New York City Newspaper Continues Listing Gun Permit Owners

The suburban newspaper New York citizens rose in outrage over, the Journal News, shows no sign of stopping. Gun permit holders are being listed alongside their addresses, and the population is not pleased at all.

As permit holder information becomes available further names and addresses will be added to a map originally published on December 24, the newspaper said. The original map listed thousands of potential gun owners in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties.

The map accompanied the article entitled, “The gun owner next door: What you don’t know about the weapons in your neighborhood.”

The next batch will cover suburban Putnam County, where the county clerk told the newspaper information is still being compiled, according to Yahoo News.

The citizens are not happy, as Rob Seubert of Maryland posted on the newspaper’s web site:

“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? … What a bunch of liberal b***s you all are.”

Seuber has a point, as now it’s become a case of protection versus privacy. The newspaper also has a point, because they are trying to inform us of where potential threats may lie. It of course fails to take into account that criminals don’t always get permits, and you don’t need a permit to have a gun in your hand.

Several thousand people are licensed to own pistols in the three counties, states the Huffington Post about the newspaper. Owners of rifles and shotguns do not need permits.

Republican state Senator Greg Ball said he planned to introduce legislation to keep permit information private except to prosecutors and police:

“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.”

Earlier in the week, the newspaper’s editor and vice president CynDee Royle defended the listing:

“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.”

There are good points on both sides of the fence, but it appears there could be a new law in the works against what the newspaper is doing. It all comes down to perspective.