A New York state newspaper is taking drastic steps to protect its staff after it enraged gun owners in two counties.
The Journal News, a Gannett-owned newspaper in Westchester, N.Y., published a map showing the names and addresses of licensed gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties.
The Journal News tried to do the same for Putnam County, but the newspaper's request for records was denied because of the outrage the map had already caused in Westchester County.
That outrage was so intense the newspaper resorted to hiring armed security guards to man its headquarters after receiving multiple threats, The Rockland Country Times reported Tuesday.
The threats were reportedly so concerning, Journal News Rockland Editor Caryn McBride filed at least two reports with local police.
One reader decided to use a different tactic to express his anger at the newspaper.
After the map was published, incensed reader Christopher Fountain used his blog to release the name, home address, and phone number of the paper's publisher, editor, and the reporters behind the map.
As Christmas was approaching, one newspaper, the Journal News of White Plains, New York, decided to take on Scrooge's personality of mean-spiritedness. They printed an interactive map that included the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. Each red dot represented an individual gun owner. They were able to obtain this information because New York state law allows it to be part of the public record. American Thinker was able to interview a few of these gun owners about how they felt about being "outed" by this newspaper.
In clicking randomly on the red dots, American Thinker found that gun owners make up a wide range of people. Some gun owners contacted did not want to talk, some did not even know they had been outed, some spoke but did not want their name published, and others spoke on the record. There was the same general sentiment by all, even those who did not want to be interviewed: outrage, because they had obtained their guns legally.
One person, a retired police officer, told American Thinker that the Journal News has put his family and himself in danger from the criminals he has arrested, because they now know where he lives. He wondered if the newspaper had even thought about the negative consequences.
Another person preferred to remain anonymous because of her profession. She classifies herself as a liberal Democrat except on the gun issue, where she referred to herself as a conservative. After finding out from a friend that her name had been published, she felt angry, intruded on, and invaded. "Now I have to worry if someone will try to rob us to get our guns. Owning a gun was important, since my husband always owned rifles and wanted a handgun. If there was to be a gun in my home, I felt I should know how to use it. We went through the training course and the permit application together. In fact, to gain membership in a shooting club, we had to take a competency and accuracy test. I truly believe the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Banning guns will not solve the problem about killings. If guns are not available, people will use more dangerous weapons like bombs." She went on to say that she does believe in some kind of gun control, such as competency tests, since people have to do that to get a driver's license.
Another person proudly stated, "I am not embarrassed to say I own guns. I think it was completely irresponsible and dangerous for the newspaper to do what they did. It is an attempt to stigmatize gun owners to make us into pariahs and outcasts.....
One reader decided to use a different tactic to express his anger at the newspaper.
After the map was published, incensed reader Christopher Fountain used his blog to release the name, home address, and phone number of the paper's publisher, editor, and the reporters behind the map.
I am all for this. They should dig deeper and continue to post all available private information about these people.
Reformed crooks say the New York newspaper that published a map of names and addresses of gun owners did a great service – to their old cronies in the burglary trade.
The information published online by the Journal-News, a daily paper serving the New York suburbs of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, could be highly useful to thieves in two ways, former burglars told FoxNews.com. Crooks looking to avoid getting shot now know which targets are soft and those who need weapons know where they can steal them....
Reformed crooks say the New York newspaper that published a map of names and addresses of gun owners did a great service – to their old cronies in the burglary trade.
The information published online by the Journal-News, a daily paper serving the New York suburbs of Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, could be highly useful to thieves in two ways, former burglars told FoxNews.com. Crooks looking to avoid getting shot now know which targets are soft and those who need weapons know where they can steal them....
Just before Christmas, the local newspaper in New York’s tony Westchester and Rockland Counties decided to respond to the horrific shootings in nearby Newton, Conn., with its own version of insanity.
The Journal News published an interactive “gun map” showing the names and addresses of thousands of local residents who have handgun permits. The article’s headline read, “The Gun Owner Next Door: What You Don’t Know about the Weapons in Your Neighborhood.” The paper explained that it had obtained the records by filing Freedom of Information Act requests with local officials. Publisher Janet Hasson defended the paper’s move by stating, “We felt that sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.”
Judging from the outraged response, most of the paper’s readers and many local officials disagree. Putnam County Clerk Dennis Sant, announcing he would not follow the lead of officials in Westchester and Rockland Counties, has refused to turn over records to the paper. By listing the addresses of homes without guns, the paper has effectively drawn a map for criminals, telling them which places to rob and “endangering our citizens,” Sant said. County executive Mary Ellen Odell called the publication “reckless.” One high-ranking official in Westchester County I spoke with notes that the newspaper has put legitimate gun owners on an equal footing with sex offenders and other criminals. “Maybe I’d like to see a map published of those accused of defrauding the county government, but I’d never expect a paper to print one,” he says.
Some local officials say that anyone who has had contact with ex-criminals — including prosecutors, judges, jurors, and police — could feel threatened now. Aron Wieder, a Democratic county legislator in Rockland County, fears for his safety now that people know he doesn’t own a handgun. He applied for a pistol permit last week. “I never owned a gun, but now I have no choice,” he told reporters in a news conference Friday. “I’ll do anything, anything to protect my family.” Rockland County sheriff Louis Falco told Newsday that he was appalled to learn that inmates at the county’s jail were taunting guards in the days after the Journal News published its map. “They have inmates coming up to them and telling them exactly where they live,” Falco said. “That’s not acceptable to me.” Charlotte Swift, of Orangetown, says she experienced a flood of emotion when she first saw the list: “I originally obtained a gun permit because I had previously been married to a man who attempted to strangle me. . . . The first emotion I felt was, ‘Oh my gosh, he can find me.’”
Ironically, some of the harshest critics of the Journal News’s decision to publish the map are former burglars, such as Walter T. Shaw, an ex-burglar whom the FBI blames for more than 3,000 break-ins during the 1960s and 1970s. Shaw told Fox News: “Having a list of who has a gun is like gold — why rob that house when you can hit the one next door, where there are no guns?”
Equally disturbing, crooks who need weapons now know exactly where they can steal them. “Guns are on the top of the list of what you want to steal,” Bob Portenier, a former armed house robber, told Fox. “They can sell them to a gangbanger who ends up killing someone.”
But such arguments make no impression on knee-jerk supporters of gun control. In Connecticut, Democratic representative Stephen Dargan, the co-chair of the legislature’s public-safety committee, has introduced a bill to make public the names and addresses of 170,000 people who hold handgun permits in the state.
“I don’t know why a responsible gun owner is worried about whether a permit for a revolver is FOI-able or not,” he told reporters. In his view, it’s reasonable for people to want such information. “Maybe their kids are going over to Johnny Smith’s, and maybe they want to see whether they have guns in the house,” he suggested.
Richard Burgess, head of a local group that advocates for Second Amendment rights, says Dargan’s bill is nonsensical. Homeowners with rifles or shotguns don’t need permits in the state, he observed to a Hartford Courant reporter, so no one would know if those weapons were in a home. “So, really, you’re not getting a benefit out of it, and you’re only putting the gun owner in danger.”
Liberals such as Dargan don’t see anything wrong in publicly shaming those who legally own guns. When it comes to their own personal safety, though, they are far more sensitive.
Take the Journal News executives who decided to publish the gun map. The newspaper was so inundated with complaints that shortly after Christmas it took extra security precautions and hired security guards — who were armed — to patrol its Rockland County headquarters. The executives reported no incidents of any kind at the building, but they turned over at least two e-mails they found troubling. The local police said they didn’t find the e-mails threatening and concluded that they “did not constitute an offense.” The Journal News chose not to share with its readers the information that it had hired armed security guards. That revelation came from a competing newspaper, the Rockland County Times, which concluded that the Journal News conducts itself according to the double standard: “Guns are good for the goose but not for the gander.”
Ah, I see. So it is ironic in an Alanis-Morisette-kind-of way -- in other words, ironic insofar as it's not ironic, like a song about irony that contains no examples of irony.
Either that, or you just can't explain it. Take your pick.
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