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New York Pistol Permit Owner List Leaked
An anonymous reader writes "On Friday, The Journal News caved under pressure of gun advocates and shut down the interactive maps which contained the names and addresses of licensed gun owners in upstate New York. The maps are still visible on the site, however they are simply static images. The Journal News published the interactive maps on December 23 which caused significant backlash. In a similar move, Gawker published the names of licensed gun owners in New York City without addresses. New York state Senator Greg Ball (Republican) called the removal of the data a 'huge win.' On Saturday, an anonymous user leaked the raw data used to build The Journal News maps."
i have to say i agree
all a criminal would have to do is sit there wait till you leave and go get a few
how can one leak data which has been made available through a FOIA request?
It easily be treated as a "don't mess with these folks" list, as well...
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
Why wasn't it "leaked" .. well.. before all this pressure to ban guns ?
It's "published", not leaked. Intentionally. Probably to apply pressure on gun owners or to get them into trouble of having a gun, somehow.
What's next ? We gonna ban hammers as well ? I read there are many people killing other people with a hammer. Maybe we can ban sugar.. Hell, more people died from sugar then from guns (not counting the military or criminals that will still have guns regardless of you ban them or not).
People, shit happens, it's unavoidable. The world is full of good people and equally full of bad ones/psychotic-violent ones. Whatever you ban won't change that and mentioned ones are still gonna do their own thing.
In 20 years time you will need permission to go out of the house if the public allows these bans on everything to be carried out.
In a similar move, Gawker published the names of licensed gun owners in New York City without addresses
The only reason John Cook didn't publish them is because the NYPD didn't give them to him.. John Cook made it pretty clear that he would have published the addresses if he had them.
Because the NYPD is more interested in raping and/or eating ladies and spying on Muslims than it is in honoring public records law, the list contains only the names, and not the addresses, of the licensees.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Seriously. I'm in Canada and own no guns. You're doing it wrong.
All you idiots are doing is invading peoples' privacy, advocating vigilante justice against people who have broken no laws, and providing a database of places that criminals can go steal guns that won't be traced to them.
Proper education and required licensing country-wide is the direction you should be going in. And that involves posting your Congressmens' e-mail addresses and phone numbers. Not the constituents.
Because they make any real, useful, gun control much less likely to happen. Their grandstanding is counter productive.
For example you try and say "Hey, we really should register firearms. After all you register your car, why not guns too? It would allow for some tracking and accountability, and in the event someone becomes a prohibited person easier allow courts to determine if they have any guns that need to be surrendered." Well the gun lobby shoots back with "No, unacceptable, if you have a registry it can be used to target gun owners." You respond "That's silly, it would be used only for lawful purposes by the proper authorities."
Then, this happens, in a place that has a gun registry. Now the gun lobby doesn't have to talk in hypotheticals, or other nations, they can point to something that happened right in America that is precisely the kind of shit they are talking about. Now more moderate gun owners, who might have been amenable, or at least accepting, of the idea hate it because they believe what the gun lobby is saying.
Gun haters have to accept and get over the fact that guns are NOT going to be banned, period, end of story, unless the second amendment is repealed. All kinds of arguments have been tried and all have failed, the supreme court has ruled that the 2nd does in fact mean that gun ownership is a protected, individual, right.
As such trying stupid shit to do things that are bans but not in name, or to harass or make things difficult for gun owners are counter productive. All they do is polarize things, convince gun owners that any and all controls are bad because they'll be abused.
Stunts like this are nothing but harmful.
And here I thought people bought guns to protect themselves against crime. I guess there are many things I still don't understand about guns.
There are arguments for both directions in this. Some people will argue that because guns are a high value commodity on the black market, they are a lucrative target for theft. Others will argue that there is an increased risk of getting injured or killed in an attempt to rob these homes.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Thus speaks someone who thinks with his guts and not his brain.
When did all sex offenders become pedophiles? Most of them are not.
When did all pedophiles become criminals? Most of them never commit any crimes. You don't commit rapes because you are sexually attracted to women (or men), do you?
Do you know the recidivism rate for child molestation compared to other crimes? Like, for instance, gun crime?
Did you know that when you are willing to deny some people their rights, you also say that it's okay to deny you your rights when you disgust enough people?
All violent/abusive crimes are bad, whether they're sexual or not. But people are capable of changing for the better, which is why we do not give them life in prison, and consider their debt to society paid when they have served their sentence. In civilized societies, at least.
It's true! <These> kill more children each year than pedophiles, so let's ban those!
To be fair, I don't think foot fetishists kill many children at all. It's kind of not their thing.
Hell, why not publish data on who has large coin collections at home while we're at it. This is yet another example why people shouldn't register their weapons with the government.
We are not denying them their rights, when they commit a crime and break the law, they are voluntarily giving up their rights.
What rights, and for how long? There's a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in the Bill of Rights for a reason; the punishment must fit the crime. In the case of sex crimes, the lifelong punishment that comes after all jail time has been served, fines paid, etc. is almost always excessive.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Some people will argue that because guns are a high value commodity on the black market, they are a lucrative target for theft.
Isn't it curious that many, if not most, of those same people argue that prohibition simply fuels a black market, like the "War On (some) Drugs" and alcohol prohibition?
If guns were less-tightly regulated, taxed, licensed, registered, etc, criminals wouldn't find law-abiding gun-owner's homes and their guns such an attractive target, due to the lack of high payoff along with the risk of being shot.
Not saying that convicted violent felons or those legally judged to be incapable of responsible gun ownership (it shouldn't be because you were given Prozac for 6 months, 15 years ago, after your wife and kids died in a fire) should be able to own guns.
Why is it any different today than it was 30 or 40 years ago? I remember that US citizens weren't such pansies back then. Guns weren't something that terrified so many people. Bad things, shootings, happened occasionally then as well. But, people didn't get so frothing-at-the-mouth about the guns. They got upset at the person/people who committed the act, and at law enforcement and government, if they screwed up.
I can guarantee you one thing. More people in this world are killed by governments than by regular civilians shooting each other.
Government is one thing. It is raw force . That's it. That's all it is. You can draft all the pretty laws, acts, constitutions, charters, whatever you'd like. None of that, in the end, can stop raw force. Only a threat of force from the citizens themselves, if it goes too far and becomes too tyrannical/authoritarian, can keep it in check.
You want to find out what a boot stamping on a human face, forever, feels like? Remove the only check to raw force. "Checks and balances" isn't only about the three branches of the US government. There's a fourth check, an armed citizenry. Remove that check as a significant deterrent, and balance is gone. When balance is gone, so is individual liberty and freedom.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
By Taylor Berman:
On Friday, The Journal News took down its controversial, interactive online map of licensed gun owners in Westchester and Rockland counties in New York. According to Journal News publisher Janet Hasson, the move was in response to recently passed gun legislation in New York, which includes a provision prohibiting the release of information about gun owners, and not because of the firestorm of criticism the paper's received since publishing the list four weeks ago. From publisher Janet Hasson's statement on the Journal News' website:
"Today The Journal News has removed the permit data from lohud.com. Our decision to do so is not a concession to critics that no value was served by the posting of the map in the first place. On the contrary, we've heard from too many grateful community members to consider our decision to post information contained in the public record to have been a mistake. Nor is our decision made because we were intimidated by those who threatened the safety of our staffers. We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower."
http://gawker.com/5977304/the-journal-news-took-down-its-controversial-map-of-gun-owners
It already happened. And they decided to hire guards who have guns to protect them. and yet they still do not believe they did anything wrong.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
more children are killed by firearms each year than by the people listed in certain databases who have already fully paid their debt to society yet will continue to be persecuted by the public, by the media and by the government, forever.
... despite recidivism rates for sex offenders being lower than for other categories of crime and recidivism rates for child molesters being lower than for sex offenders in general. It does call into question the need for maintaining these registries.
People who commit a crime think they'll get away with it. They aren't agreeing to get caught, much less give up their rights.
If you can't hold it and step behind some bushes to pee and get spotted by a ten year old kid, you can be convicted of indecent exposure in most states. That can get you placed on a sex offender list for life in many states (some, like Colorado, came to their senses and created a second crime for non-sexual exposure which is neither a sex crime nor a felony). Once you're on the sex offender list, your name, address and photo would be made available to anyone who cares to look for registered sex offenders in the area you live in. In some places, you'd no longer be able to live within 1000 feet of a school or day care center. You'd have to tell anyone you were trying to rent from that you were a convicted sex offender, too, so most places wouldn't take you as a tenant. It's also a felony, so you'd no longer be able to own a gun or vote. You'd be required to admit that you were convicted sex offender on job applications, which would severely limit your employment opportunities. The list of long-term affects on your life goes on and on, but basically you're screwed for life.
Cruel and unusual is a fitting description.
Do you really think that you would have been agreeing to all that when you decided to step behind a bush and take a leak? Of course not. You'd have thought you wouldn't be seen and it would be okay.
When someone commits a crime, that means they break law(s) set by society. Civilized Western countries (in this case, as with most cases related to criminal law being even remotely reasonable, US is not on the list) tend to have a legal process which causes loss of ability to inflict any more crimes of this nature for a period during which they try to rehabilitate that citizen so he will not commit those crimes when his freedom to act is restored.
This should not cause loss of any rights not directly related to the said crime. They are still humans, and still citizens of the country with all the legal protection granted to all other citizens.
US has a strong history of frontier justice due to its very recent colonial past, which causes it to have a very skewed "punish for vengeance, not prevention and rehabilitation" culture largely absent in most of the world. Restriction of rights not related to crime is VENGEANCE, not REHABILITATION. In vast majority of the Western world, avenging crimes by society is viewed as uncivilized brutality. A great example of this is Norway and its handling of Breivik.
It's one of the major cultural clashes that US tends to have with other countries, and one of the main reasons why prison populations in US are completely different from those in rest of Western world.
Bad news. If government wanted to crush an armed rebellion, it would succeed. Guns allowed by US laws are generally on the level of Libyan rebels.
Take a look at success rate of Libyan rebels vs their government until West came in with superior heavy weaponry and special forces teams to direct their fire. They were literally being slaughtered like animals with heavy weaponry when they tried to do something other then running away. It was a blood bath, and one that those guys with their small firearms quickly learned to adapt due to Darwinian selection.
If you want to win wars against governments, you need heavy weaponry, organised military and preferably outside support. Else, you're just an idiot who thinks his firearm will help him against tanks, artillery and bombers.
This is EXACTLY why gun owners are against registration. The government cannot be trusted to maintain confidentiality of the data. Regardless of whether someone publishes the data like in this case or the government itself uses the data to coerce gun owners to give up their guns the result is the same.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
You are a pacifist only because there are others willing to use violence to keep the peace. Without them, you would continually be on the move in search of safe neighborhoods as crime areas expand.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
In my limited understanding (I've never bothered to look it up) all felons lose the right to own firearms, and to vote.
But after a few years, felons can get their rights restored through a judicial process. Good luck ever getting your name off the sex offender registry.
Keep in mind also, that many of the registered sex offenders committed such heinous acts as having sex with their girlfriend when they were both under age, or taking a leak in what they thought was an empty field, with no one to see. It's also worth considering that many of those on the registries are actually innocent. The consequences of the major sex crimes are so terrifying that DAs find it very easy to plea bargain for a guilty plea to a misdemeanor. Given the choice between pleading to a misdemeanor you didn't commit, with a fine and community service, and going to trial for a felony that would put you in jail for the rest of your life, what would you -- as an innocent man who didn't commit any of the crimes -- choose to do? Of course, only later do you discover that your plea bargain has put you on the registry for life... and with all of the details of your supposed crime kindly omitted to protect your privacy.
This stuff really happens. A lot. The system is badly broken.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
He would not know her new address which is the problem BTW in the UK there are a couple of ex BT employees doing serious time who found the address of the parents of a Criminal - Subsequently both of the parents where killed by a hitman.
How long till some on in this group sue the news paper for the costs of relocation - a nice little earner for the legal profession.
Hold the adult pool owners fully responsible for fencing in and locking up the access to their unattended pool, no excuses, or do not have a pool.
How about hold the gun owner responsible for locking access of their unattended firearm? Oh wait, that is already the case.
Lawful gun owner that has a permit are responsible already. Fuck off.
A permit is just not enough obviously. Make the laws stricter and penalties much much harsher for irresponsible gun owners. And if gun owners don't/can't/won't abide by the stricter gun control laws, then they MUST turn them in for smelting. We will have to go through several years of news stories about the latest asshole survivalist mental patient who holed up in his apartment and died in a shootout with SWAT teams. After a few years of full on violence by the assholes who should never have had access to guns to begin with, it will be a rare news story of a maniac with a gun killing innocent people/kids that we have to hear about. "F" me??! "F" you! Find yourself a different 'hobby' for yourself, fool. One that doesn't involve harming living things. I suggest you take up tennis. It's healthy for you, and the odds of harming/killing someone with an errant tennis 'shot' are nil!
My mother was born in Munich Germany in 1929 and grew up during Hitler's rise to power. Her father, a prosperous grocer and restauranteur, owned a prized Italian over-under shotgun and a Belgian Nagant revolver. In 1939 the police came and confiscated his guns. In 1940 they came again, and at gunpoint, confiscated his giant beer tents and all his restaurant equipment that he'd used in the Oktoberfests, saying that the army needed them more than he did. In 1945 they came again to forcefully conscript him, at age 50, into the army. A few days later, American forces rolled into Munich. My dad was a 19 year old American GI in those forces.
Both my parents are gone now, but my mother was always adamant to never ever allow the government to take my guns, and my father taught me well how to handle and respect firearms.
I agree with him. Most libertarians would too I think, though I am not one.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
So start proposing a repeal of the Second Amendment. Be honest.
The founding fathers never envisioned semi-automatic weapons. Musket rifles were inaccurate and single shot weapons that took an expert at least a full minute to reload. How about you come to realize that the 1700's are long over, and arguments that were valid at that time are not applicable to modern weaponry and modern society?
It's there so that you have ability to take down a tyrannical government
The second amendment says nothing about that.
Would the military troops attack US citizens inside the country? I say they very well may.
Being as you don't know squat about the constitution, or anything else that is politically relevant or important in the US, it is not surprising that you are also not knowledgeable on the US military, their power structure, their expenditures, or their investment of resources.
And that is precisely why there can be no limit on what type of weapons the civilians must be able to purchase if they can afford it.
Naturally, you again take on the capitalist / neo-fascist perspective of "if they can afford it". Equality matters not to you. Neither does opportunity or true liberty. You worship at the altar of the mighty dollar and your lord is a retiring congressman from Texas.
And having a gun can mean the difference in an encounter with criminals. They can also be taken/wrested away from the (now) victim and used against them. That hunting family I knew, some months after a kick in attempted robbery (where the wife & mother of 3 sons was alone and kept a shotgun aimed at the perp until he left), one day a son calls the work office answering machine where we are eating lunch. His mom had heard someone upstairs and was shooting up there (it was her son), he's asking us to call her downstairs and convince her that it's just him upstairs. She was having some type of psychotic episode that was a direct result from her encounter several months earlier.
The real problem now is how do you determine who is a responsible owner? How can you confirm that they consistently secure their weapons properly? Do waiting and cooling off periods need to be lengthened? No easy answers. Now in the news is the 15 year old New Mexico kid who killed is family members, and they'll be another equally horrible gun violence story again in a few days from now, I'm sure. It's the ease of access that neds to be more locked down.