We all remember the flap over the Journal News, the paper that inadvisedly printed the names and addresses of gun owners in White Plains, NY. Since then, the employees of the paper have had their names and addresses printed on social media sites, have been threatened with assassination, with being shot (:rolleyes: ) on their way home, and have had envelopes of white powder sent to their workplace.
While I think printing peoples’ addresses was an irresponsible knee-jerk act, this response illustrates what is wrong with the thinking in a section of our population, and does nothing but harm to reasonable discourse on a touchy subject.
I started to put this in the Pit, and it may end up there anyway, but it mainly depresses me that there is so much stupidity out there.
I do not condone the death threats. And I think publishing the names & addresses of the employees is wrong. (Some of my FB friends have circulated pics containing personal info of the newspaper’s editor, and I refuse to share it.) At the same time, I am completely unsympathetic toward editor. What the newspaper did was flat-out wrong. Hopefully they – and other papers – will learn from this.
I may be splitting hairs here, but his employees are suffering because of the vigilante element in our national psyche. While printing those names and addresses was the wrong thing to do, retaliation against the other employees is worse, as it may spur some other nutcake out there to actually take harmful action against them.
Why is it worse, when the paper’s action–printing the names and addresses of gun owners, is at least equally likely to spur harmful action and reaches a broader audience?
Not at all surprising, and it’s intolerable and should be prosecuted where possible. I think the publication of the handgun permits was pointless and stupid, but the information that is a matter of public record and had evidently been available through other means for years. The publication of the publisher and employees’ addresses was entirely predictable, too- so much so that I can’t even really condemn it even though it gives me the creeps.
Exactly the same element: the nutcase one. It exist on all sides of the social and political spectrum, and any time something that raises strong feelings happens, the appropriate nutcases come crawling out. It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
And I completely agree with Marley 23: the behavior in question is intolerable, and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
The only one here being stupid are those who threaten the paper’s employees. The paper helped out the homeowners with guns by putting their names in print so that criminals would avoid their residences. Nobody wants to mess with a guy with a gun, so in actuality gun owners are safer, at least if one was to believe their rhetoric that guns equal protection. Now that everybody knows who they are, they are much safer.
Putting the names of people who don’t have guns specifically so they can be targeted by these gun nuts is wrong, and there should be punishments for those who did it. Harassment, threats, and intimidation charges should be filed on those bloggers who are guilty of trying to incite an armed riotous mob to kill perfectly harmless newspaper journalists
That newspaper put people’s lives in danger. What happens if somebody uses that list of gun owners to rob houses? Maybe they find someones 14 year old daughter at home and rape her. Or maybe mom gets beaten and raped. A lot of household robberies turn ugly when the robber finds a victim in the house. Just last week an Alabama mom hid in the attic to avoid a burglar. He searched the entire house before finding her. He could have simply stole her purse, tv and car. But he wanted her. Thank goodness she had a pistol waiting for him.
If that newspaper causes even one tragedy, then god help them. They deserve whatever happens.
I am not and will not justify the reactions of people making threats and the like, but could it not be said that the editor, by doing what he did, may “spur some other nutcake out there to actually take harmful action against” the gun owners he exposed publicly? Or even the people he didn’t expose, who are now known to not have a permit and thus are considerably less likely to own a gun, thus identifying them as easy marks?
Nothing happens in a vacuum. One would think that when someone does something dickish just to make a point they might think about the consequences of their actions before they do it. If even one person is killed or injured and it can be attributed to the actions of the editor, the right to freedom of the press should be cold comfort indeed.
No harm will come to the gun owners, silly! They are all perfectly protected by virtue of their gun ownership! In fact, it is a scientific law that anyone who owns a gun, owned one in the past, or has ever seen one is completely invulnerable to bullets. Look that up, its in the New England Medical Journal, um…somewhere in the back.
So the newspaper did nothing except make a bunch of gun owners safe. Its as if they published a list saying “Don’t fuck with these people or you’ll get shot”. As for us non-gun owners, we’ll take what comes
I could easily see this paper getting sued if any of the people on that list get robbed or family members injured.
I’d be very nervous if my name and address was published. Heck they warn people these days to not even put a large screen tv box on the curb. You don’t want to advertise that you bought one. To tell the world there’s guns at this address ripe for stealing is a crime waiting to happen.
I work with someone whose spouse is a reporter there; covers local goings-on about Westchester. None of the employees were warned, and no communications about how to deal with calls were shared. They started getting threatening calls, packages, people driving by. Scared the crap out of them.
My colleague, to his credit, took the calls and spoke with callers. Told them that they knew nothing about the article, weren’t involved in that area of the paper, and felt that publishing the data was wrong. Apparently one of the callers was involved with publishing the names of the Journal-News’ employees contact info because their name was taken off the list. Surreal.
You said “it” referring to “retaliation,” which I took to mean the retaliation mentioned in the thread topic (i.e. death threats, not the vengeful publication of the employees’ contact information). Sorry if I read ambiguity where none was intended.