Your Say: Privacy vs. a right to know

The Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., stirred controversy by publishing an online database of people who hold gun permits. (The Journal News is owned by Gannett Co., parent of USA TODAY.) Comments from Facebook:

This information doesn't really serve to inform people but divide them. The database simply shows who has a permit.

Having a permit doesn't necessarily mean you have a gun and, more important, not having a permit doesn't necessarily mean you don't have access to a gun.

The shooter's mom in Connecticut may have been a registered/permitted gun owner, but the shooter surely wouldn't have been on a list like this.

Jacob Dellinger

If the Second Amendment allows you to own a gun, the First Amendment allows a news organization to publish your name, right?

Robert Johnson

The one good thing about posting where the gun owners are is that burglars will not mess with them. The criminals want to strike only where the homeowner is unarmed and defenseless.

The homeowners not listed should be worried.

James VanTrees

It would have been more responsible to have another map plotting contemporary violent gun crime in the same area. A map of gun permit holders, by itself, is not informative and only serves to further inflame both sides of the debate.

Philip Moore

I'm not sure what the big deal is. If you own a gun for protection, now the "bad guys" know who you are. If you support the Second Amendment, now people know who you are.

This is as controversial as the phone book being a database of people who own a phone.

John F Kreidler

Letters to the editor:

Let us not forget why we have the Second Amendment. It has nothing to do with general, personal self-defense, hunting or sporting. It is there to effect an armed citizenry that can thwart a tyrannical government. You can agree, disagree, like or dislike, but this is the essence of the Second Amendment. Outlawing this gun or that magazine will have little impact on any crimes.

James Irwin; Novi, Mich.

No new gun laws. Focus on people instead by adding moral education to our schools, spiritual considerations to our public discourse, and the Golden Rule as the standard of personal conduct.

Gun control is the wrong discussion; uncontrolled people are the problem.

David Sizemore; Pine Bluff, Ark.