Some gun-rights advocates responded angrily when they found that a searchable database of Tennessee gun permit holders was posted on the Web site of the Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Many complained that their right to privacy had been violated. In turn, journalists have been debating the ethics of posting raw data on news organization Web sites and asking how those databases can serve journalism.

The Commercial Appeal posted the database in December 2008. Chris Peck, then the newspaper’s editor, said in an e-mail that he didn’t foresee the rage gun rights advocates would unleash on the newspaper two months later, when the print version of a murder story referred to the database.

“What disturbed me were days of non-stop phone calls at all hours of the day,” Peck said. “Callers were threatening me and my family by saying they knew where I lived. … More than a dozen pro-gun Web sites posted names, addresses, photos of not just my wife and me, but my children.”

A blog post titled “Lawful Gun Owner Turns Table on Liberal Rag,” listed the home addresses of all Commercial Appeal executives, from publisher to advertising manager. They were posted under a paragraph which read, “… the pricks at the Commercial Appeal … invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens. I suggest invading theirs, for a change.”

Some of the critics complained that people with gun permits would now become the targets of criminals who wanted to steal firearms or women who were permit holders to protect themselves from abusive former partners would have to give up their secret addresses.

Peck dismissed those possibilities. “The database we posted doesn’t include home addresses or home phone numbers.” In fact, the newspaper took out holders’ addresses and phone numbers from the database before it was posted online.

Then, what about the other information, such as holders’ names? According to the Tennessee Codes, the confidentiality of handgun permit holders’ data is not protected by law. In other words, the data is public information.

Tennessee legislators later introduced bills that would seal off public access to handgun permit holders’ data in the state.

Pro-gun legislative efforts have also been seen in Virginia and Arkansas. The Roanoke (Va.) Times publicized the state gun permit holders database on its Web site in 2007. In February, Virginia lawmakers passed a bill blocking the public access to that database.

In February, an Arkansas Times reporter posted a link to the state police gun holders database on his newspaper blog. A bill has been recommended by a state senate committee that would block public access to gun permit holders’ information, except for their names and ZIP codes.

Journalism educators say news judgment should play a role in deciding whether to post databases.

Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute said in an e-mail that some public information could be relevant to personal privacy. “Lots of things are open … including your divorce records, but it is one thing to sit in the court files, it is another to print them in the paper or online for no apparent reason but that you ’can.’”

Yang Liu is a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism.