Common Sense May Prevail in Emporia Area

Copied from THE BULLET Jan/Feb 2007

Common Sense May Prevail in Emporia Area
An Editorial by Ray Cahen

Thanks to the watchful eye of a Freeman, Virginia VSSA member, a voluntary firearms registry in the Emporia area may soon be curtailed.

The November 1, 2006 issue of the "Independent Messenger" which covers Emporia, Greensville and surrounding areas, carried a front-page article titled Police, Sheriff set up gun registry. The article encouraged all residents to come by the Emporia Police Department and the Greensville County Sheriff's office to register their "weapons" by model name, serial number, and caliber.

According to Emporia Police Chief Bernard Richardson, law enforcement was continually frustrated by not being able to identify stolen items from a rash of home break-ins in the Emporia, Virginia area. This frustration resulted in City and County Law Enforcement officials offering the public the opportunity to voluntarily register their firearms so that recovered firearms could be returned to their rightful owners and to permit unrecovered firearms to be entered into a national information network which is available to any "agency" having questions about the status of a "weapon".

Greenville County Sheriff Wyatt Lee's office stated that the County had received one telephone inquiry, but no registrations by the Bullet deadline for submissions.

Emporia Police Chief Richardson had recorded only two registrations, neither of which resulted in a charge against the registrant for being a person ineligible to own a firearm under state or federal law. Criminals are stupid, so I just had to ask the question.

Chief Richardson and I then had a long and productive conversation about how registration lists put the law abiding public at peril. It appears that during planning to implement the local registration program, no one had considered problems arising from the release of private information via Freedom of Information requests.

Chief Richardson stated for the record that he is very concerned about public privacy issues, and that he will reconsider the voluntary registration program and its ability to protect the registrant's information.

VSSA looks forward to hearing that voluntary firearms registration will cease to exist in the Emporia area.