At Columbine, there were police on campus (the school had resource officers who were based on campus), and they couldn’t help a bit.
The shooter in Conn, stolen the guns…from his mother whom he lived with. Her gun didn’t protect her, it killed her and over 20 kids.
If it had been a less lethal weapon, it’s likely the guy would have killed less kids. On the same day, some guy went into a school in China and stabbed about 20 kids with a knife, none died.

The gun death rate in US is at least 4 times as high as any country in Western Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

And there is plenty of solid research that shows more guns =more crime.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/research/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/index.html

And even in those ghetto areas that to seem to have written off, there’s plenty of innocent people that get shot.

There was real journalistic value in the map. When I saw it my first reaction was ‘my god they’ve got a lot of guns in that part of new york.’ but there was little value in publishing the names and addresses along with each dot on the map, even if that info was available elsewhere. that should have been redacted.

the arguments about this map facilitating burglary are pretty stupid. if you’re a burglar, your three biggest concerns are a) is there valuable stuff in there, b) are the owners home, and c) do they have a dog? they’d do better consulting zillow, assuming petty criminals use the internet to research their crimes, which I doubt.

the argument that publishing the names of women who’ve had abortions is even more ludicrous. when is the last time somebody used their abortion to hurt you? there are good reasons for making a public database for registered gun owners, and they should apply equally to all types of guns.

finally, the blogger who retaliated against the paper by publishing their personal information — not public, not mandated by law — is an asshat. but that’s pretty obvious already.

thanks for the thought provoking post.

dt

It does not require a journalist nor journalism to publish propaganda such as a pre-defined agenda, or talking points, or a press release from a politically motivated activist organization. I can do this without being a journalist, I can cut and paste such ideas and text onto the web or onto paper and send it out. That does not make me a journalist. Also, when considered from the viewpoint of an activist pushing their own agenda, but using media, it is still propaganda and not journalism.

I believe the newspaper can be easily sued now for any attacks, or other crime, etc. that happen to anyone in the area of the map, whether gun owner, or not. They have revealed who can defend themselves to criminals, and worse yet, who cannot. The Journal has laid itself open to any sort of legal recourse victims will take. I would think someone at the management level would consider that a very costly liability.

Since the activist mentality of the non-journalists at this newspaper do not consider the consequences of their actions, they will be able to be and ought to be held liable. The ones who are going to be hurt the most will be the poor, old, young, and those with some kind of infirmity. So, the activist has just attacked those he most likely thinks he is protecting. He has damaged his community in ways he cannot understand.

So, is the idea to destroy the public safety of the community to advance a political agenda? That is what the end result would seem to be. This is not journalism.