Blogger Creates Interactive Map of Employees of Paper Which Published Names and Addresses of Pistol Permit Holders

◼ Making Lists -- and Publishing Them: Earth First ('Prank' Hit List), Gannett's Journal News (Pistol Permit Holders) - Tom Blumer/Newsbusters

The Journal News has published its own (conveniently unbylined) list, complete with interactive maps. The maps contain "the addresses (and names) of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties." Really:

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.

Data for all permit categories, unrestricted carry, premises, business, employment, target and hunting, is included, but permit information is not available on an individual basis.

To create the map, The Journal News submitted Freedom of Information requests for the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam. By state law, the information is public record.

The paper does not identify how publishing all of these names and addresses furthers its alleged "long and distinguished history of service to the residents and businesses in New York’s Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties." Because it doesn't.

What it does is two things:

Gives criminals an easy roadmap for identifying homes from which they might steal guns.

Arguably more dangerously, it identifies who doesn't have "pistols" as targets who will likely be less able to resist robbery, assault, or worse, both at home and especially in public.

Which of the two is the bigger danger is an open question. I believe it's the latter. If I'm right, the publishing of these maps should disturb the unarmed far more than those who are armed.

◼ In response to Gannett's Jounal News headquartered in White Plains, New York publishing an interactive map containing the names and addresses of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland Counties (previous related posts are here and here), blogger Robert Cox at NewRochelleTalk.com (HT Instapundit) has produced an interactive map at a post entitled "Where are the Journal News employees in your neighborhood?" - Tom Blumer/Newsbusters

Sorry, Journal News, but you can't just walk all over the privacy rights of thousands of individuals and families and endanger everyone in your reading area in a blatant attempt to, by your own admission, capitalize on a school shooting tragedy -- gun owners who might see their weapons stolen and non-owners who can now be considered "soft targets" -- while automatically assuming that there will be no consequences.

◼ Map: Where are the Journal News employees in your neighborhood? - Robert Cox/Talk of the Sound

The map indicates the addresses of all Journal News Employees in the New York Tri-State area. Each dot represents an individual Journal News employee -- a reporter, editor or staffer. The data does not include freelancers — reporters or photographers — which can be hired without being an employee. Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location is a responsible reporter or editor, just that they are a reporter or editor.

Data for all categories is included, but certain information is not available on an individual basis.

To create the map, Talk of the Sound submitted Google searches for the names and addresses of all Journal News employees in the New York Tri-State area. By state law, the information is public record.

Readers are still putting together records and could not immediately provide some data. The map will be updated when that data is released.

◼ Liberals Panic As They Lose the Gun Narrative - Kurt Schlichter/Townhall

...Their post-Newtown strategy was always to prevent an effective response from the pro-gun freedom side by both rapid action and by demonization. But the holidays and the kabuki theater that is the fiscal cliff drama meant that legislative action, their Holy Grail, would have to wait. That gave people time to think and the gun freedom side the time to react.

Demonizing those who support gun freedom was always intended as a weapon to silence them. It was also critical that we, law-abiding gun owners, become the Other. By dehumanizing us and painting us as evil, it is that much easier to strip us of our rights.

But gun freedom advocates fought back. Using the mainstream media, conservative media and especially social media – we need to understand its huge significance here – gun freedom advocates countered liberals’ bogus “facts.” Media reports about “automatic” weapons were corrected, clownish statements about “high caliber magazines” and “large capacity round” were mocked. The struggle raged over millions of Facebook posts. The average citizen saw gun banners ask “When will America control access to weapons?” and then saw several experts among his or her friends post about the significant hurdles one needs to get over to get a gun. Truth bypassed the mainstream media and became a weapon for the side of fundamental rights.

The banners overplayed their hand, losing credibility with every distortion, evasion and smear. The cries of “Blood is on your hands!” failed to resonate – reasonable Americans just did not blame the actions of a single sociopath on millions of their fellow neighbors. And it did not help when third-string celebrities and wizened literary has-beens took to hoping gun rights advocates would be shot for daring to oppose disarmament.

The gun banners also counted on a narrative that portrayed a respect for the Second Amendment. They sought only “reasonable restrictions” – why, no one wants to ban or confiscate your guns! The problem was one of memo distribution – not everybody got that memo. Mayor Bloomberg was putting out that what few guns he might graciously deign to leave in the hands of the unworthy would be starved of bullets, while Governor Cuomo acknowledged that confiscation was one of the options.

Oops. “Gun control” is a process that is designed and intended to lead to a total gun ban, and the banners are counting on people not realizing it.... More at the link.

◼ Flashback: Humboldt County, North Coast Journal printed the names of CCW holders, Sept. 2008 Pistol Packing People The Comments thread is worth a read.
◼ Unconcealed - Hank Simes/North Coast Journal

"...We strongly reject the idea that we have invaded anyone’s privacy...."

◼ The Journal News is Armed and Dangerous - ROCKLAND COUNTY TIMES

Armed guards from RGA Investigations have taken up post at the Journal News’ Rockland County headquarters

Guns are good for the goose but NOT for the gander.

A Clarkstown police report issued on December 28, 2012, confirmed that The Journal News has hired armed security guards from New City-based RGA Investigations and that they are manning the newspaper’s Rockland County headquarters at 1 Crosfield Ave., West Nyack, through at least tomorrow, Wednesday, January 2, 2013.

According to police reports on public record, Journal News Rockland Editor Caryn A. McBride was alarmed by the volume of “negative correspondence,” namely an avalanche of phone calls and emails to the Journal News office, following the newspaper’s publishing of a map of all pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester.

Due to apparent safety concerns, the newspaper then decided to hire RGA Investigations to provide armed personnel to man the location....

The Journal News caused an international stir when they released an interactive map of pistol permit holders names and addresses in Rockland and Westchester counties last Sunday, December 23. The editors have said they believe knowing where guns are is in the public’s interest. The newspaper has also taken a strident editorial position in favor of strict gun control.

Rather than take the map down following the public uproar, the executive board at the Journal News has decided to “stick to their guns” and double-down on their original decision, as they have said a map listing all pistol permit holders in Putnam County will soon to be posted.

[update---Putnam County officials have since announced their intention to not comply with the Journal News' request for the names and addresses of pistol permit holders]

◼ GUN OWNER-OUTING NEWSPAPER USER DATABASE HACKED, CUSTOMERS OUTED - Breitbart

The Journal News is at the center of controversy yet again. Now a hacker group has broken into the newspaper's database and is disseminating the names, addresses, and passwords of thousands of the Journal News' customers.

In December, the Westchester, New York area paper released the names and addresses of thousands of New York's legal gun owners, then threatened to publish even more in the near future.

After the local New York paper published the names and addresses of gun owners in Rockland County in an online interactive map, bloggers responded by posting the names and addresses of the employees of the Journal News.

The paper then hypocritically hired armed guards to patrol its offices over what it claimed were "threatening" emails it had received.

The Journal News also announced late in December that it would continue politicizing the names and addresses of New York gun owners and began the process of obtaining the names and addresses of gun owners in nearby Putnam County. But county officials there have balked, refusing to give the paper the requested information.

"There is the rule of law, and there is right and wrong and the Journal News is clearly wrong," Putnam County Clerk Dennis Sant said in a statement. "I could not live with myself if one Putnam pistol permit holder was put in harm's way, for the sole purpose of selling newspapers."

In the latest development in this tit-for-tat invasion of privacy, a group of hackers have announced that they've broken into the Journal News' subscriber database. The group is sending the database of customers' names, addresses, and passwords to anyone that requests it.