Those gun owners next door
The Journal News compounded their idiotic posting of gun owners’ personal information on their interactive website this weekend by trying to explain it;
In May, Richard V. Wilson approached a female neighbor on the street and shot her in the back of the head, a crime that stunned their quiet Katonah neighborhood.
What was equally shocking for some was the revelation that the mentally disturbed 77-year-old man had amassed a cache of weapons — including two unregistered handguns and a large amount of ammunition — without any neighbors knowing.
“I think that the access to guns in this country is ridiculous, that anybody can get one,” said a neighbor of Wilson’s who requested anonymity because it’s not known whether the gunman, whose unnamed victim survived, will return home or be sent to prison. “Would I have bought this house knowing somebody (close by) had an arsenal of weapons? No, I would not have.”
Now, wait a second, the killer “amassed” a cache of unregistered weapons, but somehow that justifies publishing the names and addresses of people who have legally acquired their firearms? How, exactly does that work?
Combined with laws that allow the purchase of rifles and shotguns without a permit, John Thompson, a program manager for Project SNUG at the Yonkers Family YMCA, said that leaves the public knowing little about the types of deadly weapons that might be right next door.
“I would love to know if someone next to me had guns. It makes me safer to know so I can deal with that,” said Thompson, whose group counsels youths against gun violence. “I might not choose to live there.”
Well, then go to the town clerk’s office and find out, dimbulb. In fact, make sure your name gets on the list of people easiest to victimize, but don’t demonize people who don’t see themselves as potential victims.
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.
And 100% of those 44,000 people didn’t commit any crimes with their legal handguns yesterday, so what’s your point?
The blog, For What It’s Worth, posts the public information available for Dwight R Worley, the fellow who wrote the article, I’m sure he doesn’t mind that everyone knows where he lives, since he has a gun permit, too.
By the way, I didn’t link to the LoHud story on purpose because they’ve set up some BS subscription thingie since early this morning that won’t let you see the article until you subscribe. But I found a cache copy of the article.
They are getting beaten like a pinata over this. It’s been quite entertaining to watch.
Wait, level 1 sex offenders can’t be made public (only level 2-3 in CT) but making folks who own a legal product they purchased while abiding every law surrounding the purchase should be publicized?
Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, over?
The article Worley wrote ends, stating this: “I would love to know if someone next to me had guns. It makes me safer to know so I can deal with that,” said Thompson, whose group counsels youths against gun violence. “I might not choose to live there.”
Yeah, well, I guess a person like me assumes my neighbors have some sort of weapon (or access to one) because it’s their right. Most people don’t live their lives with overactive hyper-suspicion of their neighbors so far as I can tell. I can say that when I have moved, I’ve analyzed crime statistics, determine where sexual predators are and where felons live (insofar as that’s possible), but I haven’t gone the great lengths to find out who has a gun. I simply don’t care about that very much for some reason.
The flood gates are opening…
I’ve always lived in places that, if you turned the neighbors’ houses upside down and shook them, about half a gunstore would fall out. It’s never occurred to me that the neighbors DIDN’T own guns!
Glad I live in a state where state law prohibits the state or any political subdivision from registering firearms.
Why is this public information in the first place? How ridiculously stupid is our society that you apparently have more facebook privacy rights than privacy rights regarding your own defense and what is in your home?
Libtards gonna libtard.
The reverse is true,,,, can you imagine if the names and addresses of firearms owners are public information. Then all the holier than thou types without firearms have a major problem. Criminals will also have access to that list. Whose house do you think they are going to rob? The guy with a registered 44 automag or the Birkenstock wearing liberal who thinks he can persuade the poor misunderstood criminal not to rob and beat him or rape his wife?
They did this to show how things are outside the “enlightened” rules in NYC, where getting a carry permit is a ridiculous process. To think this was mostly only persons with evil handgun permits, most Police Officers were not listed. If the paper had its way, they would have included owners of evil rifles and shot guns and probably BB guns (which are banned in NYC).
This does not do a thing about the criminals with illegal weapons out there, but they do not care about them.
When my aunt was lecturing me about the evils of guns, yesterday, she mentioned with a self righteous tone in her voice that her son-in-law (my cousin’s husband) wouldn’t allow their son to go to a friends house if they had guns in it. They live in Kentucky, so he’s going to be a lonely child. Plus, I suppose I could have mentioned that if she bragged too much about it to others, that she was setting them up for a home invasion, but I didn’t want her to get more whipped up than she already was, so I let it go. She thinks I’m nuts to begin with, because I don’t share her fear of everything guns, so when she asked if I would mind if my grandson were in a school that had armed faculty and I said that I would welcome that; she lost her mind on me and asked the question: What message are we teaching our kids by having armed people at school? I said we are probably teaching them that they are safer for having people around that cared enough about their safety to protect them from bad guys. Well, that spooled her up past tizzy and straight into frothing at the mouth.
@10 – There’s more of us who have a relative like your aunt in our family, Old Trooper. I’ve had discussions like that with some of my family members, but when they froth at the mouth, that’s usually when I keep bringing up issues that REALLY get them going – then I leave the room. Drive’s em crazy.
I’m “ornery” like that.
@10 and 11 I can truthfully say I don’t have any relatives like that,,, I don’t know what happens I highly suspect when there is a baby born in my family the ones they expect of being liberal are left out in the woods.
@10 similar discussion with my brother-in-law, good heart but dumb4ss about safety….
He asked that same question. I told him we were teaching them the same lesson they learn at the bank, the airport, the mall, and the courthouse. That the world has some pretty dangerous people in it and the best way to stay safe, is to stay well armed and vigilant….and that those folks who don’t learn that lesson learn they have to give up their belongings and sometimes their lives to those armed miscreants.
First; I’m amazed that anyone would have any faith in the accuracy of a government beauracratically generated list of anything. Second If I had “dodgy neighbor” whose name was not on the list I would not base my security on the assurance that he did not have a weapon.
So am I the only one who doesn’t neccessarily see this as a bad thing? First of all, I’m guessing about 99% of the people out there don’t give a damn whether their neighbors are armed or not.
And second, to the extent that they do, if they find out that their well adjusted, normal, average, regular Joe-and-Jane type neighbors have guns, doesn’t that at least have the potential to change their minds about guns and gun ownership? The media image of gun owners is that they are rednecks/racists/paramilitary goons in camouflage ranting about the UN and black helicopters. As long as those are the only gun owners portrayed in news reports, that assumption is reinforced.
But once they find out that gun owners can be normal people, then at least some of them will start to realize they’ve been told a lie by the media, and that gun ownership is far more common and is spread across a wide range of political beliefs, education levels, and locations.
..To add to my previous post, there’s another reason this might be a good thing. Gay activists started the practice of “outing” those who publicly worked against gay rights while in private participating in the underground gay lifestyle. Gay activists who sought to “normalize” gays and lesbians were (rightly) offended by this obvious hypocrisy.
So this list has the potential to do the same. We all know there are people out there who will say “right on!” to the next gun ban, because they know someone who knows someone, or because they have “connections” with law enforcement, who can hook them up, regardless of the law. These people cheerfully support gun bans for us hoi polloi, but then they pull strings to get special exemptions for themselves so they can be armed.
A public list like this at least gives pro-gun activists the info they need to do the same kind of thing that the gay activists did – to “out” those who in their public lives, deplore gun ownership and call for more restrictions but who, in private, are more than happy to arm themselves.
We all know the most effective tactic in the anti-gun program is “divide and conquer.” We pro-gun activists need to make sure that our weaker and less committed members understand that if they allow the government to take away our nasty “assault” weapons and handguns, their hunting rifles and target pistols will be the next ones banned, as sure as night follows day.
@15 I think our privacy is violated enough these days that a list of law-abiding citizens who own a legal product doesn’t need to see the light of day. I understand your point certainly and more people understanding their normal neighbors just happen to have a weapon in their house is maybe not a bad thing, but I don’t much care for my neighbors knowing any of my business, never mind what personal, legal possessions I might have.
Additionally once the government invades your privacy on this issue, what’s the next thing they will make public about you in the interest of the public’s need to know? I’m not comfortable considering any of that. I’ve met more than a few bureaucrats, and I am not really fond of what some of them already know about me….
@17 The ones who are making our private information public are exactly the ones who don’t think you have a right to privacy of any kind. Funny how that works out, isn’t it? /sarc off
VOV, aren’t you forgetting about the registered sex offenders stuff? That’s a way of legally forcing people who are sex offenders to let everyone know that they are.
I don’t have issues with it. I would definitley want to know that my new next-door neighbor just got out of jail after spending his convict time paying the penalty for rape and maybe even murder. It would not alarm me, but I would certainly be a bit more alert about him.
But he’s a criminal, and the gun owners for the most part are not.
So why should non-criminals be ‘outed’ for something when they’re no threat? And what about unlicensed guns in your neighborhood? How would those be traced and ‘outed’?
I don’t know if I’m even making a point here, but maybe what needs to be done is ‘out’ the people who are not gun owners.
This is the same mindset that the temperance idiots promoted when they were trying to ban alcohol. It did not work. It allowed the rapid expansion of ‘underground’ saloons (speakeasies) and the growth of organized crime. Most of the race car drivers from the 1950s through the 1980s were descendants of bootleg whiskey runners. It didn’t do anything but exacerbate the problem.
However, if you all can get your panicky relatives to chill a bit, maybe some good discussion will come out of this.
I’d rather see kids taught to handle firearms of all types correctly as soon as they are physically able to do so, and understand the consequences of abuse. Kids were once taught how to handle weapons from an early age. What happened to that?
@15/16: While I understand your points, I’m going to go in another direction. We have seen that activists like to publish the names and addresses of those they have a beef with and terrorize their private home. Democrats did it in the run up to the last election by following republican candidates and videotaping them and where they lived. While I personally don’t give a rip, it may become a matter of vandalism or other unsavory activity that will not end good, especially if the targeted person feels threatened. Some are even nuts enough to push it to a confrontation, as we have seen with the occutards.
If publishing the names of permit holders and pistol owners is OK, let’s publish the names and addresses of those who get a Bridge Card, SSI, workman’s comp, Pell grants, student loans, and those who owe more than $500 in parking ticket fines. Do it all on an interactive map. Maybe someone could turn in a neighbor who’s drawing workman’s comp while he’s out splitting wood, or painting his house?
After all, the people have a right to know./sarc
I’ve attached this attachment (a bit of a read), that I thought folks would find interesting:
http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm
Er, rather, I’ve provided the LINK.
(…attached this attachment doesn’t sound right.)
According to an article in The American Thinker, by law the paper should never had gained access to such a comprehensive list:
Section 1. Subdivision 5 of section 400.00 of the penal law
A. 9388 2
1 (II) A REQUEST FOR THE ENTIRE LIST OF LICENSEES, OR FOR ALL LICENSEES IN A GEOGRAPHIC AREA, SHALL BE DENIED, EXCEPT TO ANY LAW ENFORCEMENT
AGENCY OR ANY ENTITY ACTING ON BEHALF OF OR PROVIDING SERVICES TO ANY LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY. FOR THE PURPOSES OF THIS SUBDIVISION, THE TERM “LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY” SHALL MEAN THE DIVISION OF STATE POLICE, ANY NEW YORK STATE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT, ANY POLICE DEPARTMENT OF ANY CITY, VILLAGE OR TOWN WITHIN NEW YORK STATE, THE POLICE FORCE OF ANY NEW YORK STATE AUTHORITY OR AGENCY, THE STATE POLICE FORCE OF ANY OTHER STATE, ANY FEDERAL LAW
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/12/outing_the_privacy_of_the_editors_who_out_others_privacy.html#ixzz2GIAzR6CO