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Illegal Data Release Massachusetts

Drix said:
Doing some data massaging, starting with the personal sales.

The average personal sale per user is 2.94
The standard deviation is a whopping 18.2 guns.
The winner of "I buy on EFA10 the most" is buyer 35099 who has purchased a whopping 3,584 Firearms between 1/1/2004 and 12/31/2021.
There are 4 users with over a thousand EFA10
Click to expand...
Drix said:
Doing some data massaging, starting with the personal sales.

The average personal sale per user is 2.94
The standard deviation is a whopping 18.2 guns.
The winner of "I buy on EFA10 the most" is buyer 35099 who has purchased a whopping 3,584 Firearms between 1/1/2004 and 12/31/2021.
There are 4 users with over a thousand EFA10 purchases.
Click to expand...
So your saying .54 efa10 transactions a day is like a lot? Rather judgy dont you think? Lol
Thats actually staggering when you figure the time involved. How does that person have any money left?
 
MaverickNH said:
When everyone knows who has a gun, it might be “useful” to publish a map of those who don’t. Guns are a means to get and keep/protect other stuiff. If you don’t have one…
Click to expand...
That would be pointless if everyone knows who has a gun.

Since everyone doesn't know who has a gun, publishing a list of who DOESNT have a gun will effectively tell you who has one.
 
swagelin said:
i don't see where it has the buyers unique ID in any of the columns in their files
Click to expand...
After many complaints, they removed the column with the unique IDs from the spreadsheets the morning of 1/28/2023. If you download the files after that, you won't see the unique identifier.
 
cathouse01 said:
After many complaints, they removed the column with the unique IDs from the spreadsheets the morning of 1/28/2023. If you download the files after that, you won't see the unique identifier.
Click to expand...
But you still see birthday and towns, right?
 
Broc said:
you still see birthday and towns, right?
Click to expand...
You see sex and towns in the list of FID/LTC applications and you can infer the birthday from the expiration date, but there is no more unique identifier that you can use to cross reference a specific individual to the various transaction lists. And in the transaction lists you now only see the buyer's sex, city, state and zip. Before you could use the expiration date to get the day/month of a birthday and get a pretty narrow selection of FID/LTC holders for a give zip code/town. Then using the unique ID from the FID/LTC application list you could see all the transactions for that person.
 
cathouse01 said:
You see sex and towns in the list of FID/LTC applications and you can infer the birthday from the expiration date, but there is no more unique identifier that you can use to cross reference a specific individual to the various transaction lists. And in the transaction lists you now only see the buyer's sex, city, state and zip. Before you could use the expiration date to get the day/month of a birthday and get a pretty narrow selection of FID/LTC holders for a give zip code/town. Then using the unique ID from the FID/LTC application list you could see all the transactions for that person.
Click to expand...
Well, that means the list still tells people who owns a gun.

It is better than giving away their gun collection, but the expiration dates need to dissappear.

Would love an update on why the State removed one but not the other.
 
Broc said:
I agree. But why are they taking away one identifier and not the other?
Click to expand...
I can only speculate that they are claiming that the month/day without the actual year is not sufficient to uniquely identify someone. In any given group of 57 people, the probability of any two of then having the same day/month for their birthday is actually very high, 99%. So, unless you already know that someone has a FID/LTC, using their day/month of birth to determine if someone does have one would give a pretty large number of false positives, since in a town of any size you're pretty much guaranteed lots of folks with the same day/month for their birthday.

ETA Even in my little town, looking at the data there is one other person with a LTC that shares my day/month of birth.
 
Last edited:
huskyal02_R1 said:
You just have to move to a different town every so often :)
Click to expand...
That would be even worse. The illegal data show your current town (when published) regardless of where you lived when you bought.

If you move and the illegal data gets updated, smart people can connect you and your gun collection to the new town, eliminating any ambiguity between license holders with the same birth date.
 
EJFudd said:
That would be even worse. The illegal data show your current town (when published) regardless of where you lived when you bought.

If you move and the illegal data gets updated, smart people can connect you and your gun collection to the new town, eliminating any ambiguity between license holders with the same birth date.
Click to expand...
Folks who have moved out of state show their new address as well. At first glace it looks like MA dealers sold a pistol to a non-MA resident...
 
Belden73 said:
I can find myself easily, but I don't see how someone else can find me.
Click to expand...
If you've done private transfer you can find their full history.

Or, how about this one: Abusive ex has enough details on when and where you bought a gun when you were together. By looking up the records they can cruise right into the town you moved into to get away from them, and maybe even know a gun shop that you now frequent.

Of course the real answer is that there is no compelling public need served by releasing this data, so the state has absolutely no business doing so, period. The question here isn't "why not?" it's "why?"

They did so because the Globe, et. al. were pestering them for data so they could fuel their "news" hit pieces. Imagine, for example, that Arkansas or wherever, released a list of folks who got abortions in the state, with dates, doctor's name, etc. If you can imagine the public outrage that would follow such a release, then you're in the neighborhood of what we should be feeling here.
 

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