Please contact your state senators and ask them to support House Bill 2787 and House Bill 2792. HB 2787 removes concealed carry permits from public record and HB 2792 allows for Oregon to have reciprocity with any state that issues concealed carry permits.
CHL information is currently part of the public record, but Thatcher said she thinks it should have been exempted from the beginning. “Recently, it’s been more of a target for public records requests,” she said. “People misguidedly think that if they know who has a concealed handgun license, they’ll know who’s carrying a gun, and that’s just not the case.
A frequent champion of expanded transparency in the state — she was behind creation of the state transparency website and has championed improved public records laws — Thatcher said removing CHLs from the public record does not go against that mindset.
“Public records laws, ‘Sunshine’ laws, they came about around the Watergate era to shine some light on government actions,” she said. “These licenses have to do with private individuals.”
She said the bill, submitted at the request of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, has generated a lot of interest from the public, and those who have contacted her are “overwhelming for it.”
