Forum Post: Journal News published the names and addresses of all gun permit holders in county areas...
Posted 11 years ago on Dec. 25, 2012, 2:02 a.m. EST by outlawtumor
(-162)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
by BEN SHAPIRO
Today, the Journal News in upstate New York, owned by Gannett, published the names and addresses of all gun permit holders in the Westchester and Rockland county areas of New York. The Journal News said:
The map indicates the addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties. Each dot represents an individual permit holder licensed to own a handgun — a pistol or revolver. The data does not include owners of long guns — rifles or shotguns — which can be purchased without a permit. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so. The newspaper didn’t even feel it necessary to publish a rationale for that violation of privacy – publishing the names and addresses of gun owners makes them more vulnerable to robbery when they aren’t at home, since criminals will know where the guns are. They did, however, run a piece targeting gun owners as the root of all evil:
In the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and amid renewed nationwide calls for stronger gun control, some Lower Hudson Valley residents would like lawmakers to expand the amount of information the public can find out about gun owners. About 44,000 people in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam — one out of every 23 adults — is licensed to own a handgun.
They did stump for the public to be able to see “permits an individual has been issued, the types of handguns a person possesses or the number of guns he or she owns – whether one or a dozen.”
NBC News reports that the gunman, one William Spengler, was already banned from owning guns. Spengler served 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother with a hammer in 1980. He was convicted only of manslaughter, and was paroled in 1998. It seems that stronger sentencing for convicted murderers might be a more worthwhile goal of liberals seeking to prevent gun violence. Spengler shot the firefighters just before 6 a.m. ET in Webster, New York. He’d set the fire, then waited for the firefighters to show up before shooting them. “It does appear that it was a trap that was set,” said Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering. “People who get up in the middle of the night to fight fires, they don’t expect to get shot and killed.” Spengler shot himself. New York already has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation. Felons, like Spengler, are already barred by law from owning guns according to federal law.