Arkansas Editor Apologizes For Posting Names Of Concealed Carry Permit Holders Online

Arkansas Business editor Gwen Moritz has apologized for posting the names of concealed carry permit holders online. 

Written in op-ed fashion, and titled “My Learning Curve,” the apology begins thus:

The professional and personal lessons I have been taught during the past few days are ones that I should have learned much earlier in life, but now they are learned forever.

…From having posted, and since removed, the Arkansas concealed-carry list from my website. But let me say this right off the bat, I was stupid. Also naive. And I am truly sorry because, as pure as my motive for posting the list was, it became obvious to me that my tactic was colossally wrong. And as my many critics will point out, what’s done can’t be undone. But I wish it could.

Moritz then goes on to describe receiving so many phone calls she literally had to unplug her landline from the wall. Her work email was flooded. And people posted some of her private information online, all to give her a taste for what she’d done to people on the Arkansas concealed-carry list.

Near the end of her nearly two page apology, Mortiz wrote this: 

I have not received any actual death threats, not even from the people who thought it was a proportional response to post pictures of my house on the internet. This remarkable fact underscores a point that gun aficionados make till they are blue in the face: They are not criminals…they truly see themselves as the good guys with guns. 

This, I think, may be the most valuable lesson I can share with the people who are concerned about my safety.

I say kudos to Moritz not simply for learning a lesson but for sharing it. I speak only for myself, but as far as I’m concerned–apology accepted.