(IBD) Gun Control Zealots Like Gawker And News Journal Put Law-Abiding Citizens In Crosshairs

[Daniel John Sobieski]

1st Vs. 2nd Amendment: What public service is performed when  newspapers and websites tell criminals where prison guards and retired cops  live, and endanger the lives of people who've never had so much as a parking  ticket?

When the editors of the Journal News, a local upstate New York paper,  published a mappable database of every licensed gun owner in Westchester and  Rockland counties, north of New York City, they thought they were performing a  public service after the Sandy Hook shootings. After all, they were warning  residents who in their neighborhoods had a gun and was therefore a threat to  public safety.

What resulted was the law of unintended consequences run amok.

For among the accessible names and addresses were prison guards, retired cops  and other individuals for whom the possession of a firearm is not only a  constitutional right but a necessity, the very people on whom criminals would  like to get revenge for locking them up.

Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco, who spoke at a news conference flanked  by other county officials, said the Journal News' decision to post an online map  of names and addresses of handgun owners Dec. 23 has put law enforcement  officers in danger.

Newsday reports Falco as saying, "They have inmates coming up to them and  telling them exactly where they live. That's not acceptable to me."

Nor is it acceptable to Robert Riley, an officer with the White Plains Police  Department and president of its Patrolman's Benevolent Association.

"You have guys who work in New York City who live up here. Now their names  and addresses are out there too," he said, adding that there are 8,000 active  and retired NYPD officers now living in Rockland County.

"That was the most asinine article I've ever seen," said Walter T. Shaw, 65,  a former burglar and jewel thief and author of "License to Steal," a book about  his criminal career. "Having a list of who has a gun is like gold," he told Fox  News. "Why rob that house when you can hit the one next door, where there are no  guns? Or it could tell criminals in need of a gun to use or sell where one might  be found when the owner is away."

Read More At IBD:  http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/010913-639962-news-journal...