Fallout from publishing gun owner names in New York

Just as the Jews were shunned and faced harassment after the National Socialist Party (the Nazi Party for those living in Rio Linda) publicly identified them, so too are gun owners facing ostracism after a local newspaper published a list of gun owners in several counties in New York State, including offering an online searchable database with names and addresses.

Prisoners are using the online database to look up the home addresses of guards working and using that information to intimidate the guards and to threaten their families.  It’s true.

(FoxNews) – Law enforcement officials from a New York region where a local paper published a map identifying gun owners say prisoners are using the information to intimidate guards.

Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who spoke at a news conference flanked by other county officials, said the Journal News’ decision to post an online map of names and addresses of handgun owners Dec. 23 has put law enforcement officers in danger.

“They have inmates coming up to them and telling them exactly where they live. That’s not acceptable to me,” Falco said, according to Newsday.

Robert Riley, an officer with the White Plains Police Department and president of its Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, agreed.

“You have guys who work in New York City who live up here. Now their names and addresses are out there, too,” he said adding that there are 8,000 active and retired NYPD officers currently living in Rockland County.

Ann Coulter excoriated the Journal News newspaper a new one on the Sean Hannity show this past week.  It’s 6:47 of pure goodness from start to finish.

Ironically, the newspaper who published the list has hired armed guards to protect it from angry gun owners.  It would seem that the leftist staff at the Journal News is exhibiting a psychological projection in their belief that the law-abiding gun permit holders would turn to unlawful armed violence over the newspaper’s shameful act.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A New York newspaper that unleashed a public outcry after it published the names and addresses of residents with pistol permits is being protected by armed guards.

The guards have been posted at its White Plains headquarters and in a satellite office in West Nyack since last week, publisher Janet Hasson said. “The safety of my staff is my top priority,” she told The New York Times.

Now a leftist gun-hater in Connecticut is proposing to publish that state’s list of gun owners.

Connecticut Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Publish Names, Addresses of Gun Permit Holders

(Breitbart) – Connecticut State Representative Stephen D. Dargan (D-New Haven), co-chairman of the state’s Public Safety Committee, has introduced a bill that would make public the names and addresses of gun permit holders in Connecticut under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Dargan’s bill is in response to the Dec. 14^th shootings in the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, CT, and also occurs as a Westchester County, NY newspaper, the Journal News, is drawing widespread, nationwide anger for publishing a map with the names and addresses of gun permit holders. The bill, if passed, would reverse the state legislature’s decision, made nearly two decades ago, to protect gun permit holders’ personal information from disclosure.

Connecticut’s General Assembly will return to Hartford next week, when a five-month session will begin, one in which gun control is expected to be a dominant issue. The state has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, yet is one of the most lenient toward serious crimes, having just repealed the death penalty last spring, and having passed, in 2011, a controversial early release amendment for some prisoners who demonstrate good behavior while incarcerated.

“Most things are FOIA-able now,” Dargan said in an interview Thursday. ”Go to the local city clerk’s office and you can find out where Steve Dargan owns property. I don’t know why a responsible gun owner is worried about whether a permit for a revolver is FOIA-able or not.”

This searchable database is also making life easier and less dangerous for the burglars in the area – and not necessarily in the way gun grabbers would think:

 

 

Ex-Burglars Say Newspaper’s Gun Map Would’ve Made the Job Easier, Safer

(FoxNews) – 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.

“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?”

– Walter T. Shaw, former burglar and jewel thief

“That was the most asinine article I’ve ever seen,” said Walter T. Shaw, 65, a former burglar and jewel thief who the FBI blames for more than 3,000 break-ins that netted some $70 million in the 1960s and 1970s. “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?

Tried in Illinois in 2011

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan tried this in 2011 and was met with voter backlash that was astonishing.  “I wish gun owners were so excited about getting right to carry,” John Boch, president of Guns Save Life said to reporters.  “We would have had right-to-carry twenty years ago if they had!”

Guns Save Life made headlines comparing Madigan’s attempt to publicly identify and harass gun owners to similar efforts by the Nazis before World War II to do the same with Jews in Germany.

Shortly after that brouhaha, both the Illinois House and Senate approved making the list of gun owners in Illinois off-limits to Freedom of Information Act requests by overwhelming margins and a reluctant Governor Quinn signed the bill after earlier supporting the release.\