Stupid On Steroids

I really don't look forward to continuing this subject, but this bit of titular vainglory simply can't be allowed to pass uncommented upon.

"The Constitution makes no differentiation between freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms. They are all equal rights, equally enshrined in the bill of rights. So printing a database that infringes on any of those rights is equivalently bad, regardless of which right it infringes upon. However, the quote from Anonymous above really hits it for me – right now, the government isn’t doing this. It’s the media, it’s private parties. So we should protest it loudly now, because when the government starts printing lists of gun owners, we are already screwed."

I can live with the absurd assumption that a local newspaper printing something somehow rises to the level of Constitutional infringement. There's even a quasi-plausible argument to support such a contention, I suppose, though I question just how effective such campaigns have actually proven to be. The gentleman himself subsequently and positively links to an example of a local business taking a public stance in just such a contention.

I submit, however, that this is an entirely different matter from the remainder of the quoted paragraph.

Since it apparently has to be made explicitly plain, consider the following question; from what source or data repository did the two newspapers in question cull the information they posted on-line?

Take your time; we'll wait.

Has it come to you yet? In case not, let me ask this: do you seriously contend that it is critical that people oppose newspapers printing lists culled from public government data records "... because when the government starts printing lists of gun owners, we are already screwed"?

I don't know about yellow stars, stud, but here's your sign!

I leave it as an intellectual exercise for the recipients to figure out why it's round.

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Update a few minutes later: In a probably useless attempt to head off the egregiously stupid, let me just add this.

The government makes explicitly plain to the voluntary participants in a government licensing effort that the personal data they submit will be maintained as a matter of public record.

A local entity exercises it's entirely legal access to said data repository and further makes those portions it regards of local relevance available to the public.

This action is held to be an infringement on the constitutional rights of those individuals who chose to create the "government list" in the first place as well as being a pre-cursor to government constitutional abrogation, if not outright genocide.

Now pull the other one, it's got bells attached.

Attempting to smear the reputations of law-abiding citizens is certainly repugnant and fully worthy of financial and other forms of shamming and rebuke. I support and encourage others to join the Harley-Davidson dealer as well as the NRA/ILA effort to do that very thing. I hope that what I have written on various web forums on this topic will be regarded as some contribution to that effort as well. But as to the rest? Pfffttt!