The governor and his guns

Gov. Jim Gibbons' 10-year-old permit to carry a concealed firearm has been in the news, of late.

The governor temporarily surrendered his permit after it was found he hadn't re-qualified with each of the nine handguns listed on his permit, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported earlier this month.

The Washoe County sheriff's office renewed the governor's permit in December, after Gov. Gibbons and a certified firearms instructor signed an application reporting he'd demonstrated competence with each of the nine weapons he's licensed to carry, the paper reported.

But the governor carried only seven guns to the range. He promised the instructor he'd come back with the remaining two weapons within a few days, but said he "got busy" and didn't return to be tested after receiving his renewed permit.

About a month later, Gov. Gibbons "realized he had not followed through on his intention to test the two weapons" and turned his permit back in to the Washoe County sheriff's office, press secretary Ben Kieckhefer said in a written statement. Gov. Gibbons then went through the proper certification and was reissued his permit.

The requirement that Nevadans "qualify" with each weapon they might carry is slightly absurd. Qualifying with one revolver and one semiautomatic pistol should suffice. That's not what's been generating the minor tempest, though.

Some have asked why the governor needs to carry a concealed weapon, since he usually travels with a police bodyguard.

That's a silly question for several reasons. First, many Nevadans apply for the permit even though they don't regularly carry -- it allows them to waive the new background check and the arbitrarily imposed $25 state fee every time they buy a new firearm. Mr. Kieckhefer explains the governor is one of the Nevadans who "doesn't carry."

But secondly, why should anyone be expected to cite a "need" to exercise a constitutional right? How would you set about proving a "need" to attend a house of worship or sign a petition or write a letter to the editor?

The second matter that now resurfaces is the question of open public records. Though the default setting is that all state records should be public, Nevada law makes an exception here, stipulating "an application for a permit and all information contained within that application" are confidential.

Does that mean sheriffs can't confirm who has a permit? After all, the permittee's name is "contained with the application." Some sheriffs -- including those of Washoe and Clark counties -- interpret the law that way, offering the rationale that would-be gun thieves should be discouraged from accessing the list of home addresses of permittees.

Washoe County Sheriff Mike Haley interprets the confidentiality requirement so broadly that he won't even comment on whether the firearms instructor faced any discipline for signing off on the governor's permit. Sheriffs in Elko, Douglas, White Pine and Lincoln counties, meantime, consider permit holders' names to be a matter of public record.

At the very least some generic information about the number of permits issued and rejected should be available, allowing public oversight to make sure none of our police agencies are arbitrarily barring specific groups of Nevadans from exercising this important liberty. Some clarification from the state Legislature -- leaning toward as much transparency as possible -- would be welcome.

As usual, however, controversy about whether such records should be public ought to focus attention on why the authorities are gathering such information in the first place. These concerns would vanish, for instance, if Nevada were to emulate the example of Vermont.

The last we heard, it was impossible for either a resident of the Green Mountain State, or a visitor there, to apply for and receive a concealed handgun permit, because the state has no "permitting" system at all. It's legal for anyone to carry a concealed weapon in Vermont, as the founders intended. Far from creating a state where the corpses are lined up each Monday morning after the widespread shoot-outs, crime rates in Vermont, which trusts its citizens to go armed, remain spectacularly low.

Needless to say, there's no controversy about how much information from Vermont "handgun permit applications" should be made public -- because the state never gathers such information in the first place.

Nevada, once proud of its laissez-faire reputation, should consider doing likewise.