North Country Gazette



Gun Owners 1, Post-Star 0

Posted on Tuesday, 5 of February , 2008 at 2:18 pm

COMMENTARY

The battle lines have been drawn this week between the gun owners, specifically the holders of concealed carry permits, and the Glens Falls Post-Star.

The score for honesty and integrity is gun owners 1, Post-Star, 0.  In fact, The Post-Star has actually lied to the public in their scramble to abandon an ill-conceived and ill-advised plan.

Now that The Post-Star has been caught with its proverbial pants down with their initial plan to publish on their website a database of all pistol permits holders in Warren, Washington and Saratoga Counties, they became righteously indignant and fell all over themselves in denials and contradictions.  While they believe that they are entitled to hold law-biding private citizens accountable, apparently they don’t believe that the public has a right to hold them accountable.

Just why would the general public trust and believe ANYTHING that The Post-Star “reports”? They try to sculpt, craft and actually create the news instead of reporting it.

The Post-Star has in essence equated law-biding pistol permit holders, who have gone through an extensive screening process and background checks with local law enforcement as well as the FBI and NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services, with registered sex offenders.  They want to establish a database for the public to search the names of pistol permit holders in certain areas the same as they search out the names of registered sex offenders. 

The names of all holders of driver’s licenses in New York State are public information too, available for a fee through the Freedom of Information Law.  Is the Post-Star going to publish a database of those people on their website too, publishing the names, addresses and birthdates of all licensed drivers and then do a story on who got arrested for felony drunk driving last year that didn’t have a driver’s license?  Isn’t that the job of law enforcement agencies?

The Post-Star can’t police itself.  Why does it think it should play cop to monitor others?  Who’s gonna handle the pistol permit database for them, ousted ex-sheriff Larry Cleveland if he’s not too busy defending potential charges by the Department of Justice from the EEOC investigation? The Post-Star touts their use of the Freedom of Information Law. No doubt the public would be more interested in knowing how much taxpayers are having to pay Cleveland for a pension.

One Post-Star editor, Ken Tingley, publicly claimed there was no plan to publish such a database while at the same time another editor was aggressively asserting its right to do so and touting the Freedom of Information Law.  Tingley’s statements were revealed to be patently untrue as in the days previous, the reporter submitting the original FOIL requests to the counties had reportedly admitted to inquiries that it was the newspaper’s intent to establish a database on their website.  Reporter Nick Reisman told one member of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association that “if he had his way, it will be set up in a searchable format which would require someone to type in a name and it would show them if a person had a permit or not”. http://www.northcountrygazette.org:80/2008/02/05/post_star_poo_poo/ http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/02/02/public_safety_and_permits/

Mark Mahoney, who has the title of editorial page editor for The Post-Star, issued an intemperate reply Monday to Tom Perrin of East Windsor, NJ, who informed the newspaper of his intent to boycott businesses in the circulation area of The Post-Star who advertise with The Post-Star.

“As a direct and immediate consequence of the Glens Falls Post Star’s attempt to disclose the names of pistol permit holders in Warren County and elsewhere, I and my family will no longer stop in Warren County, or anywhere the Glens Falls Post Star is circulated. We will make no purchases whatsoever in your circulation area”

Mahoney angrily retorted, “Your boycott is misplaced. The information is public. It’s available to any citizen with a simple Freedom of Information Law request. We’re doing nothing wrong by seeking the list and we’re not revealing any information that any other person can’t access legally and easily on their own”

Perrin’s response was that “Just because something is legal does not mean it is right. Just because someone else can do it, does not mean it is right. Your actions and attitudes are immature, passive aggressive, and serve no public purpose.

“But here is something responsible that I can do.  I choose not to support your advertisers, either directly or indirectly.  That means no sales tax revenue or hotel occupancy revenue for your local governments from us. That means no cash flow to Warren, Saratoga and Washington businesses from us because of your irresponsibility.

“This year, my wife and I will take money out of retirement funds to purchase a boat and trailer, and maybe a bit extra for electronics and related gear.  Guess what?  We won’t be stopping to shop in your circulation area.  Oh, we’ll stop to window shop perhaps,  and then we will thank  the guys along the Northway for their time, and we’ll mention your name and your newspaper as the reason we’re moving up the road to Vermont and Northern New York to spend our money.

“Enjoy your righteousness”

Mahoney irately shot back an attack aimed at the North Country Gazette and its article which had initially exposed their plan. http://blog.nysrpa.org/?p=1200

“I never said to you that we are seeking the information just because we can, and I resent your statement that our (my) attitude is immature, righteous and passive aggressive. All I said is we’re doing nothing wrong or illegal by seeking this

information. Perhaps I should have explained our intentions in greater detail.“We are responsible journalists (that certainly is highly questionable) and a responsible member of this community, (The Post-Star was at the time of the ownership of Arthur P. Irving but is held in great distrust and disdain now) and have been for more than 100 years. We don’t make a practice of going around making it easy for criminals to steal guns from private residences. (Yet)“But there are many important and valuable stories that can come from this information that do not require that we publish the names and addresses of pistol holders. In fact, we have no intention of publishing the names and addresses, and we never did. (That’s not what county officials were told or that Post-Star reporter Reisman told people who inquired)

“We just asked for the information — as is our right under the law and as any other citizen could do — for the purpose of finding out if there’s information that could help us inform the public about an important issue”

Mr. Perrin’s response follows:

“I consider such FOIL requests to be immature, passive aggressive and of no useful social or public purpose. More to the point, such requests jeopardize thousands of innocent families. They attempt to punish, without probable cause or justification, persons who are arguably the most law abiding persons in the State of New York for no greater crime  than having applied for and obtained a pistol permit. Any requests for such purpose are an abuse of First Amendment rights and are inherently reprehensible. Any representation to the contrary, I believe, is fundamentally dishonest.

“As I have written to the Editorial Page editor of the Glens Falls Post-Star, just because something is legal and can be done, does not make it right.“In my correspondence, I declared my intent not to purchase goods and services in these counties, through which I traverse many times a month. 

“My personal boycott is a direct and immediate result of the Post-Star’s attempt to obtain personal pistol permit data from the county clerks’ offices.  “Perhaps of concern to the newspaper is that my personal policy of not supporting the economy that supports the Glens Falls Post-Star so long as its FoIA request stands or until the New York State Legislature bans  the disclosure of pistol permit information might have legs. Perhaps the newspaper’s advertising department and the owners are concerned that  their revenues will decline if others join my personal boycott, or are affected by it.

“The fact is that other newspapers in New York State have published the names and addresses of pistol permit holders. That is the newspaper mindset which I believe also infects the Glens Falls Post-Star, despite their belated protestations to the contrary. The Post-Star clearly states in the above emails and elsewhere that it is on a fishing expedition. It has no stated issue to explore, and only a vague reference to its watchdog status.

“If the Post-Star had any evidence of specific malfeasance on the part of any person, and wished to conduct its own investigation, it would do so without any objection from me. However, when the Post-Star fishes in public waters using a large net, and a profile of pistol permit holders, it steps far beyond the bounds of legitimate investigative reporting into the murky waters of political proscribing for ideological purposes.

“The Post-Star cannot pursue such an agenda in the bright sunshine of truth. It can only do so by hiding behind a facade of legal rights and arrogant righteousness. As a watchdog, the Post-Star is attacking passersby indiscriminately. In the real world, such a dog would be put down as a danger to the public”.

Touché. 

Time will tell what The Post-Star does with any information they obtain regarding the names and addresses of pistol permit holders in Warren, Washington and Saratoga Counties. They may find that angering the gun owner faction is ill-advised.

Maybe they ought to focus more on public corruption.  There’s certainly enough of that in Warren County and they have turned their heads to it too far too long.

Perhaps the fastest and most effective way to get their attention is for the some 5,000 to 10,000 registered permit holders in the three counties to simply cancel their subscriptions or stop buying The Post-Star at the newsstand.

Individuals who wish to voice their opinion to The Post-Star about this issue should e-mail Reisman at nreisman@poststar.com, Rona Rahlf, publisher at rahlf@poststar.com or editor Ken Tingley at tingley@poststar.com    2-05-08

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Category: Constitution, Crime, Government, Media, New York State, Opinion, Police, Warren County

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