Putnam County, NY – New York County Denies Request For Names Of Gun Permit Holders

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    Putnam County, NY – Authorities in a suburban county north of New York City said on Tuesday they will refuse to release names of local gun permit holders to a newspaper that has been publishing the identities of thousands of license-holding residents.

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    Putnam County Clerk Dennis Sant said he would defy a request for information about pistol permit holders from the White Plains, New York-based Journal News, which has come under criticism for publishing thousands of such identities already.

    “There is the rule of law, and there is right and wrong and the Journal News is clearly wrong,” Sant said in a statement. “I could not live with myself if one Putnam pistol permit holder was put in harm’s way, for the sole purpose of selling newspapers.”

    The Journal News first published a map listing thousands of pistol permit-holders in Westchester and Rockland counties, just north of New York City, on December 24.

    The newspaper’s editors said they sought the information after the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, which has sparked nationwide debate about gun control.

    Angered, state gun-owner groups have called for an advertising boycott of the newspaper until it takes the map and identities off its website.

    The newspaper, owned by the Gannett Co., sought the information under the state’s Freedom of Information law. It says the identities are a matter of public record.

    Putnam County officials had said they were compiling the names for the newspaper but on Tuesday said instead they would not deliver the information.

    The county clerk said he has received hundreds of phone calls urging him not to give the information to the paper.

    The county clerk, Putnam County Executive MaryEllen Odell and other elected officials were slated to appear on Thursday at a news conference declaring their intentions. Also set to appear is state Sen. Greg Ball, a Patterson, New York, Republican who has said he will introduce legislation to keep permit information private except to prosecutors and police.

    A similar bill that he introduced earlier as an assemblyman failed in the state Assembly.

    The newspaper’s editors were not available on Tuesday to comment on Putnam’s announcement.

    In the original article, the newspaper cited Robert Freeman, executive director of the state’s Committee on Open Government, as saying he believed not only should the names and addresses be public, but also other information such as the types or numbers of guns someone owns.

    Freeman told the newspaper that government records are presumed public unless their release is specifically barred by statute.

    The newspaper’s editor and publisher have said they expected the publication of the information to be controversial.

    “But we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” said Janet Hasson, president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group.


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    9 Comments
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    cynic
    cynic
    11 years ago

    sorry, Putnam, but the information is in a gov’t data base and is therefore public info. You’re going to lose. Perhaps a better question to ask is just why people have to apply for these permits in the first place?

    Aryeh
    Aryeh
    11 years ago

    Wait for the lawsuit…wait for it…

    Vasserman
    Vasserman
    11 years ago

    That photo is a perfect example of gun control. He is using two hands to properly grip the gun so it is steady and will hit the target.

    LionofZion
    LionofZion
    11 years ago

    And the down side to fighting the Journal News is what? It is not as if the legal feas come out of the pocket of the County Executive. So they fight a couple of months, lose in court and then surrender the names. It appears that they are protecting their constituents and everybody is happy.