“I don’t know why a responsible gun owner is worried about whether a permit for a revolver is FOI-able or not,” he told reporters. In his view, it’s reasonable for people to want such information. “Maybe their kids are going over to Johnny Smith’s, and maybe they want to see whether they have guns in the house,” he suggested.

Richard Burgess, head of a local group that advocates for Second Amendment rights, says Dargan’s bill is nonsensical. Homeowners with rifles or shotguns don’t need permits in the state, he observed to a Hartford Courant reporter, so no one would know if those weapons were in a home. “So, really, you’re not getting a benefit out of it, and you’re only putting the gun owner in danger.”

Liberals such as Dargan don’t see anything wrong in publicly shaming those who legally own guns. When it comes to their own personal safety, though, they are far more sensitive.

Take the Journal News executives who decided to publish the gun map. The newspaper was so inundated with complaints that shortly after Christmas it took extra security precautions and hired security guards — who were armed — to patrol its Rockland County headquarters. The executives reported no incidents of any kind at the building, but they turned over at least two e-mails they found troubling. The local police said they didn’t find the e-mails threatening and concluded that they “did not constitute an offense.” The Journal News chose not to share with its readers the information that it had hired armed security guards.