Comments

1
By their logic, it should actually make them safer for that information to be widely known, shouldn't it?
2
This does create a nice map for crooks looking to steal guns, per dear Chicago Fan's post earlier.
3
@2 has it right.
Now that the criminals have the map, all they have to do is watch to see when everyone is the house is gone.

Cienna, do you honestly believe that publishing that map was about starting an adult conversation instead of an attempt at intimidating the people who have legally registered their guns (complying with the existing laws)?
4
I found it interesting when you attack the NRA how every single gun owner seemed to shit themselves even on Slog.

It really proves Dan's point that guns are more about penis extenstions than anything else.
5
Didn't the Stranger publish the addresses of people who signed petitions against gay marriage? Didn't that cause some kind of controversy for singling out individuals for exercising their legal rights, even if others disagreed with them?

And yeah, what @2 said.
6
Hello Cienna Madrid, Those apartments of yours at 700 Crockett Street, Seattle, WA sure are nice. Also, good to know your DOB is 9/10/83. :)
7
@4: I am a gun owner. I do not believe I have 'shit myself' here on Slog. In fact I really think it is time to cut the posturing and make an honest effort to reduce gun violence. And I am not a zealot that believes hordes of criminals are just waiting to break in to my castl- er, house to rob me, therefore I must be armed to the teeth. Hell, I don't remember when last I shot a gun.
8
"Nothing is more powerful or direct than a polite conversation between neighbors."

Yes, I'm sure that's what will come from this information being released.

I'm not a gun owner, have no desire to ever be one and strongly support an assault weapons ban. But this sort of thing has questionable value to non-gun owners (how is the average person going to live their life differently based on this information?) and only serves to stoke the fires of gun owners' rabid persecution complex, further complicating any efforts to make any headway on reasonable limits on assault weapons/high-capacity clips/etc.
9
People are weird. They scream about some journalist being "careless", all the while, they willfully upload their current location onto stupid apps like 4-square.

There is this disconnect in people's head about online and the real world and even though those things meet frequently, (often because of their own actions) being confronted by it is apparently "dangerous"
10
@5 Nice use of rhetoric to create a reality which is, in truth, fantasy. Please show us the evidence for any "backlash" against those who voted against gay marriage.
11
Sending nut jobs to their homes to give them someone to shoot at seems like the best Christmas gift any gun owner could ask for, is it not?
12
@5
"Didn't the Stranger publish the addresses of people who signed petitions against gay marriage?"

I think this comes down to whether it is okay to "out" people who are doing something you disagree with even if it is legal. So that they can face public censure for their actions?
And whether it is NOT okay to "out" people who are doing something that you do not disagree with even if it is legal. Because they might face public censure for their actions?
At best it is a double standard.
13
Hey, I'm a gun owner. My address is in the book. Feel free to stop by any time. However: posting people's addresses, publicly, because because you don't like what they own or do, is a dipshit, asinine, short-sighted, idiotic, throwing gas on the fire move. Just because you have a Constitutional right to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea. And can you please stop suggesting all gun owners are raving conservatives? Still not fucking true however much you want it to be. Your side is, however, doing a damn fine job of making sure no rational gun owner (which do exist, and again in greater numbers than you want to believe) will ever listen to a word you have to say.
14
The people of Rowaton, CT sleep soundly at night, knowing that the solitary gun owner...Joseph de Lorenzo...is protecting them.

15
Yesterday, had you asked any of these people individually whether they cared if people knew they were gun owners, the likely response would have been, "Shit no! I want every crook and libtard to know they're going to be shot if they come onto mah property!".

Of course, once reality is brought into the equation, the response is exactly what this libtard would have guessed it would be.
16
A potential value of such a map would be to inform parents of potentially dangerous play sites, similar to the maps of registered sex offenders, but I actually think parents should ask the parents of their children's playmates if there are guns in their homes, and if the guns are properly stored.

This raises an interesting debate - how much is the public entitled to know? For example, the bar association allows lawyers without offices to use a PO Box when they don't want the public to show up at their homes. Maybe gun owners should be given the same option, but they would have to be diligent never to use a physical location on anything else, to avoid cross-referencing.

I'm open to arguments, either way, and will wait to form an opinion.
17
But I forgot; we're all for people using their Constitutional rights to be assholes, aren't we? We're for Westboro picketing funerals. We're for abortion clinics and the people they provide for getting screaming hordes outside their door. We're for the anti-choicers posting the private addresses of doctors. We're for gay people getting outed, whether they want to be or not. We're for immigrants being asked for their papers for jaywalking. We're for women getting called cunts and gays getting called faggot for walking down the street. We're all for bullying, so long as it doesn't infringe on someone's Constitutional rights. We're for Constitutionally allowed congressional hearings on whether someone's a Commie, or gay, or whatever the flavor of the week is. Cuz it's Constitutionally acceptable.

Oh, wait... We're not. It's funny how few people can follow Wheaton's simple 'Don't Be A Dick' guideline as soon as their panties get in a wad. But please, tell me how this improves matters at all. Please. I'd love to hear it.

Like I said: I don't care who knows I have guns. Of course, if one of these Constitutionally outed gun owners gets broken into and their guns stolen, I bet they'll have a lovely Constitutionally allowed lawsuit.
18
@13:

"Just because you have a Constitutional right to do something doesn't mean it's a good idea."


Can I use that the next time one of my Podunk relatives argues everyone should be armed?
19
Those aren't the addresses of gun owners; those are the addresses of people who have a permit to carry a handgun.

Yes, there's likely going to be a fair bit overlap between those two lists but they're not the same thing. What about the people who only have rifles or shotguns? Or the people who have guns but don't have permits for pistols?

I've noticed that the staff of The Stranger and the Slog comment community keeps caricaturing gun owners as all being like the NRA. There are over 90 million gun owners in the US and less than 5% of them are NRA members and I expect that number to go down with the way the NRA has been behaving recently.

I don't own any guns myself but it bothers me how unfairly you're talking about those who are. You're building up a strawman here when you talk about the average gun owner.
20
@18: Absolutely.
21
So, Cienna, if maps like this are a smart idea, how about a map showing all gay, adulterers, transgendered, muslim, black, whatever, with names and addresses?

Could we then say that it would be putting power back in neighborhoods, creating another tool that communities can use to apply social pressure to gay people even as politicians hash through tricky legislative conversation on gay marriage?
22
Really Cienna? What they published is as irresponsible as publishing individual bankruptcies. It serves no purpose other than to hop up the conversation on gun control and sell news. It's an asshole move and all it is doing is dumbing shit down to base emotional foolishness.
23
This map only becomes useful if we can get the same information on mentally ill people and overlay it on the gun owners to see who the REAL lunatics with guns are. Pity we can't do anything about the mentally ill until they actual shoot up a school full of kids...
24
Sorry, that's Rowayton.

Looks busy this month:

http://www.rowaytonct.com/calendar.html
25
Wonder how they would feel about a response, publishing the names and addresses of all the employees of the newspaper. Public record, and all that.
26
I don't see how the militia can be well regulated if the militia is kept secret.
27
Thinking about this...so, Liberals want to identify gun owners personally.

But they don't want to require Internet posters to use their real names.

How about we grow up and start to do away with the anonymity altogether?

If you want a right, then stand up in public, and sign your John Hancock.

28
@23- not that I'm particularly surprised to see such a crass, dickheaded comment from you, but please bear in mind that the mentally ill are not criminals until they perform a criminal act. What we can actually do about the mentally ill is stop being cuntrags (like you), get them treatment and stop treating them like ticking time bombs.
29
As long as we're randomly generalizing people:

"Black people, like Muslims, thrive on their own fictionalized victimhood. They're itching for any opportunity to feel oppressed and subjugated."

FTFY.
30
@27: I already told you, I am Gerald Raffe of 2001 N. Clark St. in Chicago. You may reach me at 312-742-2000 if you wish to talk.
31
When is SLOG going to publish a list of all the anonymous commenters and google bombers along with their real names and addresses?
32
@28 legal gun owners are not criminals until they perform a criminal act. Hypocrite much?

How many NON-INSANE people have committed mass murder with a firearm, knife, bomb or other implement of destruction?
33
#30

Brave man...thanks for being public.

We need more...

34
@32- I didn't say that gun owners were criminals. At all. Please re-read the comment.
35
Bailo, I note you still sign yourself Supreme whatever. Since we know your actual name (and you think that everyone should be "public", isn't that a little hypocritical?
36
“How about a map of the editorial staff and publishers of Gannett and Journal News with names and addresses of their families…,” wrote one commenter, George Thompson.

I fail to understand what the difference would be between that and what the newspaper did. Publishing public records is publishing public records, right?
37
How is this different than slut shaming?

doxing people because you disagree with them is pretty shitty.

If this was a pro life group posting a map of who has had an abortion, the stranger would be shitting itself.
38
@Cienna: Gun owners, like Christians, thrive on their own fictionalized victimhood.



(Speaking for gun owners, not any Christians who foolishly stumbled in here for their dose of bigotry) - do you really believe this?



Do you know any responsible people who own guns (and have admitted it to you)?



Have you looked at all into facts and data about when and where violence actually happens in this country?



Do you feel like it’s OK to tell thousands of women who have violent ex-boyfriends or husbands that harass and threaten them that they should just calmly call the police and pray when the asshole shows up drunk at 2 AM and trying to kick the door in while the kids are upstairs in bed?



What about her neighbors who she relies on for help and a place to lie low when the fucker sobers up in a couple days and is back on the street? Should they just hope a baseball bat is enough and that cops are one block over?



One thing publishing shit like this map will do is at least make it much easier to get a first approximation of who might be an easier target.



How about a gay couple who want to live quietly and enjoy their neighborhood - when a car with three bigots in it shows up looking to fuck them up. Are they allowed to have more than 10 rounds to deal with the situation?



Someone who chooses to live in an area where robberies occur regularly and makes the mistake of being home – suck it up?



You people are painting with a dangerously broad brush here.



I understand, it’s an emotional issue, but tarring your neighbors with this shit and not addressing the real problems is going to lead nowhere, or backwards.
39
@16 The last think the NRA and the gun nuts want is for parents of kids to be asking about guns in the home of places they are going to visit. But they should be asking.

The gun nuts are way more identified with what "victims" they are than any Christians I have ever run into are about their religious status. Kind of weird mindset: paranoids who seek endlessly to find ways to see themselves as helpless victims, who also have a fetish for deadly weapons and their accessories. The scariest part of this mindset is that it thrives on killings to self-perpetuate.
40
@34, in that case you shouldn't have a problem with @23's comment. All he said was that the gun owners map should be complemented with a mentally ill map.

Now, your complaint is that mentally ill people are not criminals. Neither are legal gun owners. So, by that logic, a map of either one, or both, should be fine.
41
@38 A DV victim is hundreds of times more likely to be shot by her abuser than defend herself using a gun. You are a sick fucking re-abuser for using these true victims as cannon fodder for your gun nut fantasy society.

@7 I would be good for you to make your voice heard to your elected representatives and the press, because those entities think the NRA and LaPierre are speaking for you. Gun sanity advocates whose strategy was to ally with folks like you in the past have often come up empty handed when counting on your enthusiasm. I'm getting the feeling though that a lot of you are now realizing you may have been too complacent.
42
@28 - I never implied that 100% of the mentally ill are dangerous. Just that (arguably) 100% of mass murderers are mentally ill (Even the ones that don't use guns (Uni-bomber, Oklahoma city etc.)). Therefore, if you really want to do something about senseless mass violence, you need to start with the mentally ill, and society needs to decide that when they refuse treatment, society has a responsibility to force that treatment onto them, up to and including involuntary commitment, and that it MUST be made much easier for society to treat the mentally ill.

Tell me about the last mass shooting where everyone was genuinely surprised that the shooter did it. It’s always the same story… “He was reclusive, anti-social, paranoid, etc., etc.” and “everyone figured it was just a matter of time”. Or… “He’d already killed his own grandmother with a hammer” or “he’d already beat a tuba player to death for shits and giggles”.

FYI: Connecticut = relatively strict gun regulations and some of the most liberal mental health laws (damn near impossible to “do anything” about a deranged lunatic until after he injures someone, regardless of how crazy he acts).

@32 gets it.
43
@41: If you think that Boring Dad is Boring falls into the "gun nut fantasy society," type of personality, your calibration is off by so much there is zero chance of passing any legislation that would satisfy you.
44
@42 People are surprised. They can't believe we have let guns become so rampant and out of control in our society in the past 30 years.

Perhaps people were LESS surprised about Sandy Hook because the shooter's mother was a survivalist gun nut who made semi-automatic assault weapons available to her anti-social son, even encouraging him to become proficient in their use. The likelihood of him doing these killings if he hadn't been armed and trained by a gun nut? Very close to zero.
45
The really interesting thing is that we have testable hypotheses to the question: "Does the publication of easy-to-geographically-decipher handgun registration addresses lead to a change in household burglary or firearms theft?"



H_0: Publication of such a map in Journal News has no effect on burglaries or firearms theft.

H_1: Publication of such a map increases burglaries among households without handgun permits.

H_2: Publication of such a map increases firearms theft among households with handgun permits.



An intrepid researcher could do a simple before-and-after study of reported crime in these counties before and after the publication date with the ability to control for a number of factors like home value estimate, neighborhood walk score, etc. and we might learn something.
46
@41: "Gun nut fantasy society?" Is that a similar fantasy society to the one where you're going to make guns and bad people evaporate with a law?

I'm wasting my time and talking to a wall here.

Have a great time with what's to come, peeps, ramp up the volume and don't back down - you're on the right track.

Much as it pains me, and I'm trying not to react emotionally, maybe I should just embrace the stereotype and go make a donation to the NRA.

If this is what passes for discourse, then fuck it, maybe we just have to use the attack dogs instead.

Later.
47
Supreme Ruler: I like commentator nicknames because they add personality to Slog. All the regulars have great Slog handles. It's a hoot. A hoot I say!

Also, nicknames don't have the potential for harm that handguns have.
48
@43 Since Boring Dad is Boring is using the fantasy ideological argument of increased safety from domestic violence as support for advocating broader possession of hand guns in the home, I would say that he very much falls into the supporter of the "gun nut fantasy society," even though I have no idea about whether he even owns a gun or not.

Thelma and Louise was a delicious revenge fantasy, but only that. Once a gun is brought into the equation, the victim will still be just as likely to be a victim, only far more likely to be killed. Gun nuts are willing to accept a higher rate of gun fatality under any social conditions, whether we do or don't have better mental healthcare, or do or don't have less misogynistic violence, or less or more of whatever kind of domestic violence.
49
@45: the Roanoke Times published a similar list for all of Virginia back in 2007, causing a very similar stir. It was for carry permits, not just ownership, so it's a bit different, but should work well for comparisons if someone is up to digging through the crime rates.
50
why don't we publish a similar map for washington state?

I'd also like all gun owners when commenting on slog to tell us the contents of their arsenal, and whether they keep it locked up. And it the key to gun safe also locked up? or is it "hidden" in the nightstand by the bed? under the underwear in the dresser?
51
@46 You want to arm victims of domestic violence with more guns and say the discourse is too impolite? What I keep seeing is that the gun nut compromise position is always... more guns!

I'm actually not even talking to you, anyway. You are probably a lost cause, but their are a lot of other people who can use the encouragement to analyze the stuff you are saying in order to see it for what it really is, and encouragement to accept what they have known in their hearts about how some of their seemingly rational gun owning friends are in fact irrational fanatics.
52
@21: "A map showing all gay" people would be interesting. How do you propose to do it? It's not like you know everyone who's gay.

But assuming you could do it, that'd be a helluva step forward for gay rights. No more hiding. Can we color code your gay map so we know which gay people were formerly closeted Republicans, which are in opposite sex marriages with spouses who don't know, which are Catholic priests, and so on and so on?
53
@48: I wasn't speaking to one side or another's accuracy in terms of domestic violence statistics. I was talking about how out-of-touch you are with the voting majority.

Reminds me a bit of the No on 502 groups - you're letting your vision of what's perfect stand in the way of incrementally good change.
54
@37 > If this was a pro life group posting a map of who has had an abortion, the stranger would be shitting itself.

If the government was keeping records of who is having an abortion, The Stranger will have shit itself silly long before anyone published the details of the list.
55
@25 did you notice that the publisher of the article is one of the names of the gun owners?

I'm pretty sure he was fine with it.
56
@55: Good point!
57
Re: Lunatics with guns... There are an estimated 350,000,000 guns in the USA. How many (clinical and potentially violent) Lunatics? Arguably (hopefully) much much fewer. Which would be easier to "control"?

Effective Lunatic control will do more to limit mass violence (while limiting the freedom of fewer people) than gun control ever would.
58
@57

First the gun lobby helps flood the country with guns, then the gun lobby says we can't do anything about it because the country is so flooded with guns.

The first rule of holes is to stop digging. And stop listening to the gun nuts. They got us into this mess.
59
@57- I'm not anti-gun. At all. I am for the enforcement of existing laws.

The argument of making a map of the mentally ill is not the same as disclosing public records. One is a violation of privacy, the other is...disclosing public records. I don't find this map particularly appalling, I just find it largely useless.
60
This is public information, available to anyone and everyone who asks. If the gun owners are going to piss and moan, their targets should be the counties, the state of New York and the court systems, all of whom have laws making this information public, and the county, state and federal courts which have upheld these laws.

Shooting (sic) the messenger does nothing to fix the perceived problem.
61
So... NRA paid trolls or the same guy with a number of socks?
62
@60: "This is public information, available to anyone and everyone who asks. If the gun owners are going to piss and moan, their targets should be the counties, the state of New York and the court systems, all of whom have laws making this information public, and the county, state and federal courts which have upheld these laws.

Shooting (sic) the messenger does nothing to fix the perceived problem."

One of my biggest issues with this is that it's almost certainly going to be used as a somewhat effective argument against firearm registration laws, just like you are suggesting.
63
@61: I'm not sure you have to be paid by the NRA to think that publishing massive lists of names and addresses for people in a certain hot-button demographic is probably a bad road to start down, while acknowledging that it's not illegal.
64
The Right to Privacy vs. The Public Right to Know. The Freedom of Information Act still is a work in progress, and I remain concerned when personal freedoms fall to the will of the majority. Here is another example where we need to balance FOIA requests with legitimate privacy concerns.

Personal stuff that affects no one else, I think, should remain private (medical condition, abortion, sexuality, religion, etc.) and most would agree that a map showing such characteristics tied to names and locations goes too far.

I would love to see mandatory gun registration and required testing to get a gun owners license but such legislation is much less likely to pass if those involved are held up to public scrutiny. It will be hard enough to get the reluctant to allow the government to know where the guns are located. I say use a FOIA exception on the location of registered guns and limit that access to public safety officials only - much better than what we have now.
65
@55, actually, one of the major complaints is that while the article does disclose that he owns a handgun, the author's Springfield Gardens home was not included on the map of addresses.
66
@57 - define lunatic, and while you're at it, please define 'potentially violent lunatic.'
67
Please sign and share this petition to the Obama administration to designate the NRA a Domestic Terrorist organization:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitio…

The FBI investigated Occupy as a potential terrorist threat. Let's get the FBI to investigate real terrorists! We need 150 signatures to get this petition visible on the White House website and 25,000 signatures within a month to move this petition into consideration by the Obama administration.
68
@59
I have no problem with publishing public records. If anything, when people find out that the gun owners the mainstream media are demonizing are their friends and neighbors, and not all swamp dwelling wild eyed right wing kooks and inbreed Appalachian hillbillies, they are going to realize how much the mainstream media is full of shit.

I do think that we have a problem with violence in this country though, and it seems to stem mainly from repeat offenders and people who are mentally ill. (Please note. I realize that most mentally ill people are not violent, but I am convinced that most violent people (especially mass murderers) are mentally ill). The outrageously violent almost always fall into two groups, the mentally deranged or the hardened criminal. Civil society must be protected from both at any cost.

Since the 60s/70s we have adopted a liberalized attitude toward past violent offenders and toward the mentally ill (particularly those who refuse treatment). I am convinced that the best course available to limit violence (gun or otherwise) is to keep violent offenders and mentally ill persons who refuse treatment off of the streets.

We need programs (and they need to be fully funded) that identify the mentally ill, prescribe treatment, monitor them for compliance with treatment and institutionalize them when they are untreatable or fail to comply with treatment. Similarly, violent criminals, regardless of age, need to be incarcerated for much longer periods and permanently when they are repeat offenders.

We don’t allow Tuberculosis or Alzheimer patents to refuse treatment and roam the streets at will. Why do we allow Sociopaths and Schizophrenics to do so?

Consider the following list of infamous gunmen:

Newtown, Conn., shooter Adam Lanza
Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui
Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes
Tuscon, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner
Columbine High School shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold

It is very likely that all six of these gunmen were all — wait for it — mentally ill.

At the time of the Newtown, Conn., shooting, Lanza’s mother reportedly was on the verge on committing her troubled son to a mental health hospital.
Prior to his shooting at Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice.
Holmes sought help from three mental health experts prior to his deadly shooting in Aurora, Colo. His lawyers claim he has an unspecified mental illness.
Loughner has schizophrenia.
Eric Harris was seeing a psychiatrist and was prescribed antidepressants. An analysis of Klebold’s diaries indicated that he was “suicidally depressed.”

Imagine if just these six people were either successfully treated (by force if necessary) or institutionalized…
69
Why would anyone want a map of where the small phalluses are located?
70
@66

Lunatic: A person who is insane.

Potentially Violent Lunatic: An insane person who suffers from any one of a variety of mental derangements with increased propensities to violence, Schizophrenia for example, who either refuses, or does not benefit from, treatment.
71
potentially voilent lunatic includes about 20% of all teenage males and 20% of all adult males, and a percentage of all females, too. when the average joe has an arsenal at home, you CANNOT control access to it; ask ms. lanza.

this is the huge flaw in the gun lover reasoning. oh that and the notion their gun makes them individually safer at home, too, that's also silly -- if it's loaded and at the ready by the bedstand, which it has to be, to be useful against an intruder -- it's not kept safely locked away is it.

overall, the refusal of gun lovers to see/admit/note/deal with the fact that widespread availability of guns is the problem, or their statements that "I do think that we have a problem with violence in this country though" are all indicators they are too mentally unclear and incompetent, to be allowed to have guns.

the only nations with the safety rates we want are like england japan and canada in having strong gun controls that produce far fewer guns than we have at large in the usa. the gun lovers make this distinction between legal and illegal guns which from a social viewpoint is spurious; all illegal guns start as legal guns, duh, and the widespread availability of guns in the usa is what makes their illegal use so cheap, so frequent -- our gun lovers' actions and politics ensure guns are within reach of every criminal and lunatic, cheaply and easily, like candy. the gun lovers don't wanbt to face this.

their argument that "if you reveal our names, we will retaliate by opposing all gun law changes!" proves their selfish stupidity, their antisocial tendencies; more proof they are mentally incompetent. Anyone owning a bushmaster should be deemed mentally too incompetent to own any guns.
72
"2001 N. Clark St. in Chicago"

Ooh Venomlash, right off the lake and Lincoln Park Zoo….. what, was Evanston getting too ghetto for you? Did mummy and daddy insist you move out and get you set up closer to the Magnificent Mile?

And here you were on Slog telling us about how you "lived" in the ghetto and were roughing it, with all those black people. Turns out another you're yet another privileged white liberal living in his enclave telling everyone else how to live.

No wonder you don't understand that gun murders in Chicago are essentially a black problem.
73
@3:

Criminals don't need an interactive map of registered gun-owners to find out who has guns:

- There are approximately 270,000,000 firearms in the U.S.

- There are roughly 115,000,000 households in the U.S, so the ratio of firearms to households is about 2.35:1.

- According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 32% of households own guns, and the average number of guns-per-owner is 4.4.

So really,from a purely statistical perspective, all a criminal has to do is B&E 3-5 houses in order to have a good chance of finding at least one firearm. And they can easily up those odds by operating in rural areas, where 56% of households have registered guns, as opposed to 20% ownership in urban areas, or 40% in the suburbs.

But, all of this is rather moot, because criminals don't really need to burgle homes just to get their hands on guns (which is just a side benefit when they do run across them), when it's so much easier to just go to the nearest gun show and buy one - or ten - from a private owner, no questions asked.
74
It's always interesting to discover who's got the courage to stand behind their convictions, and who wusses out when they actually have to put their name to it. Massachusetts bigots were mighty upset when KnotThyNeighbor.com published the names of everyone who actually signed the petition opposing marriage equality. You'd think they'd feel righteous, right? Not so much.
75
@74: It is worth noting that gun ownership does not necessarily indicate a political conviction with regards to gun control.
76
If I were a parent, I'd find this map useful.

Five children are shot accidentally every day, and it's usually the result of them goofing around with a loaded firearm they find in the home. Not that I would ban my kid from playing at that house, but I'd certainly call the parent and ask them how they store it.

Considering that - amazingly - one can buy and license a firearm without the vaguest notion of how to use it, let alone safely store it, I think it'd be a fair question. And I'd consider "none of your business" a preposterous answer if the context was my kid playing in their home.
77
@73, that assumes that each household has only one gun. Most people who own guns have several--Dad Griffin has about a dozen different hunting rifles and shotguns, father in law Griffin has a decent sized arsenal from derringers on up due to 1) inheritances from relatives 2) attending lots of auctions and 3) he barters lots of things and thus has a lot of guns. Ask Kelly O how many guns her rellies in da UP have and you'll be amazed.
78
@68: You are an idiot. You should know that the use of the term 'lunatic' is equivalent to a slur on people who have a mental illness. You should also know that the rate of violence by people who have a mentally illness is not higher that that of the general public. You think it is because you watch TV. It isn't. And all of your actions to crack down on those who have mental illnesses will only act to increase the stigma associated with it. A quarter of the population has a mental illness each year, and half will have one in their lifetime. And only one third of people who have a mental illness get treatment. Do you think it might be because people like you think it would be fine to publish lists of their names and falsely accuse them of being more violent than the average person? Do you think people might resist getting help because they don't want people to assume that they could be a mass murderer? Or do you think that discrimination in every aspect of life might be a motivator?

So while you are exaggerating these mass shootings to justify cracking down on people with mental illnesses and restricting the civil rights of millions of people, you ignore the real causes of gun violence in the US: the War on Drugs and domestic violence. Why is that? I can give you the answer: people that have mental illnesses are easy to scapegoat. They have no defenders in the media and most message boards so people can blame them for anything under the sun. They are an easy 'target'. And coincidentally, just as people with mental illnesses are an easy target for you to attack, they are also victims of violence at several times the rate of the general public. Not that you would care.
79
@78, If the gun control items that were being discussed had to do with 'Saturday Night Specials' and similar firearms, by which the majority of *crimes* are committed, particularly those related to the War on Drugs and domestic violence, I'm sure that @68 would have no, or at least less, problems with them. However, the gun control items that are currently being discussed are in response to Mass Killings by, you know what, CRAZY ASS LUNATICS.

The gun control items that are currently being discussed will have little to no effect on the majority of crimes which are, as you point out related to the War on Drugs and domestic violence.

Just like people with mental illnesses are easy to scapegoat, so are "assault weapons" however, "assault weapons" are used in a tiny portion of overall firearm crimes, so banning them is going to have a miniscule effect on overall firearm crimes, it is a 'feel-good' kneejerk reaction that will have almost no effect on the root problem. And if you actually read @68's post, I think you'd find that he/she is mostly in agreement with what you are saying.
80
@79: I didn't write from the aspect of gun control. I have thoughts on that, but my main concern was the stigmatization and "othering". Our society is broke and we have rampant violence, but it is not due to mental illness. Implying so is incredibly unethical. Our culture, easy access to firearms, and the economics of running drug cartels/gangs is why thousands of kids are shot dead each year. Teaching men that they don't own "their women", reducing the value of drugs to less than the "street value" of a human life, and limiting the access to deadly force is how we make our society safer. Attacking people with mental illnesses only hurts them and allows us to ignore these factors. It is a vile and immoral tactic that only benefits people who want the status quo.
81
@69 - Because some people are size queens? Or maybe because a lot of people with tiny dicks overcompensate in socially obnoxious ways?
82
@80
The current conversation is being driven by mass shootings. Do you know of any mass shootings done by people who were not mentally ill? They have all been done by people who needed help and either didn't get it, refused it, or couldn't be helped. Had we been protected from them, a lot of people would still be alive.

If you are aware of some examples of mass shootings by shooters who were not mentally ill, I'd be happy to discuss them, but I'm not aware of any.
83
@78
As to Saturday night specials and etc., I'm open to ideas. I'd be willing to consider things like transaction taxes on guns and/or shells to make them minimally expensive enough to decrease the appeal of cheap firearms. Personally, I've never paid less than $1,000 for a gun, but I like nice things.
84
So much mental masturbation here. Y'all do realize that nobody's going to get any flavor of gun-control legislation through the House, right?
85
@72: Welp, you sure missed the point.
86
@82: I don't care. You are using this as an excuse to ostracize people and sling about slurs like "lunatic". You should be ashamed. Your actions are incredibly unethical. I have pointed out in great detail why this is the case. The question you need to ask yourself before you continue and double down is whether attacking a large group of people and making them scapegoats is ethical for your purposes to pretend that the incredibly rare mass shootings are indicative of an actual danger to the public from "these people"--these "others"--these "lunatics" or freaks (which I'm sure you're thinking).

And before you continue, you also need to acknowledge that the discrimination against people that have mental illnesses is profound. Among the worst insults today is to claim that someone's actions are due to a mental illness (like "conservatism is a mental illness"). Most people will not employ, rent, date, or have friendships with people that disclose their mental illnesses. Almost all TV programs when they discuss mental illnesses they show the individual as violent. The public perception of people that have mental illnesses is that they are violent. So, answer this: is it ethical to perpetuate this stereotype?
87
BTW...if someone starts off a Slog post with the phrase "I'm a gun owner...blah blah blah blah.." I tend to ignore them
88
In order to get a weapon you registered with the government and they're surprised the government then has to consider that information public. Fucking tools.
89
A lot of non-gun-owners in that area are also pissed, because they feel that the paper just published a list of people who would make good victims. And they may be right.

@88, it doesn't have to be public. It isn't here. But blame the government for that, not the press.

And Cato: I'm a gun owner. Blargh.
90
@82, You write very much like someone who has never encountered a mental illness. Given the incidence of mental illness in the general population, this naivety seems a little like blindness.

You seem to be proposing a regime that will shuttle everyone who becomes ill into diagnosis/forced diagnosis, then to treatment/ forced treatment, then (in the event of failed treatment) to incarceration/institutionalisation. There are so many things you don't understand.

1) Some of the future violent offenders you want to catch will have no profile of violence or even of unusual disturbance, and that means for your plan to work you are going to have to 'catch' all 26.2% of the population who become diagnosable in a given year, even if their illness has no notable violence profile (Aspergers, for example, has none).

2)Psychiatric diagnosis is not a science but an inexact art, extremely inexact (and often inaccurate) with an unwilling subject with a vested interest in concealing the nature of their 'different thinking'. Broad compulsory screening, which is the only way to enact 1), would be wildly expensive, a violation of rights and a fool's errand, making the incidence of correct diagnosis plummet.

3) Treatment - even by medication - is almost impossible to enforce on the unwilling, unless you are ready to strap everyone who's ill down and inject them for the foreseeable future (even then, your treatment success rate is likely to be low, because of the limitations of medication, and because the conditions would be so poor for recovery). Non-medicinal therapies simply don't work on the unwilling.

4) Even for the willing, treatment is often enough unsuccessful in the short-term (and sometimes the long-term), requiring months to years of trial and error. In the meantime, those with longer-term illnesses (and their families and friends), tend to suck it up and cope as best they can. Again, it's amazing that you're not aware of anyone doing this - I guarantee it's happening to some people you know. Even if the ill person knows and accepts they are ill (some illnesses occlude this to the sufferer) and they want help, they will be struggling with overstretched community services, recalcitrant insurers, confused doctors, ambiguous treatment outcomes, and so on. Good luck with funding the institutionalisation of all those people while they try to get well, and bear in mind that institutionalisation tends to be counterproductive to recovery, so you'd best be in it for the long haul.

So where your keep-em-off-the-streets plan would even start I have no idea. It does seem basically unactionable, in almost every way.
91
I question the value of this information being published in this way but Cinnea does make a good point. Gun owners always say that their guns keep them safe and that criminals and mass shooters only choose gun free environments to commit their crimes. So, by the logic that the NRA and other gun nuts use this map has just made them exponentially safer by letting all the criminals and mass shooters know what homes they should definitely NOT target.

So, why are gun owners complaining? If they believe their own rhetoric then this map just made them safer.
92
@84, not until people realize that the Republican dominated house is the primary road block to getting anything done and they're replaced in 2 years. Then we can actually accomplish something in this country.
93
I think they are more upset that someone basically told everyone on the internet that they have a valuable, easily resold item in their house.

I would be pissed if someone posted my address and mentioned that I had a very valuable and easily resold item waiting to be stolen. Owning a gun does not mean the right to privacy vanishes, or that they should not be afforded the same rights and decency others are afforded.

If this happened to people you do not choose to hate, you would be outraged.
94
@71
Okay, Lets start by looking at gun laws, ownership rates and gun violence in Switzerland and Mexico.
95
The information is publicly available, as is the name, address, and political affiliation (if any) of every registered voter. In some states, all you have to do is go to the Board of Elections website and type in your name. My name and office address are also published in the attorney directory in my state, which is available online. As Cienna states, this is ALREADY PUBLIC INFORMATION. If you don't want to have your address publicly available, don't own a handgun, don't vote, don't go on fb, don't file a court case... Honestly, for the vast majority of people (unless you're already being stalked), it's only in your own mind that any stranger gives a shit about where you live.
96
I dunno. If certain people throw hissy fits over delusions that their 2nd Amendment rights are being abrogated, dismissing real concerns about public safety and violence, then I don't feel bad for them when the LoHud rubs their nose in the First Amendment. Let them experience the other end of the cudgel for a change.
97
Naturally the gun owners are afraid that other gun owners will show up to take their guns.
98
@30: LOL! Your apartment must have VERY high ceilings.
99
Let's see, gun owners are allegedly able to stare down an armed attacker and cold-bloodedly shoot them dead, but cringe that their home is one of thousands of dots on a map? Wusses.
100
The other paradox I heard in connection with this. Here's what will simultaneously happen: The map will cause gun owners to be targeted for burglary because their valuable guns will be craved, and the map will cause non-gun owners to be targeted for burglary because their homes are unprotected. The maps will cause crime to rise to unprecedented levels!!! Time for sanity, people!!!!

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