"His mental state was in question."

On January 19, Christopher Bryan Speight, 39, shot and killed eight people inside and around the home he shared with family members in Appomattox, Virginia. His victims were Lauralee Sipe, 38, Speight's sister; Dwayne Sipe, 38, his brother-in-law; Morgan Dobyns, 15, Speight's niece; Joshua Sipe, 4, his nephew; Emily A. Quarles, 15, Morgan's friend; Karen Quarles, 43, Emily's mother; Jonathan L. Quarles, 43, Emily's father; and Ronald "Bo" Scruggs II, 16, Emily’s boyfriend.

More than 150 law enforcement officials arrived on the scene in response to the shootings and combed the nearby woods in search of Speight. During the siege, Speight took down a Virginia State Police helicopter by piercing its fuel tank with six rounds from a high-powered rifle (Speight had participated in National Rifle Association rifle competitions, which he excelled in). Eventually, Speight surrendered to authorities. He has been charged with one count of first-degree murder, with more charges likely coming.

A search of Speight’s house uncovered 17 bombs, including seven homemade grenades, two improvised explosive devices “with chemical irritant attached,” two IED “anti-personnel mines,” two pipe bombs and four more IEDs. Authorities also found more than a dozen firearms (including at least three AR-15 assault rifles and two Chinese-made Uzis) and “large amounts” of ammunition. Night-vision equipment, body armor and a pair of homemade mortar tubes were also found inside the home.

A search of Appomattox County court records has revealed that Speight held a concealed handgun permit, which was renewed on two occasions (in 2004 and 2009) despite his “history of mental breakdowns,” which was well known to his family and their attorney. Speight also apparently legally purchased the guns used in the shootings, and bought and sold firearms through unregulated private transfers (i.e., no background checks, no paperwork).

There were six confirmed mass shootings by concealed handgun permit holders in 2009. Speight becomes the first in 2010.

Those who knew Speight say he may have become fixated on the notion that his sister wanted to oust him from the Appomattox County home passed down to them by their grandparents and mother. Speight was removed as a trustee of the property in 2007 “over concern for his stability.” When family members met with him to discuss the matter, he “talked about booby-trapping his bedroom.” Speight also told friends he heard a “zinging” in his ears following the death of his mother in 2006. As the family attorney, Henry Devening, describes it, “his mental state was in question.” Speight was apparently seeing a therapist to address these issues.

Under Virginia law, individuals are disqualified from obtaining concealed handgun permits for reason of mental health under a narrow set of criteria, including the following: a) If they have been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution; b) If they have been adjudicated as “mentally incompetent,” and; c) If they have been acquitted by reason of insanity. Virginia makes no provision for people who do not fall under certain specific criteria but who are nonetheless seriously mentally ill.

Additionally, no investigative authority exists to make sure these disqualifications are detected. The Virginia State Police conduct instant computer background checks to verify mental health information through databases that are missing millions of disqualifying records. This process failed to turn up any information about Speight’s mental health issues.

In his most recent application to renew his concealed handgun permit, filed on January 6 of last year, Speight described himself in court papers as a dependable person who showed pride in his ability to "find ways to get out of problems without using force or violence." The tragic irony of that statement is now apparent.

As Alice Mountjoy, the Government Relations Coordinator of the Virginia Center for Public Safety, recently commented, “When an individual with as tortured a mental health history as Christopher Speight is able to get a concealed handgun permit, it confirms what we have been saying for years ... The screening process [for concealed carry applicants in Virginia] is broken and does little to assure that permit holders are both law-abiding and mentally fit to carry handguns around our families in public.”

A Tale of Two Terrorists

When most Americans think about gun control, they think about laws that are designed to stop street criminals from obtaining firearms. In the post-9/11 era, however, such laws are equally important in foiling the violent ambitions of terrorists. Because the gun lobby has successfully blocked federal efforts to prohibit those on the FBI’s Terrorist Watch List from buying guns, it is frequently up to individual states to provide the necessary safeguards to prevent such purchases.

Two recent arrests that made national headlines provide an interesting contrast in terms of states’ ability (or willingness) to handle this responsibility.

The first was made on September 25, when authorities apprehended 33-year-old Anes Subasic after a nine-hour search of his home in Holly Springs, North Carolina. Officials found counterterrorism literature, an empty sniper scope case, and ammunition in the house. Subasic is a Muslim who fled Bosnia during its civil war (later becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen). Along with Daniel Boyd, Zakaria Boyd, Hysen Sherifi, Dlyan Boyd, Ziyad Yaghi, and Mohammad Omar Aly Hassain; Subasic was charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists. The cell is accused of planning violent overseas operations and an attack on the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia.

Not only was the cell able to acquire a substantial cache of firearms (Daniel Boyd was also charged with selling a Ruger mini 14 and ammunition to a convicted felon), but it has also been revealed that Subasic held a permit to carry a concealed handgun in North Carolina.

Not that there weren’t obvious red flags in his background... The Bosnian Serb Republic courts had issued four warrants for Subasic’s arrest, one of which was international. An official with the Bosnian Serb police stated that Subasic “is known to be part of a criminal gang that operated in the wider area of Bosnia and the region.” All told, Bosnian Serb police charged Subasic 11 times on 16 counts of attempted murder, extortion and robbery. A waitress in Banja Luka recalled Subasic entering a restaurant and spraying fire randomly with an automatic weapon. “Whoever knows Anes, they are not surprised [by his recent arrest],” she said.

Because North Carolina is a “shall-issue” state, authorities were required to issue Subasic a concealed carry permit after he passed a computerized background check (Subasic had only minor traffic offenses during his time in the U.S.). A simple background investigation should have turned up Subasic’s outstanding international warrants, but no such investigation is conducted either for firearm purchasers or concealed carry permit holders in North Carolina.

Another terrorist who was recently apprehended had a much harder time arming himself. On October 21, Tarek Mehanna, a 27 year-old resident of Sudbury, Massachusetts, was arrested and charged with providing material support to terrorists. Authorities say Mehanna was part of a cell that attempted to join terrorist groups in Iraq, Yemen and Pakistan. When they failed to gain admission, they began plotting attacks on U.S. soil.

Inspired by the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington, D.C., Mehanna and his co-plotters hatched a plan to commit a mass shooting in a shopping mall in Massachusetts. However, according to U.S. Attorney Michael Loucks, “Mehanna and his co-conspirators ultimately abandoned this plan, because they could not obtain the automatic weapons they thought necessary to effectively carry out such an assault.”

Massachusetts certainly does not make it easy for dangerous individuals to get assault weapons. Any resident seeking to obtain a "large capacity" weapon (including assault weapons capable of holding more than ten rounds of ammunition directly, or via a high-capacity magazine) must obtain a special Class A license. The screening requirements to obtain this license are extensive, and law enforcement is given the discretion to deny any applicant they believe is a potential threat to public safety.


Unregulated private sales of firearms are also closely regulated in Massachusetts. The state requires all private sellers to submit a written report documenting each firearm transfer to the executive director of the state’s Criminal History Systems Board. Purchasers of firearms from private sellers are also required to submit this information. Additionally, no more than four firearms may be transferred by a Massachusetts resident in this manner in a given calendar year.

The National Rifle Association loves to claim that criminals will always be able to obtain firearms, no matter what laws are passed. The case of Tarek Mehanna gives lie to this notion. Clearly, smart gun laws can deter dangerous individuals bent on arming themselves for violence. In a time when internal threats in our country are very real, state legislators should pay heed to the case of Mehanna and put public safety over the priorities of the gun lobby.

“You can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.”

On August 4, George Sodini , 48, walked into the LA Fitness Center in Collier, Pennsylvania, wearing black workout gear and a headband. In his pocket was a .32 semiautomatic handgun. He carried a duffel bag with three more handguns: two 9mm semiautomatic pistols with 30-round clips and a .45 caliber revolver. All told, he was carrying 150 rounds of ammunition.

Sodini entered an exercise room where an aerobics class was taking place, turned off the lights, and opened fire, emptying one of the 9mm pistols. He then drew the second 9mm pistol and continued firing. In his last act, Sodini drew the .45 revolver and shot himself in the head. When the smoke cleared, at least 36 rounds had been fired and Sodini and three women lay dead. Sodini’s victims were Heidi Overmier, 46; Elizabeth Gannon, 49; and Jody Billingsley, 37. Nine other women were wounded in the shooting.

Within minutes of the tragedy becoming national news, the internet community discovered a journal that Sodini had posted online. In it, Sodini provided his name, date of birth, and hometown—and in a series of entries dating back to November 2008 detailed his plans to commit mass murder. Sodini asked “Why do this?? To young girls?” and made it clear that it was because he was lonely, suicidal, and deeply angry at women, who he felt had spurned him his entire life. He took comfort, however, in a conversation with his pastor at Tetelestai Church in Pittsburgh, who convinced him that “you can commit mass murder then still go to heaven.” The journal even detailed a previous failed murder-suicide attempt by Sodini on January 6 of this year. “I chickened out!” he wrote. “I brought the loaded guns, everything. Hell!”

Authorities had also had previous contact with Sodini. Jack Rickard, a deacon at Tetelestai Church, reported Sodini after he harassed a woman there. A state trooper called Sodini to discuss the matter with him, but no charges were filed. Sodini was asked to leave the church, however, and he did.

A week before the shooting, Sodini came to authorities’ attention again when they received reports that a man on a public bus in Pittsburgh had pulled out what appeared to be a grenade from a computer bag. The man saw a passenger on the bus watching him and said, “It is real. Do you want to hold it?” Soon after, police questioned Sodini—who matched a description provided by the passenger. Sodini denied any involvement, and escaped charges when the passenger couldn’t confirm him as the suspect. After the shooting at LA Fitness Center, Allegheny County Police found a note in Sodini’s home that referred to the grenade incident. “Don’t worry about that; it was a fake,” it said.

Despite all this, Sodini purchased the firearms using in the shooting legally (and bought one of his high capacity-magazines and a magazine loader from Eric Thompson, the online gun dealer who also armed mass shooters Seung-Hui Cho and Steven Kazmierczak). Sodini also held a permit to carry a concealed handgun in the state of Pennsylvania.

The screening process for both purchasing firearms and obtaining a concealed carry permit in Pennsylvania involves a computerized background check. That check searches a state database and also the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the federal database maintained by the FBI. Because he had no significant criminal record, and because he had not been involuntarily committed to a mental institution or adjudicated as a “mental defective,” Sodini passed those checks. No background investigation is conducted in Pennsylvania to determine if there is any significant history that is missed by the computer check (this is despite the fact that the NICS database is missing millions of records that should be disqualifying purchasers). The result is that Pennsylvania authorities allowed Sodini to purchase firearms and carry a handgun in public without even looking for what it took bloggers minutes to find—a publicly-posted journal detailing his plans to slaughter women.

George Sodini is the fourth confirmed concealed carry permit holder to commit mass murder this year. Like him, the others—Frank Garcia, Michael McClendon, and Richard Poplawski—all had obvious red flags in their background that should have prevented them from obtaining their permits. It has been clear for some time in America that our weak gun laws make it easy for dangerous individuals to purchase firearms. The frequency with which they are obtaining permits to carry concealed handguns in public is a phenomenon that is even more disturbing.

“It was almost like looking in the devil’s eyes.”

On March 10, 28 year-old Michael McLendon began a shooting rampage at the ranch-style home in Coffee County, Alabama, where he lived with his mother. First, he shot and killed her and her four dogs, then laid them on and around the living room couch, which he soaked with paint thinner and lit on fire.

McLendon then got into his Mitsubishi Eclipse wearing a vest loaded with ammunition and armed with a .38 caliber handgun, a shotgun, and two assault rifles (an SKS and a Bushmaster). He drove south to the town of Samson to a white frame house where he had lived for years with his uncle, James White, 55, and aunt, Phyllis White. The two were sitting on the porch with their daughter, Tracy M. Wise, 34, her son, Dean, 15, and a family that lived across the street: Andrea Myers, 31 (the wife of a local sheriff’s deputy), and her two children, 4-month old Ella and 18-month old Corrine. McLendon’s great aunt, Virginia White, 74, was in a trailer parked in the White’s yard. McLendon exited his vehicle and opened fire on them all, killing everyone but Phyllis White and Ella Myers. Phyllis White ran to a neighbor’s house and was saved when McLendon’s gun jammed. Ella was rescued by a neighbor, but had to be taken to a hospital later for surgery for a gunshot/shrapnel injury. A neighbor who saw McLendon as he pulled away from the house in his Eclipse said of him: “It was almost like looking in the devil’s eyes.”

But McLendon was not done yet. He killed another man, James Starling, 24, on a nearby street, shooting him in the back as he tried to run away. Starling was the father of two children and had another on the way. McLendon then rounded the corner and killed Sonya Smith, 43, outside a convenience store. Two men, Jeffrey Nelson, 50, and Greg McCullough, 49, were injured at the store.

McLendon then continued on to the town of Geneva. At this point, police were in pursuit of him. McLendon was still spraying fire, and killed motorist Bruce Malloy, 51. When an officer tried to ram McLendon’s Eclipse, he fired into the officer’s vehicle, narrowly missing him. McLendon then evaded a roadblock and drove to Reliable Products, a metals plant where he once worked. There he engaged in a shootout with law enforcement officers before finally entering the business, turning a gun on himself, and taking his own life.

During the entire rampage, which lasted approximately 50 minutes, McLendon fired more than 200 rounds, killed 10 innocent people, and wounded six.

Subsequent investigation revealed that McLendon held a permit to carry a concealed handgun which had been issued by the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department. A friend of his, Cecil Knowles, told reporters that McLendon had a lifelong fascination with guns. Officials have yet to indicate where McLendon purchased the firearms used in the shootings, but have indicated they were all bought legally.

After the rampage, authorities who investigated the home McLendon lived in with his mother found notes he had left on a dresser and kitchen table. “The notes had lists of co-employees and employers who apparently had done him wrong,” said 12^th Judicial Circuit District Attorney Gary McAliley. “Along side of the names, he wrote notes on who had done what, for example, ‘turned me in for not wearing earplugs.’ The note also listed three different locations of employers.” Investigators also found 20 to 30 boxes of ammunition, a bullet-proof vest, and “dozens of soot-covered DVDs on how to commit acts of violence, including how to shoot into a moving car and building a homemade gun silencer.” McLendon stopped showing up to his job shortly before the rampage, spent his free time shooting guns at the local firing range and behind his home, and talked “about being depressed about his failure to become a Marine or a police officer.” He had also been involved in an argument with family members over custody of a family Bible, and had recently received a letter from a lawyer representing another family member telling him to back off. “He was excessively upset about that,” said McAliley.

“He had obviously planned to go out in grand style,” observed Colonel Chris Murphy of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

Disturbingly, McLendon is not the only mass shooter in recent months who held a concealed carry permit:

• CCW permit holder and Neo-Nazi Richard Poplawski killed three police officers and wounded one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 4.



• CCW permit holder Frank Garcia killed four and wounded one in a shooting rampage in upstate New York on February 14.



• CCW permit holder Randal Rushing killed three people in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on July 17, 2008, telling reporters, “I had fun.”

These incidents and others provide powerful evidence that screening procedures for concealed carry permit holders are as minimal and ineffective as those for gun purchasers in the United States. Hopefully, state legislators across the country will begin putting the safety of their citizens ahead of the interests of the gun lobby, which has consistently defended existing standards for permit holders—and even acted to weaken them further.

"This Kid's Nothing But Trouble."

On April 4, 23 year-old Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers who were responding to a 911 call at his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Poplawski, wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with a shotgun and an AK-47-style assault rifle, ambushed two officers who entered his house. He then managed to hold off police and SWAT team members who responded to the scene for four hours, firing approximately 100 rounds in the process. Poplawski has been charged with three counts of criminal homicide and nine counts of attempted homicide, including the wounding of a policeman who was trying to assist a fallen officer.

It was quickly learned that Poplawski is a White Supremacist with a long and disturbing history of violent behavior. He frequently visited, and posted messages at, the Neo-Nazi website Stormfront.org. Poplawski’s best friend, Edward Perkovic, stated that he “didn't like the Zionists controlling the media and controlling, you know, our freedom of speech.” On November 1, 2008, Poplawski wrote on Stormfront: “A revolutionary is always regarded as a nutcase at first, their ideas dismissed as fantasy ... If a total collapse is what it takes to wake our brethren and guarantee future generations of white children walk this continent, if that is what it takes to restore our freedoms and recapture our land: let it begin this very second and not a moment later.”

Poplawski’s problems date further back, however. He was expelled from North Catholic High School in his junior year for reasons that have not been fully disclosed. In 2004, Poplawski enlisted in the Marines and entered boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was discharged from the service just 23 days later, apparently for assaulting a drill sergeant. A year later, Poplawski’s former girlfriend, Melissa Gladish, received a protection from abuse order against him. “He was a violent, abusive man,” she said. “He dragged me by the hair, pulling me across the floor. I saw him choke his own mother. He was controlling.”

Despite this history, subsequent investigation has revealed that Poplawski passed the required background checks and bought his shotgun and two handguns at Braverman Arms Company in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania. Poplawski’s best friend, Edward Perkovic, has also reported that Poplawski possessed a permit to carry a concealed handgun in the state of Pennsylvania. "I've seen it. He showed it to me. He said, 'Eddie, get one of these,'" remembers Perkovic. Poplawski also posted on the Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association website under the username “RWhiteman” and in one thread complained that the state of Maryland did not recognize his concealed carry permit when he traveled there.

If Poplawski was dishonorably discharged from the military (citing privacy laws, the Marines have refused to divulge this information), then he would have been barred under federal law from owning or purchasing firearms. He also would have been barred under federal law from purchasing or owning firearms while he was the subject of Melissa Gladish’s protection order. It is unclear at this time exactly when Poplawski purchased his guns. It is also not known where he obtained his AK-47 assault rifle, although he frequently bought and sold guns online through unregulated private sales.

What is more baffling is how Pennsylvania authorities could have issued Poplawski a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Pennsylvania is a "shall issue" state, meaning that local law enforcement must issue a concealed weapons license if the applicant passes a computerized background check and meets certain basic qualifications. Nonetheless, these guidelines state clearly that an applicant should be denied a permit if he/she “has a character and reputation indicating the applicant would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.”

Poplawski not a threat to public safety? Even a cursory investigation into his background would have revealed that he was a violent individual with racist, anti-government views. In the words of one of Poplawski’s neighbors (whose stepdaughter was threatened by him), “this kid's nothing but trouble.” Why that wasn’t patently obvious to Pennsylvania authorities is worth examining.

If at First You Don't Succeed...

On Valentine’s Day, 35 year-old Frank Garcia drove into the parking lot of the Lakeside Memorial Hospital parking lot in Brockport, New York, at approximately 5:00 AM. Just four days earlier, Garcia had been fired from his nursing position at the hospital, and he wasted little time before exiting his vehicle and physically attacking Mary Silliman, 23, a former co-worker who was on a break. Two individuals who were driving by the hospital at that moment, Randal Norman and Audra Dillion, saw Garcia beating Silliman and stopped to help. When they got out of their car, Garcia opened fire with a .40-caliber Glock pistol, killing Norman and Silliman. Audra Dillion was also shot, but she managed to drive herself to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, where she recovered from her injuries.

Garcia was not done yet. He then drove 50 miles to Canandaigua, New York, where he went door-to door looking for the home of another former co-worker. Garcia eventually found Kimberly Glatz and her husband Christopher and shot the couple execution-style after terrorizing the entire family, including Glatz’s 14 year-old daughter and 13 year-old son. Kimberly Glatz worked with Garcia while he was a part-time nursing supervisor at Wesley Gardens nursing home in Rochester. Garcia was fired from this position in October 2008.

The rampage finally ended when Garcia was arrested after negotiating his surrender by cell phone. He has been charged with a total of four counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of second-degree kidnapping, and one count of attempted murder.

After the shootings, it was revealed that Garcia possessed a permit to carry a concealed handgun in New York. Officials reportedly denied Garcia’s request for a permit three times before granting him one in 2007. He was first denied a permit in 1994 after omitting information about his criminal record on his application, including arrests for criminal possession of a weapon, assault, and harassment. He then filed two more permit requests in 2001 and 2006 that were denied because of “omission[s] of fact” and because it was determined that Garcia “lack[ed] moral character.”

In a letter written prior to the 2001 denial, Garcia told a local judge about his enjoyment of the “works of Jefferson, J. locke, madison, and Hamilton” and “the organic Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” Garcia also discusses his need to protect himself with a gun in light of his view that “executive atthoraties/police officers are not bond to protect me. 95% of the time there are in pursut of the perpetrator and 5% arrive late when needed. So you see. I have no-one but myself for my own protection, especially in the city of Rochester.” At the end of the letter, Garcia offers to produce “Public-law 89-297” at an upcoming hearing, which, he claims, “calls for the total disarmament of our sovereign nation, from citizens to the military. This is all part of the New world order agenda.”

Garcia’s successful 2007 request for a permit was initially denied. However, judicial hearing officer and longtime Judge Charles Maloy reversed the denial and granted Garcia the right to carry a concealed weapon. The county court judge who initially denied the permit had the right to review the case but instead signed the permit in April 2007.

Judge Maloy has yet to explain why he issued Garcia a concealed carry permit, but it is clear that this permit offered no “protection” to Garcia or anyone else. Instead, it endangered an entire community that has now paid a terrible and unimaginable price.

"I had fun."

On July 17, Randal Rushing, 25, turned a quiet family home in Scranton, Pennsylvania into a slaughterhouse. At approximately 4:30 AM that morning, Rushing—who rented basement room in the house—went on a killing spree, using a handgun to order his victims into submission and then bludgeoning and stabbing them to death with carpentry hammers and knives. When all was said and done, three people lay dead: Justin Berrios, 21; Dustin Hintz, 22; and Leslie Collier, 16. Collier’s body was so badly beaten that police could not tell exactly how he was killed. Authorities believe that Rushing’s rampage was triggered by jealousy regarding a girl he was dating who also lived in the house.

Police apprehended Rushing at a friend’s apartment the next morning, where he was found playing Playstation in blood-soaked boots. As police led Rushing out of the house, he blew reporters a kiss and told them, “I had fun.” The office of the Lackawanna County District Attorney is currently deciding whether to pursue the death penalty against him.

Rushing had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in Pennsylvania. His permit application had been approved in less than 24 hours in February 2007, despite the fact that he listed the address of a homeless shelter as his home address and provided two references whose names were illegible. The sheriff who issued the permit, Barry Stankus, claimed that he “followed all the guidelines established by the Pennsylvania Crimes Code and utilized the [Pennsylvania Instant Check System] established by the Pennsylvania State Police.”

Stankus’ successor as sheriff, Michael Savokinas, was of a different opinion. He described Stankus’ office as a “one-stop shop” for permits and, stating the obvious, noted, “we should have called the [references].”

Rushing had no criminal record, but even outside the problems with his written application for the permit, there were obvious red flags in his background. His attorney, Paul Ackourey, has stated that Rushing “has some serious emotional and mental health problems that will be explored.” State Police also indicated that Rushing had “made overt threats” at T.J. Maxx, where he worked. Despite the fact that Pennsylvania is a “shall-issue state, pursuant to statute local law enforcement can deny a concealed carry permit to an individual who is “not of sound mind” or who “has a character and reputation indicating the applicant would be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety” (among other reasons). Law enforcement is allowed 45 days to carry out an investigation on an applicant.

When claiming that concealed carry permit holders are the most law-abiding citizens in the country, the gun lobby will frequently point to the “rigorous” vetting they go through in order to obtain their permits. This case, however—and others detailed in our “Ordinary People” series—reveal that the screening process in many instances is not even cursory, much less rigorous. For example, Pennsylvania does not even require permit holders to undergo firearm safety training before carrying a handgun in public.

Several other important questions are raised by the Rushing case… Did Sheriff Stankus issue permits to other individuals who posed a threat to public safety during his tenure? Has the state of Pennsylvania implemented any monitoring or oversight procedures to determine if there are similar permitting problems in other counties?

An independent audit of the permitting process is also certainly justified. That is impossible, however, because Pennsylvania has enacted a National Rifle Association-drafted law that prohibits the public from accessing information on concealed carry permit holders.

One thing is clear—when it comes to individuals carrying handguns in public, it is time for Pennsylvania to start putting the safety of its citizens ahead of the interests of the gun lobby.