Suburban New York newspaper is under fire from conservatives

A suburban New York newspaper is under fire from conservatives and gun rights advocates after publishing the names and addresses - and a locator map of people who possess pistol permits in several suburban counties.

“The newspaper didn’t even feel it necessary to publish a rationale for that violation of privacy — publishing the names and addresses of gun owners makes them more vulnerable to robbery when they aren’t at home, since criminals will know where the guns are,” charged Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com.

The story, published by the White Plains-based Journal News and posted on its website, LoHud.com, includes maps of Westchester county to the north of New York City and Rockland county to the north west — with the names and addresses of people with gun licenses represented by dots — on which readers can click to learn that information. It was posted over the weekend.

“Being included in this map does not mean the individual at a specific location owns a weapon, just that they are licensed to do so,” the newspaper cautioned, and noted that the information was the result of Freedom of Information Act requests.

Conservatives lit up Twitter and the blogosphere in condemning the piece.

“I guess nobody could object to people putting the newspaper staff’s addresses on the Web now, right?” snarked Instapundit, writing at Pajamas Media.

“Outrageous,” blared a headline at the Gateway Pundit.

“Time to publish the addresses of everyone who works at The Journal News, this is unforgivable,” tweeted Townhall.com’s Katie Pavlich.

Dan Riehl, a conservative writer at the blog Riehl World View, swung back at the Journal News by offering up Twitter accounts and some email addresses of people affiliated with the paper.
(Continues at POLITICO)