… but a slightly dif element when instead of just nutcases you have organized political groups protesting in front of their homes. Note that I didn’t go so far as to use words like “threatening” or “terrorizing”… since I don’t remember the details.
Because if I were a robber, I would definitely want to rob the homes of gun owners. Especially while people are home. Heaven knows the best way to get a gun is to wrench it out of the hands of its unwilling owner.
That said, this was irresponsible and ridiculous. On both sides, but especially the side threatening violence. I guess I’m prejudiced that way.
Predictable; pro-gun people appear to mostly be thugs & fanatics, and a great many appear to be at least borderline psychopaths if not the real thing.
Why would they? It’s not like some homeowner having a gun is going to matter one way or another. They aren’t going to be concerned if some homeowner has a gun; they’ll be concerned if there’s someone there or not, if there’s a dog, if there’s an alarm system.
That’s only because those are the ones who are the loudest. The vast majority of gun owners I know are sane, rational people, who actually can’t stand these losers. It’s always the extremists you hear about, because they make the most noise.
I have quite a few gun owners in my family – normal, sane people, who don’t go around screaching about how the government is going to steal their guns away – and if someone had done this to them, I’d have been pissed.
If there was any doubt remaining, this pretty well establishes that the Journal News is run by morons who lack the gift of foresight. Like I said, when the paper published the map they should have expected their own addresses and other personal information to be posted in response. It was just the most predictable thing in the world.
I am sure the evidence behind this allegation will be disclosed very soon.
I thought owning a gun was supposed to prevent that sort of thing?
There is something very weird about the argument that gun owners are being endangered here.
Two things.
First, they aren’t always at home, and so someone who wants a chance at a free gun now knows what houses to watch until they’re empty. Second, the first time a criminal walks through one of those doors and gets killed because they thought the house was empty will bring the usual hue and cry about how gun owners committed vigilante justice on the poor criminal and how no property is worth someone’s life.
The point is that the paper was playing at being outrageous, and the succeeded, at least in the sense that they outraged people. They really ought not have done that. It’s not really anybody’s business. That it’s a matter of public record does not mean that it should be plastered everywhere, any more than someone’s DUI conviction or their house value or pending bankruptcy should be given any more notice than the 3 column inches in the back of the newspaper they usually get. If you do something knowing full well you’re going to piss people off you better be ready for what happens next.
The same sorta stuff about people-with-nothing-better-to-do phoning ‘death threats’ occurs here too, without any guns in the country.
Maybe I don’t have the burglar mindset, but I think if I wanted a gun badly enough to burglarize a house for it, I’d burglarize houses where I thought I might find cash or easily fenceable goods, but no guns, then buy a gun from someone. That way if I was wrong about the house being unoccupied, I wouldn’t wind up perforated.
Printing of the names is also a vigilante action.
Paper’s employees get death threats? Prison guards whose addresses were printed are getting threats from prisoners. Women who have guns to protect themselves against violent exes and didn’t want them to know their current addresses are also in trouble.
Fuck this paper.
The NY Times said they wouldn’t print the Mohammed cartoons out of “responsibility”. It’s about time the media showed “responsibility” to the average American.
N/m
They do…it’s just that they get to decide who is “average” also.
IANA burglar, but ISTM that a burglar wants to take the easiest route to cash. That’s why their burglars instead of working for a living. Selling stolen goods and then having to give up that money to buy a gun lessens the profit. It’s better to steal the gun directly. That way he gets to keep any cash he finds, he gets to keep the other property that he can turn into cash, and get doesn’t have to pay for a gun (which he can use to get more cash).
Organized political groups protesting are exercising their First Amendment rights. Threats of violence, on the other hand, are not legally protected speech. The nutcases do the latter, not simply the former.
Just because you have a fun, does not mean you look forward to using it any more than wearing a bulletproof vest makes it a good idea to start a gunfight.
Paper takes down database:
Have you ever considered just how much time you spend imagining things that don’t actually happen?
Here this sort of stuff is not public information, and publishing it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act.