Newspaper Establishes Registered Gun Database, Equates Gun Owners to Sex Offenders

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Newspaper Establishes Registered Gun Database, Equates Gun Owners to Sex Offenders

NRA
December 8, 2009

On November 30, 2009, the Bloomington Herald-Times made the following announcement:
“This week, HeraldTimesOnline.com will launch its new gun permit database. You’ll be able to search gun permit records by county, city or town and street.”

The Herald-Times has begun receiving calls and emails, and their response is a defiant defense of their online gun permit database.

Anyone who visits the newspaper website will be able to search the number of permits on a given street or neighborhood. Although at this point the names and house numbers are not listed, the newspaper’s website treats law-abiding Indiana gun owners like sex offenders on a searchable database.

It is NRA’s firm belief that there is no public good served by the publishing or cataloguing private citizens’ gun ownership information, and that more harm is done by such an action. Law-abiding Hoosiers should not be subjected to the same treatment as sex offenders, and if the newspaper won’t listen to their constituents and customers, then NRA Members and Indiana gun owners should send a financial message by cancelling their subscriptions to the Bloomington Herald-Times.

Please contact the Bloomington Herald-Times to respectfully voice your displeasure at the irresponsible action the newspaper has made.

Scott Schurz, Sunday Hoosier Times/Editor-in-Chief
(812) 331-4250
[email protected]

E. Mayer Maloney Jr., Publisher
(812) 331-4251
[email protected]

Bob Zaltsberg, Editor
(812) 331-4364
[email protected]
 
Somebody there should ask the editor to publish his address, phone number, list of valuables, and where they are located in the house. Also the combination to his alarm system if he has one.
 
Glad I am in a state where there is no permit nonsense.

Is this kind of information normally open to public access? That might make me reconsider my desire to get a CCW.
 
I haved lived in Bloomington since 96. This paper has had this database up for several years now. My wife and I both have concealed handgun licenses as do 7 others on the road we live on. Nobody that I know that lives here really cares. They claim to have a recieved over a thousand emails about this. They don't care. They do not list names or addresses. It is obviously a really stupid political trick from a bunch of liberal morons. I almost never read the paper because it is written on about a 5th grade level. The idiots that run this city make Cook County Ill. look conservative. They ALL voted for Obammy. They all feel good about themselves and how they're making the world a better place.....
 
a paper in Tenn did something similar last year iirc except their database listed ccw holders !!! one of the reason I haven't got my ccw quite simply dont want to target my self for burglars looking for guns
 
Upside is that criminals can figure out which neighborhoods they would be advised to avoid. Of course, it can make those same neighborhoods better targets if the owners are away.

Funny that newspapers are perplexed as to why mainstream America has lost interest in them. Exhibit A.
 
This happened in America? If my paper did this, I would certainly cancel my subscription.
 
when i wrote them an email they said that the database contained no specifics and just listed how many permits on a road or something like that
 
Lots of papers have done similar things. However, usually they publish people's names and addresses, and this usually results in people publishing the names and addresses (and a bunch of over public info - real estate, etc) of the editors and journalists. Then they get all hot from the huge mass calling and email deluge telling them how stupid their actions are. Always an interesting time. Anyway, this one probably won't be nearly as interesting thought considering the lack of personal info online.
 
RE: pck3 - the Commercial Appeal in Memphis did something similar. Use the search function and find a thread called Invasion of Privacy by Tom G. The posts listed public property tax records, home addresses and phone numbers, Facebook pictures, etc of the editors, their families, etc.
 
Glad I am in a state where there is no permit nonsense.

Is this kind of information normally open to public access? That might make me reconsider my desire to get a CCW.
Click to expand...

Georgia is an open carry state, you can find more information at the links below:
www.georgiacarry.org

www.georgiapacking.org

BTW, A GFL (Georgia Firearms License) is issued at the County level and there is no database of license holders maintained by L.E. in Georgia.
 
Don't retaliate directly against the editors or owners. Instead contact all the businesses that advertise with them and state that you will refrain from doing any business with them if they advertise in that paper. If enough people do this then the businesses will stop their advertising and the paper may go out of business for lack of revenue.

Make sure the businesses know why you are doing this. Perhaps they will talk so sense to the owners and make them change their minds about this database.

Also, make sure that you don't have a subscription to this paper.
 
So, basically, this newspaper provides a great reference to the local burglars that know how to access the internet, enabling them to choose homes on streets where they're least likely to encounter armed resistance from homeowners?
 
So, basically, this newspaper provides a great reference to the local burglars that know how to access the internet, enabling them to choose homes on streets where they're least likely to encounter armed resistance from homeowners?
Click to expand...

Almost exactly what I was going to say!
 
Somebody there should ask the editor to publish his address, phone number, list of valuables, and where they are located in the house. Also the combination to his alarm system if he has one.
Click to expand...
The editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer seemed genuinely shocked when Ohio gun owners made available on the web, exactly that sort of information on him and those close to him. Something similar happened west of here too, in Sandusky I think.
 
A Fredericksburg Virginia paper did almost the same a couple of years ago.
Except their paper actually posted names and addresses of CHP holders in a seachable list on their 'Net page.

It was found that their list also included law enforcement officers, and victims of domestic abuse who had changed addresses to get away from abusive spouses.
Members of another site found the names, addrssses, and phone numbers of the author of the article and the higher-ups in the paper's offices and published them on the 'Net.
The advertisering companies in the paper were also contacted and threatened with 'boycots'.

That list is no longer on the 'net.................... ;)
 
The Roanoke Times in Roanoke, VA also did this with names & address of CCW permit holders, including one woman who was in some form of witness protection from her ex husband who had beaten her to within an inch of her life. Another was a parole officer who had a former parolee show up at his door when only his wife & child were home. There was a huge fuss over it & the paper eventually took it down claiming that there were "innaccuracies" in the data. Their defense was that the information was public & therefore could be published... but its one thing for someone to have to pay money & wait a few months for an address and another entirely to be given a list online with no effort.

here's a CNN piece on it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kUIPRFgRE8
 
Go get your permits, go buy more guns, encourage the neighbors. Bet you that when the baddies plan their hits it will not be on the street full of red-dots indicating armed residents.
 
Newspaper Publishes Gun Owner Info

On this discussion board there are a lot of calls to support the rights guaranteed by the 2d Amendment. I believe those rights are important. But here's a reminder, folks. There's one amendment ahead of it in the Bill of Rights--the 1st Amendment. And one of the things the 1st Amendment guarantees is the right to a free press.

Why don't we have a little less outrage about it?
 
If you don't want this information available to the public then get your state to make it confidential so that the individual names and addresses are not available to the public.
 
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