comments Onondaga County sheriff says he won't release pistol permit holders' names to data seller

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Gun rights advocates protest the NY Safe Act gun control law earlier this year at the Inner Harbor amphitheater. About 13,000 pistol permit holders have asked their names not be made public, Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh said. (David Lassman | [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.])

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The names of pistol permit holders in Onondaga County won't be released to an online company that sells data, Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh said today.

Walsh said state law and court decisions allow him to deny the request filed last week by emerges.com under the state's Freedom of Information Law.

"I think from the nature of their business we can legally infer this is going to be used for purposes of solicitation, and that is grounds enough to deny them," Walsh said on the Capitol Pressroom radio show on WCNY-FM.

Walsh said since the news broke this week that emerges.com had asked for the data, 3,000 permit holders have filed forms asking their names not be released. That's on top of the 10,000 permit holders that had already filed the forms.

Walsh said there are about 60,000 pistol permits in Onondaga County.

Emerges.com says on its website it compiles and sells lists of hunters and anglers.

Robert Freeman, the state's top public information officer, says that Walsh should release the list. The information law allows an agency to withhold a list if it would be used for solicitation, but not if that same list is made public by a different state law.

In this case, the NY Safe Act gun control law adopted in January says that "the name and address of any person to whom an application for any license has been granted shall be a public record." That means Walsh has to release names of permit holders who have not filed a privacy form, said Freeman, executive director of the state's Committee on Open Government.

Walsh said the disagreement with emerges.com might end up before a judge.

"That's something the courts will have to make an ultimate decision on," he said. "I think the existing (court) decisions support our position."