RICHMOND -- The state police would withhold information about Virginians with permits to carry concealed handguns and allow no exceptions for political organizations and firearms advocates under legislation endorsed Monday by a state advisory council.

The draft legislation would prohibit the state police from releasing its database containing the identities of state residents with concealed-carry permits. The information had been considered a public record until March, when a Roanoke Times editorial writer wrote a column encouraging readers to check the list and included a link to the database. The newspaper obtained the database under the Freedom of Information Act.

Publication of the list triggered outrage from gun owners and advocates. The newspaper removed the database after receiving hundreds of complaints.

In response to the complaints, lawmakers vowed to take steps to restrict access to the information. The state police stopped distributing the information in April on the advice of Attorney General Bob McDonnell. Draft legislation endorsed Monday by the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council would make the ban permanent.

Records of concealed-carry permits would remain available on a locality-by-locality basis at circuit courts, which issue the permits. The state police could continue to release statistical summaries and related data about concealed-carry permits without identifying individual permit holders.

"This sort of balances the need that I think we all felt when The Roanoke Times published that database," said state Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania County, the chairman of the advisory council.

Critics of the newspaper's decision to post the statewide database on its Web site noted that the permit list contains the names and addresses of crime victims and witnesses who may have concealed-carry permits for protection.

"I think the real concern here was that there were a lot of people on that list who were victims of crime, who had been stalked or who had been in abusive situations," said House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, a member of the council. "And while, yes, an abuser can go to a courthouse ... he's less likely to go to a courthouse where he's going to be viewed by a number of citizens pulling up the information."

Support for the legislation was not unanimous on the 12-member panel, which is appointed by the General Assembly and includes a mix of government, academic, legal and media representatives. Council member Craig Fifer of Alexandria questioned the logic of the proposal, saying, "It strikes me almost as a little bit insulting to the public as customers of government to say that it's OK for them to get it as long as it's inconvenient."

A version of the draft legislation would have allowed political committees and candidates and nonprofit hunting and firearms groups to have access to the database, but a council subcommittee struck those exemptions on Monday.

Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, argued that organizations such as his should have access to the state police data. The VCDL has requested the state police data and has used it to identify potential members.