Plan B Forum

N.Y. news site stirs outrage after publishing gun owners' names

In the annals of the gun debate, both the act and the outrage that followed are familiar: On Saturday, the Journal News of White Plains, N.Y., published an interactive map showing the names and addresses of thousands of handgun permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties.

Click on a dot and zoom in: You'll get a name and an address of everybody who owns a handgun permit, which the paper obtained through a public records request.

The story soon dominated the Internet. Through Wednesday, it was still drawing outrage from online commentators as well as from conservative political interests such as Breitbart.com, which saw a media outlet targeting law-abiding gun owners' privacy -- and safety -- after a polarizing tragedy in Newtown, Conn.

“I am outraged by this as you have put me, my family, friends and others at risk," wrote Keisha Sutton on the newspaper's Facebook page. "My family and friends consist of law enforcement officers and 'licensed' handgun owners.”

Others argued that publishing such personal information would drive gun owners to the black market.

CynDee Royle, the newspaper's editor and vice president/news, was not surprised at the reaction.

"We knew publication of the database would be controversial," she said, "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.”

Al Tompkins, a faculty member at the nonprofit Poynter Institute for journalism, criticized the database, saying in an email published on Poynter.org: "Publishing gun owners’ names makes them targets for theft or public ridicule."

But that may not happen, according to a study by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that examined the aftermath of a similar gun-ownership data dump by a newspaper.

In 2008, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis published a searchable database of concealed-carry handgun permit owners in Tennessee that included names and ZIP codes of gun owners (but not addresses). A similar furor followed. "What they've done is give criminals a lighted pathway to [burglarize] the homes of gun owners," Chris Cox, now the top lobbyist for the National Rifle Assn., told the paper at the time.

But that concern turned out to be wrong, according to the 2010 study by Alessandro Acquisti, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon, and Catherine Tucker, a professor at MIT, titled "Guns, Privacy and Crime."

Using the information published by the Commercial Appeal, they found burglaries in 2009 declined 18% in the city's ZIP codes with the most concealed-carry permits and generally increased in ZIP codes with the fewest.

The researchers found no difference for violent crimes, such as assault, that often lack premeditation.

The study also suggested that, following publication of the Memphis database, burglary risk instead shifted to areas with fewer gun registrations. In fact, the study noted that the "results suggest that, despite activism on the part of gun owners against the publication of such databases, it may actually be gun permit holders who benefited" from publication.

Wasn't it the very idea of these morons that if everyone knew they were armed they would be safer?

Oh wait, the real scientific evidence is that guns in the home make you less safe.

There is nothing wrong with publishing information that is public record.

If you can't deal with the truth, that is YOUR problem.

The day that LJ, dgs49 and rubato agree on a thing is the day hell will fre . . . oh. Oh dear.

the real scientific evidence is that guns in the home make you less safe.

And I have no idea what your position is, since you say you agree with me, rube, and Dave, and we don't agree...

Burglars like to steal Cash, Guns, Drugs, and Jewelry (in roughly that order) and if they know you have them lying around they are more likely to break in.

In 2008, the Commercial Appeal in Memphis published a searchable database of concealed-carry handgun permit owners in Tennessee that included names and ZIP codes of gun owners (but not addresses). A similar furor followed. "What they've done is give criminals a lighted pathway to [burglarize] the homes of gun owners," Chris Cox, now the top lobbyist for the National Rifle Assn., told the paper at the time.

But that concern turned out to be wrong, according to the 2010 study by Alessandro Acquisti, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon, and Catherine Tucker, a professor at MIT, titled "Guns, Privacy and Crime."

Using the information published by the Commercial Appeal, they found burglaries in 2009 declined 18% in the city's ZIP codes with the most concealed-carry permits and generally increased in ZIP codes with the fewest.

The truth is that it is all a fantasy of the paranoid, physically weak, and fearful that a gun will help them at all.

There are circumstances where it is more rational to have a gun; you live in an area with bears, wolves, other large predators, you live next to the Mexican border and have people and drugs being smuggled across your land, or some other limited social circumstances.

If you have a gun you have to keep it locked up to prevent predictable tragedies. If it is locked up, then it is not useful in protecting you against home invasion robberies &c.

Jim after all these years have you not noticed that rube is an elitist? These rules simply don't apply to him since he is one of the elect. Heck it's the central defining trait of his personality (disorder).

Gob wrote: Did he ever attend a Cat Talk or CSB F2F?