A suburban New York newspaper that published the names and addresses of gun owners in two counties, along with an interactive map, hired armed guards to protect its headquarters after perceived threats from angry readers, according to a report in a rival newspaper.

The Journal News, a White Plains, New York-based newspaper, posted the map of pistol permit holders in the Lower Hudson Valley counties of Rockland and Westchester on Christmas Eve, in a story called "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood." That story inspired a heated reaction among readers, gun owners, and privacy advocates, some of whom posted personal information about Journal News staffers and employees of the paper's parent company, Gannett.

That feedback, termed "negative correspondence" in a police report filed by a Journal News editor, prompted the paper to hire armed security guards to man their Rockland, New York, office earlier this week, according to a report in the Rockland County Times.

A Clarkstown police report issued on December 28, 2012, confirmed that The Journal News has hired armed security guards from New City-based RGA Investigations and that they are manning the newspaper's Rockland County headquarters at 1 Crosfield Ave., West Nyack, through at least tomorrow, Wednesday, January 2, 2013.



The administrator of the security firm told area police on Dec. 28 that there had been no issues at the site as of that time, the reported . Aeditor has filed at least two reports of perceived threats with police.

Last week, the Journal News announced plans to publish information about gun owners in an additional county, Putnam, but the county has refused to release the pistol permit information to the paper, according to an Associated Press report. The Putnam County clerk is fighting the release of the permit information, which is public record, on grounds that it could endanger the lives of the permit holders.

In New York, one state senator reacted to the release of the pistol permit information by proposing a law making that information private except to prosecutors and police, according to Reuters. He also called the paper's editors "asinine."





