New York Newspaper to Release More Names of Gun Permit Owners After UproarNo image available
New York Newspaper to Release More Names of Gun Permit Owners After Uproar
Made popular 141 days ago in Politics
townhall.com — Following the shooting in Newtown, CT a suburban New York newspaper sparked quite an uproar among gun enthusiasts by publishing names and addresses of residents who held pistol permits. Now this same newspaper is looking to publish even more names.

More names and addresses will bed added to a map that was originally posted on Christmas Eve in the Journal News from White Plains, NY. The first map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland county, which are just north of New York City.

Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.

This next list will show the names of permit holders in Putnam County, New York. The county clerk told the newspaper that it is still compiling information.

Some 44,000 people are licensed to own pistols in the three counties, the newspaper said. However, owners of rifles and shotguns do not need permits. According to Reuters:

“The publication prompted outrage, particularly on social media sites, among gun owners.

"Do you fools realize that you also made a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns in them to protect themselves?" Rob Seubert of Silver Spring, Maryland, posted on the newspaper's web site. "What a bunch of liberal boobs you all are."

Republican state Senator Greg Ball of Patterson, New York, said he planned to introduce legislation to keep permit information private except to prosecutors and police.

A similar bill that he introduced earlier as an Assemblyman failed in the state Assembly.

"The asinine editors at the Journal News have once again gone out of their way to place a virtual scarlet letter on law abiding firearm owners throughout the region," Ball wrote on his Senate web site.

The newspaper's editor and vice president of news, CynDee Royle, earlier in the week defended the decision to list the permit holders.

"We knew publication of the database would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings," she said.

Some critics retaliated by posting reporters' and editors' addresses and other personal information online.

Howard Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, called the critics' response childish and petulant.

"It doesn't move the issue of gun control to the level of intelligent public discussion," he said. "Instead, it transforms what should be a rational public debate on a contentious issue into ugly gutter fighting."

Good said the information about permit holders was public and, if presented in context, served a legitimate interest.

But media critic Al Tompkins of the Florida-based Poynter Institute wrote online this week that the newspaper's reporting had not gone far enough to justify the permit holders' loss of privacy.

"If journalists could show flaws in the gun permitting system, that would be newsworthy," he said. "Or, for example, if gun owners were exempted from permits because of political connections, then journalists could better justify the privacy invasion."

Tompkins said he feared the dispute might prompt lawmakers to play to privacy fears.

"The net effect of th

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Posted by james2044
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If a published address becomes a victum of crime, is the paper responsible?
Yes
81%
Lean to yes
4.8%
Not sure
4.8%
lean to no
4.8%
No
4.8%
This is not a scientific survey, click here to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding and voting descrepencies.
User Comments
lastbaldeagle
Posted 140 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
As per usual the l;iberal media wing of the democRAT party is attacking the good guys (Law abiding citizens) instead of the unworkable policies of the left and ignoring the lack of enforcement of the 10,000 gun laws already on the books.

Don't you ever wonder what our Nation would look like with an honest Fourth Estate?
bish66
Posted 139 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@lastbaldeagle
I thought gun owners were proud of their guns... If the newspaper can compile the data, it is not classified data. We can discuss the merits of this map and frankly, I don't care if my neighbor has a gun, or two, or an arsenal that makes the US Army proud. A map like that is as helpful as the maps of cities showing the scenes of reported crimes.

Will this make non-gun owners targets for crimes? No, why should it? Some people have rifles without having a permit and in case of a burglary, a baseball bat, a dog or a security system can come handy as well. If I were a burglar, I would rather go for some place where I can estimate the risks, like knowing that there is a Smith & Wesson in the house.
james2044
Posted 139 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@bish66,

Would you want a newspaper to publish your name & address becuse you kept a large amount of cash in your house?

Would you worry that this action would make you a target?

If you answer "yes" to either or both questions, why would you want this done to someone else?

If you answered "no" to both questions, I'm not sure where you live but it must be very very safe.
bish66
Posted 138 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@james2044
What has the ownership of guns to do with money? You have/should have registered your handguns and all the newspaper did was tell people of a certain area who does own a legal registered gun.

Does this knowledge make ANYBODY a target? Absolutely not! If I know that such a map exists in my neighborhood, I can think about buying a gun, a dog, a security system or doing nothing at all. The always anonymous "bad guys" do not know if the map is current enough, so if they believe me to be unarmed, they might be in for a surprise, because maybe I bought a gun in the meantime. Or because I own an unregistered gun. Or because I'm a hunter and own a shotgun/rifle that does not appear in the map.

If I want to know who owns guns in my neighborhood, all I have to do is hang around the next local shooting range or gun shop, because most of the time, people are really proud of their guns. I personally do not need a gun, never felt the urge to buy one. I was in the army and had ample time shooting guns, so I do know guns and how to handle them.
I don't own a gun and don't need one to feel secure, so I am not bothered by people knowing that I don't have a gun and I am not bothered by knowing who of my neighbors own a gun.

Most violent shootings of the past year were committed with legal guns, so we as human beings should think about what we can do to prevent the next killing spree of some young educated white man without any criminal record, because somehow, most of the shooters are not old, black, stupid, or female...
james2044
Posted 136 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
@bish66, so you have NO PROBLEM with the media giving your name & address out for anyone to use as they wish?

Or is it that you don't care as long as you approve of the harm they are doing?
Free
Posted 140 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
I'm not worried about gun owners, I'm worried about someone using it to go after non gun owners families.
james2044
Posted 136 days ago
0 up votes, 0 down votes
In all this yelling & arm waving, has anyone considered that these mass killings are in states with the strongest anti gun laws?
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