnasium to hear first Lady Michelle Obama.