I think it's an attempt at intimidation. I wonder if any of those whose addresses were published are immediate family members of federal officials or employees, and covered by 18 USC Section 119, which prohibits publishing home addresses for intimidation. Or if the internet publication of home addresses of gun owners can be considered cyber stalking, cyber-bullying, harassment or invasion of privacy under state laws? Just because the information is available under a FOIA request, does that mean it can be publicly disseminated? I'm sure they checked with their lawyers and felt like they were on safe ground, but I hope somebody sues them.This incident reminds me of the mailings that went out last spring showing the names and addresses of residents in one's neighborhood and whether they'd voted in recent elections. At the time, I called it "incredibly creepy":
This is an effort to shame and pressure people about voting, and it is truly despicable. Your vote is private, you have a right not to vote, and anyone who tries to shame and harass you about it is violating your privacy, and the assumption that I will become active in shaming and pressuring my neighbors is repugnant.In a second post on that topic, a commenter, The Drill SGT, pointed to some social science research on the effectiveness of manipulating social pressure with this sort of information about what neighbors are doing. Apparently, if this sort of thing works, they'll be plenty more of it.
Get ready.
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47 comments:
And, of course, once the State, through its propaganda arm, the MSM, has trained citizens to view their neighbors with suspicion, the next step will be to have neighbor denounce neighbor to the authorities.
Alinsky.
This is the world of the community organizer, you know, that guy.
I strongly opposed the Right to Life hicks and fanatics when they were busy posting names, photos, and addresses of "killer aborters" who had any connection with employment at reproductive health centers.
All while thinking abortion is wrong.
I thought it was despicable and an invasion of privacy meant to intimidate.
Same when the goobers did the same tactic on Michael Schiavo and the doctors and lawyers that testified on his side.
With the White Plains newspaper up in NY, apparantly you had an editor in high dungeon wanting to strike back at the evil gun owners.
I think it is badly backfiring for her, as 2nd Amendment activists are now posting the names, phone numbers and addresses of her and all her employees and unfortunately for her, all her executive bosses at Gannett News, who I doubt green-lighted her stunt.
Now, we all know the saying that 2 wrongs don't make a right, but there is another saying just as old that "turnabout is fair play". Some payback is part and parcel of our civilization under "lawyers prosecutions and justice delivery" - other payback is also morally and ethically justified outside a formal legal system.
So while her invasion of privacy of concealed weapons permitees for her effort to intimidate them may be lawful - so is posting her name, her kids names, her bosses names, her employees, her personal data.
IMO, a case of justified payback.
The published list may cause some disagreements and friction between family members and friends.
It is doubtful that the crooks will be reading that list, and if so, will it be to find out where to burgle to get guns, or where not to burgle in order to avoid guns?
If the latter, they are likely to be disappointed, as the experience around the world in countries with strict gun laws is that there are several times as many illegal guns held by the citizens - never mind the crooks - as there are legally registered ones.
Try publishing a list in Texas... dang near about 80 percent of the people will show up as for gun owners and about 3 percent on the CHL list.
And they might all go by that papers office and give them a piece of their mind. That's bad ju-ju here in Texas.
Are gun owners now going to be stigmatized like sex offenders?
If the tolerant, peaceful, freedom loving left have their way, yes, yes they are.
Wow, she probably showed up a lot of gun-owning lefties and democrats that didn't want it to be known that they say one thing and do another.
Let's get on board with this! Which of your neighbors have been apprehended for drunk driving? Shouldnt we all want to have this information? How about disorderly conduct or assault? Speding tickets? Speed kills.
Let's get on board with this! Which of your neighbors have been apprehended for drunk driving? Shouldnt we all want to have this information? How about disorderly conduct or assault? Speding tickets? Speed kills.
Thanks Althouse. i'll add the citation to my CV. i understand the secdef job is opening up. Teh won will be pleased to get my application.
Paul said...
Try publishing a list in Texas... dang near about 80 percent of the people will show up as for gun owners and about 3 percent on the CHL list.
As i understand it, the list was of handguns. No registration list yet exists for long guns. like me, i suspect that many texas homes have long guns. i'm a firm believer in deterent powrt of the sound of a 12 gauge being racked back...
I was also reminded of that horrible mailing we got before the Recall. Ugh.
There was a Twilight Zone episode once wherein the outer space invaders ended up turning lights on and off in a neighborhood that slowly dissolved into paranoia. This gun-toter publishing reminds me of that too.
I've talked to a lot of people in my area, and most don't think you're crazy. More people who can't grasp reality that I work with in CA are apprehensive about guns. But when they've never handled one, that's understandable. Kind of like a chain saw, or welding torch. Just wish more people cared as much about the 1 ton chunk of steel they careen about in.
And the people who are stigmatized, well they already are loons :-)
I am an anti-gun conservative. Publishing the names of my neighbors with guns would actually encourgage me to buy a gun so they shouldn't assume that publishing names will make people shun guns. I agree with what was said yesterday--the list just tells criminals who they should avoid and I want to be on the list of people to avoid! Also, I know more liberals that own hand guns than conservatives. Of course, being from Madison I just know more liberals than conservative so I guess that probably doesn't mean much other than that there are a lot of liberals who own hand guns for protection so you can't count on liberals to blindly follow their leaders on this one.
Imagine if the "identified" gun/homeowners put signs in their yards which read "the Journal News wants our neighbors to know that we own guns"
We do...
Isn't the real effect of this journalism going to be that it makes people who are already afraid of guns even more so if they find our their neighbors are gun owners?
When they greenlighted making political contributions public knowledge, they basically said that political intimidation of private citizens was OK.
Plus, the private ballot was now just a joke
Why doesn't the Supreme Court revisit that little bit of Third World-level crap?
The one time I cared if my neighbors had guns was when my kids were little. Little kids and guns aren't a good mix. If the neighbors had guns, and my kid was visiting, I wanted to know the guns were locked away safely. Maybe it was an intrusive question, I didn't care.
Now, I don't care if my neighbors have guns. I'll have a shotgun myself in the near future, via inheritance. Unless my brother gets it first.
I agree: I'd only care if my neighbors had guns if I had little kids visiting there where they might go unattended for a while. But, most gun owners, I would hope, are responsible enough to do that themselves.
Then again, if I had kids and they were visiting someone, I think that the other parents/adults would be close enough to me that I could ask about it without hurting any feelings.
Gun owners already know that gun grabbers fear and loathe us. We just don't care. And there are many millions of us.
1) Guns are dangerous, but effective tools for affecting behavior when in the hands of properly trained individuals.
2) I own no guns, but you do.
3) Which of us is more likely to feel intimidated?
As a woman living solo, I would love it if the report that me and my home are armed would spread far and wide.
You feelin' lucky, punk?
In my area, it would be a lot quicker topmost a list of people who don't own guns. That will clue the drug addicts in to which homes to invade and rob.
*to post
The same places where homosexuality isn't all that popular are the same places where much of the populace packs heat.
This won't fly in Flyover Country.
Those "creepy" emails/mailings are exactly why President Obama was re-elected.
The personal is political and vice-versa, the traditional liberal philosophy...but it is getting close to mandatory under the new Liberal leadership.
The Obama Cult of Personality is going to be difficult to recover from. The Cult of Personality Machine will roll on with a new object, all subordinated to the Liberal Lust for Control over all details of everyone's lives.
Could an unintended consequence be more people choose to flaunt registration laws?
@Drill SGT, the people I have talked to who firearms instructors, including some who train LEOs, say that racking a pump shotgun has no deterrent effect whatsoever. They suggest keeping a shell chambered in case you don't have the second it takes to rack the slide or in case you need the sixth shell.
Big Mike: I would imagine that the sound of a racking pump shell is not one that is familiar to today's intruders. They are poorly educated and urban and would likely not have heard of, much less heard, of a pump action shotgun.
It's interesting to look at this in the context of the right to life demonstrations in the 90's that lead to the draconian anti-picketing laws that protect abortion clinics from protestors.
Clearly there is a wave of pain and sadness sweeping the country right now and its being - cleverly - focused on gun owners.
Cleverly as in reinforces the secondary agenda of the gun control groups. That being stigmatizing gun ownership in general.
People who own guns are going to have to fight for their social standing in this environment, and many - lead by women I'll say controversially - will opt to bow to peer pressure and dispose of their guns.
We're basically seeing the firearms version of "slut-shaming".
How about publishing the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of everyone getting welfare and the total value of the entitlements being received and the same for all government employees present and retired.
And just to spice it up a bit list those whose pensions are exempted from state income taxes.
It's called freedom. If you have a gun what are you scared of?
The same places where homosexuality isn't all that popular are the same places where much of the populace packs heat.
This won't fly in Flyover Country.
edutcher, you say a lot of stupid things, so I don't really know why this one stood out, but I'll ask anyway - what the hell does that mean?
Knowing that you wrote it rules out the charitable interpretation, that smart gay people arm themselves when living among gay-haters.
I know that all my neighbors are armed. Some, extravagantly so. Except for the frantic libs that live on the corner . And they may be. I don't think gun-shaming is going to work.
This is "incredibly creepy."
And it gets worse. The journalist who pulled this list together for publication, Dwight R. Worley, owned a .357 Magnum with a permit for NYC yet his name and info mysteriously did not appear on that list.
There appears to be no bottom limit to the hypocrisy of the liberal media.
And just to spice it up a bit list those whose pensions are exempted from state income taxes.
That would be everyone on a pension in Pennsylvania.
I thought of the mailing listing presidential campaign contributions from my neighbors and myself that I got this year when I read that story, too. It is one more attempt at intimidation by the left. We are beginning our slide down the slippery slope here, folks.
Also, because my name was on the campaign donation list for my neighborhood, I donated more money after I received it. I don't want the "researchers" to get the idea their intimidation worked.
MadisonMan said...
And just to spice it up a bit list those whose pensions are exempted from state income taxes.
That would be everyone on a pension in Pennsylvania.
12/27/12 12:27 PM
But not in New York State. Namely public sector pensioners. Imagine the joy in apple-knocker country when they see their social security taxed but not their neighbor's public sector pension.
"Jay said...
Are gun owners now going to be stigmatized like sex offenders?
If the tolerant, peaceful, freedom loving left have their way, yes, yes they are."
The lefties love "1984" as an instruction manual.
I don't understand why everyone's suddenly getting so worked up. They've already been stigmatizing known Republicans and conservatives.
Anyway. I have mixed feelings about this. If you willingly publish information about yourself, it should be legal to hold that information against you if others so choose. If it results in shunning, so be it. If it results in a beating, prosecute the beating. If you don't like that information is being used that way, point that out, and it should dilute the effect of that strategy. This ain't hard.
Moose at 10:49--I don't agree at all that we are going to have to fight for our "social standing." The gun control fanatics are the fringe minority on this one. We way outnumber them. Who gives a damn what they think? I have been around hunters/shooters/collectors for almost my whole life and I have never met a single one who had anything but amused contempt for/indifference to the gun grabbers. People who are nervous Nellies worried about what the chattering class thinks of them by and large do not become gun owners.
The media can keep up this hue and cry/dirty tactics but there is no indication that I have seen that indicates any effectiveness I'm changing public opinion. They just sound shrill, obsessed and unethical.
Ann,
Why would you 'stigmatize' someone who,probably, has immediate access to weapons and ammunition?
Would not it be a wiser course of action to placate them or try to reassure them that their rights are being respected?
Do we want to antagonize the well armed citizenry?
Reminds me of the attempts to stigmatize people who donated to prop 8 in CA. If this costs people their jobs (or job opportunities), then you know they are playing for keeps.
Reminds me of the attempts to stigmatize people who donated to prop 8 in CA. If this costs people their jobs (or job opportunities), then you know they are playing for keeps.
I did find interesting that this is about handguns, and I read recently a discussion on why long guns are preferable for home defense. Then, the discussion was between reasonably short barreled AR type rifles and shotguns. I think that the consensus was that a 12 gage shotgun (with a short, but legal, barrel) was probably advantageous for those who didn't practice a lot.
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