Something to consider re: the published list of gun owners.

[WilliamPitt]

Some women buy and register guns because they are being stalked or threatened.

Publishing their names and addresses makes them easy to find if they are hiding from an abusive husband or boyfriend, or if they are being stalked.

This is not just about "gun people."

Josh Marshall: "A few readers have noted that one reason people register fire arms is because they’ve been stalked or have survived some sort of abuse. Publicizing their names and addresses enables the abusers. This seems like a more serious concern."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/12/as_youve_probably_heard_theres.php?ref=fpblg

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. You want others to consider this? For some, it will be their first time.

For those who are being stalked and threatened by violent people, can't they just dial 911 and wait for the police?

Of course, in some cities, waiting may be a problem where cash-strapped cities are laying off police officers.'

See, e.g.,
Fifth-Most Crime Ridden City in America Dismisses a Fourth of its Police Force. 911 Still in Service

http://www.democraticunderground.com/117297556

[pipoman]

7. I hate cliches

but they often are appropriate..."when seconds count the police are minutes (or in my case hours) away...

[lunatica]

2. Before publishing anything like that they should ask themselves the question

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Fucking idiots.

[slackmaster]

3. It's good to see that there are still some level-headed people on DU who think with their brains

[Little Star]

4. I had also thought about how the list...

would also serve as a map to find those of us who don't have guns, making us a easier mark.

[pipoman]

5. My sister bought a gun

because of an ex who went stalker and threatened to kill her. The police classified the threats as credible. The legal assistant to the administrative judge who issued the restraining order advised my sister move into a bills paid rental and get a gun and learn how to use it for self defense. If she lived in NY where this happened, the paper would have put her in danger.

I believe this is a great argument against gun registration...that is asshats like the publisher misusing the database.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

6. Perhaps, but things like this keeps the snowball rolling. nt

[JoeyT]

8. Actually things like this are counter-productive.

Any hope we had of a national registry just went up in flames. When we insist it couldn't be misused, all they'll have to do is point to this incident.

[Lizzie Poppet]

18. Exactly.

This idiotic incident just killed off any chance of the national registry in Sen. Feinsteins's plan making the cut when negotiations over the bill are concluded. That will also produce a cascade effect, as some of the other points in the proposal require registration to work.

[slackmaster]

9. There's something funny about rolling snowballs

You never know how long they'll roll, how big they'll get, or what will ultimately happen to them.

They always stop rolling sooner or later, and the results are unpredictable.

[PeaceNikki]

10. I agree. But I feel compelled to discuss DV victims and guns a bit more.

I was involved in another thread last night where a DV victim was murdered. A DU'er essentially BLAMED the victim for not arming herself.

I am not criticizing women for attempting to defend themselves, but I am angry about the victim blaming that happens in so many cases of violence against women. Blame the perpetrator for his crime, the law for not protecting her, but don't blame the victim.

Ever. It's not her fault he did this because she didn't buy a FUCKING GUN. Thanks for letting me vent....

http://skeptikai.com/2012/07/30/does-owning-a-gun-increase-or-decrease-safety-science-answers/

“One article published in 2011 by the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine (which isn’t indexed by PubMed) had several damning things to say. The article, written by David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health, summarized the scientific literature on benefits and detriments of keeping a gun at home. He writes:

For most contemporary Americans, scientific studies indicate that the health risk of a gun in the home is greater than the benefit. The evidence is overwhelming for the fact that a gun in the home is a risk factor for completed suicide and that gun accidents are most likely to occur in homes with guns. There is compelling evidence that a gun in the home is a risk factor for intimidation and for killing women in their homes.

On the benefit side, there are fewer studies, and there is no credible evidence of a deterrent effect of firearms or that a gun in the home reduces the likelihood or severity of injury during an altercation or break-in. Thus, groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics urge parents not to have guns in the home.

Most of the women were murdered by a spouse, a lover, or a close relative, and the increased risk for homicide from having a gun in the home was attributable to these homicides.” In the case of battered women, lethal assaults were 2.7 times more likely to occur if a gun was present in the house; no protective effect of the gun was found."

[GreenStormCloud]

23. That study is incomplete.

It doesn't take a look at the previous criminal history of those who murder their wives. In almost every case of DV murder, the killer already has a criminal history and his ownership of a gun is illegal already. It is extremely rare for a person to commit murder as a first serious crime. Further, when that such a murder does happen, the police have almost always been to the same house multiple time before.

Such studies always fail to divide out the criminals in the study from the law-abiding, but instead lump them all together.

[onehandle]

11. Timothy McVeigh thought he was being 'stalked or threatened.' nt

[WilliamPitt]

12. What does that mean?

Are you inferring that stalking and domestic violence don't happen?

[slackmaster]

13. onehandle means that every gun owner is a potential mass murderer

Because onehandle hates gun owners.

[onehandle]

15. I would at least like the cops to know if my neighbor has a basement full of arms.

Maybe not everyone, but the cops should know.

Guns should be more regulated than cars.

[slackmaster]

16. At least onehandle is consistent in his support of expansion of police powers

[treestar]

14. Why does it enable them?

Now they know she has a gun. Seems it could scare them off.

[slackmaster]

17. It enables them because now they can find out easily where their victims live

Information that might not have been available before the fuckwits at the Journal News published those pin maps.

[Disgraceland]

20. Yes, because most of these women bought guns

It's definitely not more likely that the stalker purchased a gun, which would enable a victim to be forewarned by the paper. Definitely not possible for someone to find that their unstable neighbor keeps a weapon, or that someone with an unstable kid has one. Definitely no possible benefits for keeping your kids safer.

I'm sure this totally imaginary scenario is more likely than any of the other possible imaginary scenarios.

[Coyote_Tan]

22. Let's see...

Domestic abuse against women happens hundreds or thousands of times per day in Anerica.

Mass shootings by the "unstable" happen every now and then.

So which is more likely to happen?

[treestar]

24. Victims they know have guns!

I thought the idea was they would then avoid those people? How many times have we heard mass shooters go to schools because they know they are gun free zones? They want power over someone else, not a gun fight, which they might lose. This is hilarious. Why do you suddenly want it to be private? The whole point was for people to know you are a packing heat badass and so they will choose more vulnerable victims.

[slackmaster]

25. THE POINT is that the victims were trying to keep their locations secret.

And the Journal News pissed all over them.

Link to Google News search results:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=Blogger+posts+names+of+Journal+News+staffers&oq=Blogger+posts+names+of+Journal+News+staffers&gs_l=news-cc.12..43j43i400.2361.2361.0.3961.1.1.0.0.0.0.66.66.1.1.0...0.0...1ac.1.K-Vm5b6C8AI

[treestar]

26. Then the victim wouldn't need the gun

And wouldn't be on the gun registry. The point is why should that be secret?

And how do the rest of us know who is victim and who is a likely perpetrator? I'd like to know who has a gun, so I can avoid those houses.

[slackmaster]

27. The fact that a person has a permit doesn't always mean he or she has a gun

And it's really not up to you to decide what someone else does or does not need.

I'd like to know who has a gun, so I can avoid those houses.

In my religion we call that kind of thing "False Slack."

You can know who has a valid pistol permit in New York, but that doesn't tell you who actually has one or more firearms.

[Disgraceland]

19. Phony issue

If this is a concern it should be taken up legislatively regarding the records themselves, not with currently legitimate newspaper use of them. It seems likely that most people will find the access to these records outweighs the risk of this hypothetical situation:

Some angered boyfriend in one of the few places a newspaper has constructed an interactive map somehow decides his stalkee has purchased a weapon, then clicks on every single person in the county. Please.

Are you campaigning to,keep voter registration secret? How about Internet privacy? DBA registrations? What if someone is being stalked and has to open their own business? What then? How about court records? What if someone is being stalked and has to sue someone?

The hysterical response to the newspaper makes it pretty clear this is about guns, not abused women. Wonder what the statistics are for women being shot by responsible gun owners vs. the number tracked by nefarious open records acts? Stop open records, before they kill again!

[frylock]

21. for the win

[JVS]

28. It's unproductive for several reasons to various agendas.

1. It gives criminals who intend to steal guns a list of targets. This is obviously bad for gun owners but also bad for those who want to keep the guns from proliferating and those who value the continuing accuracy of the registration list.

2. It gives criminals who intend to steal things other than guns a list of houses without guns (although this can be of limited use because of #4)

3. For those who support a registry it is unproductive because it gives opponents of a registry a concrete example of why they object to registries at all. People who would support a gun registry similar to that of automobiles (the authorities can access it but it isn't open to the public) might oppose registration if it means that the information is an open book.

4. It was only a handgun registry. For those who feel that knowing who among their neighbors owns handguns makes them safer the publication of the list provides a false sense of security because neighbors not appearing on the list may still own another type of gun. For advocates of a registry, the publication of this list encourages their neighbors to switch to other weapons (such as shotguns), thus making the registry less effective.

[aikoaiko]

29. Other papers have done this before and realized the mistake in doing so.

This publisher ignored the lessons from previous mistakes.

[alcibiades_mystery]

30. Laziest. Stalker. Ever.

The woman is living under her own name?

And the stalker was unable to find her until already publicly available information was published by a newspaper?

Um, what?

We're to believe that there's this stalker - a real Sleeping with the Enemy style bad guy. He's going to go to the ends of the Earth to find his victim, yeah? I mean every single Internet "find this person" service sends him "Best Client" postcards at Christmas. He's an expert at querying every public database. He checks all 50 states. He's written algorithms for scanning online registries of 86 varieties. This guy is LOOKING.

But he can't find his victim.

Until a newspaper publishes her name. From a public database. That anyone can access. Of her name. Her own name. That she lives under. At her address. Which would thus be findable in approximately 12,672 other ways.

You realize this scenario is fucking stupid beyond description, yeah?