STOP DISCRIMINATION ON THE JOURNAL NEWS GUN LIST!

Recently the Journal News obtained a Court Order compelling Putnam County to release a list of its residents who hold pistol permits, so it appears they are once again preparing to publish the names and addresses of local residents who have handgun permits.

In the past the Journal News has published in print and on the internet the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties. The newspaper does have something of a reputation as a “joke” in journalistic circles, and their lists were actually considerably inaccurate but their action did provide one overwhelming benefit to those named. Because no criminal capable of reading a newspaper or operating a computer was going to attempt to break into a place where they might be met by a nervous resident with a gun, it became a list of “Houses You Absolutely Do Not Want To Try To Rob.”

This was of course the best security in the world – far better than an expensive burglar alarm system or even security guards – but only if you had a pistol permit and the Journal News managed to get your name and address right. The problem is the list is discriminatory. It includes only handgun owners and the Journal News has refused to let people who own shotguns or rifles get on the list.

Rifles and shotguns are five or ten times more powerful than handguns, so people who own such weapons should be able to be on the list. But they don’t appear because in New York you don’t need a permit to own a rifle or shotgun and the Journal News list is based only on permit holders. It seems like the obvious reason the Journal News unfairly excluded owners of rifles and shotguns was that they were afraid if they allowed people to just tell them they owned these sort of weapons, many neutered liberal males who are actually afraid of guns would falsely claim they owned rifles or shotguns so they could get on the list and their houses would not be robbed. This would of course create problems if it were later revealed there were neuts who did not actually own guns on the list and the paper were accused of false reporting.

Fortunately, it is a problem can be easily solved. The publisher and editors of the Journal News should designate several days a week when rifle and shotgun owners could bring their weapons to the newspaper’s offices and personally show the publisher and editors that they do in fact own such weapons and that they know how to load them, etc. Having seen the weapons up close and personal the publisher and editors could then in good faith include those people on the list.

This is America and we do not believe in discrimination here, so before publishing any current list the Journal News needs to set up a “Bring Your Guns To Our Office and Get On the List” program. It is only fair. Owners of rifles and shotguns deserve to be on the list so their houses don’t get robbed either.