An elderly man in his 70's recently became the victim of the Journal News gun list as much as the two criminals who attempted to steal his legally owned guns from his two-story home in White Plains, New York home according to a NY senator.
The Westchester County Clerk's Office is responsible for releasing the data used by the Journal News in their controversial gun map. But the Daily Mail says that a NY senator says that it is the fault of the Journal News for releasing the names and addresses of everyone who obtained a gun permit in that area.
At the height of the gun control debate The Journal created a gun map for their readers that pinpoints each gun permit owner and his exact geographical location in Westchester County. And they released that map to a public that includes criminals.
The news outlet claimed to be providing a public service in their effort to educate the residents in the area about who had a legal permit to have a gun in their homes on the heels of the Newtown, Conn. shooting that shocked the nation. Yet they didn't bother to hunt down a list of all who might have been mentally ill too, since the alleged shooter in that case, Adam Lanza may also have also suffered from that condition and possibly have been on a psychiatric medication, and the Aurora shooting suspect is believed to have possibly been too.
In addition, it has been reported since that the list isn't even accurate, with names of people who no longer live in the area still listed on the map, making new residents at that address an unwitting target for criminals. And some of those listed as gun permit owners are even deceased, reflecting the lack of journalistic effort put into accurate reporting.
The Journal News has been called irresponsible for releasing the names and addresses of those who have a legal right to own a weapon, especially since these gun owners have went through the proper channels to do so, and have no arrest histories or violence histories. And some of the Journal's detractors have stated, like the NY Senator Greg Ball, that the lives of these NY citizens have been placed at risk unnecessarily by the news agency. And for what? So any concerned citizens can see the same data they could see if they bothered to go individually to the clerk's office themselves?
Interestingly, the news outlet bent upon educating their public reading area about possible dangers to them through gun ownership neglected to reveal proven gun danger threats by listing the names and addresses of all those who have been convicted of illegally owning guns in the Westchester County jurisdiction. Now that would have been a public service, eh? The people in attendance at the restaurants in this area would have appreciated such a heads up during a street fight that occurred on Sunday.
So will the homeowner who had two men climb a ladder and illegally enter one of his two-story windows in NY now sue the Journal News if police get a statement from the suspects showing that the Journal News gun list played a role in their crime target? Gun advocates will want him to, of course, since it might prevent future journalistic malpractice like this in the future. For now, however, the elderly homeowner seems to desire to avoid any more publicity, issuing a "no comment" to journalists hounding him about the case.
(Gun Map Photo Credit: Dailymail.co.uk)
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Comments: 2
If they really had to do this, why not create districts, with counts, instead of exact locations?
This is an abuse of the power of the press.