New York paper puts families of gun owners at risk
From the White Plains, NY, Journal News...
The names of more than 30,000 licensed handgun owners were posted online as part of "Falling Through the Cracks," the paper's Dec. 10 report that found that thousands of registered handguns were unaccounted for because there is no system to secure the weapons of permit holders who die....
The lists were obtained by the newspaper through Freedom of Information Law requests. State pistol permits are public records, as are the names and home addresses of all permit holders. The Journal News chose to withhold the street addresses. Instead, only the names and municipalities where the permit holders live were published.
The paper obviously wants to hurt gun owners by making their names more obtainable by criminals. On of the commenters pointed out...
Unfortunately, something like 100,000 hand guns and another 250,000 rifles/shotguns are stolen from the homes of law abiding gun owners each year. Burglary and car-breakins are the number one source of illegal guns used in crimes. So nice of TJN to take the guess work out of burglaries.
What did you hope to accomplish?
To the obsessed gun haters, hurting gun owners is seen as a sort of pseudo-machiavellian "ends justify the means". I'm sure they're telling themselves that even if hundreds of home get broken into, as long as it prevents a few crimes, they've done something good. (No and they wouldn't catch the stupidity of that).
Another commenter wrote...
It is clear from their articles and posts that the Journal News is Anti-Gun. My wife and I went through the list and knowing many of the names in the list who are friends and family and thanks to the help from the Rockland County Board of Elections website we have found the following stats in the Rockland County Permit list posted by the Journal News. With many of the individuals listed we were able to find their street address (noted by an @ symbol) on line (we will not reveal the sources but it wasn’t hard).
* 1 Assemblyman (@)
* 1 County Executive (@)
* 1 District Attorney (@)
* 1 well known Doctor
* 1 Family Court Judge (@)
* 2 Legislators (@)
* 1 Legislator and Retired PO (@)
* 1 well known Local Businessman (@)
* 4 Mayors (@ 2 found)
* 1 Police Department Dispatcher
* 9 Police Officers (@ 3 known as friends and relatives 2 found online)
* 1 Retired Medical Examiner
* 6 Retired Police Officers (@2 known as friends 2 found online)
* 1 Senator (@)
* 2 Sheriff (@ 1)
* 2 Superintendent of Highways (@)
* 3 Supreme Court Judges (@ 2 found)
* 2 Town Council (@)
* 7 Town Justice (@2 known as friends 3 found online)
* 2 Town Supervisors (@)
* 9 Trustees (@3)
* 4 Village Clerks (@2)
* 4 Village Justice (@3)
The Journal News has made acquiring their pistol permit status information very easy and along with information from the Internet, and given the list above with regard to the people’s professions it is very concerning for their safety. It is common knowledge that a permit given to a police officer and judge is unrestricted giving someone insight of the likely hood that that individual might be carrying. With the Journal News providing 2/3 of the individuals address and the fact the individual has a pistol permit the Journal News has put many at risk, for example if the Family Court Judge does carry, this judge must now worry that his address will be found and a divorced father who this judge emotionally and financially hurt will find the other 1/3 of his address and arm himself with more than what the judge will most likely be carrying.
There's a push on to sue gun manufacturers for damages resulting from crimes commits while someone sues a gun they made. Why wouldn't there be an equally valid right to sue this paper for burglaries committed because the paper foolishly put families in danger in this idiotic stunt?
Posted by Danny Carlton at December 18, 2006 5:39 AM