Follow Inver Grove Heights Patch on Twitter | Like us on Facebook | Sign up for our free newsletter

Do you want to know where lawful gun owners live in your neighborhood? Should this information not only be public but publicized?

Take our poll and leave a comment below.

"Overkill?" asks The Daily Beast, writing about the publication by The Journal News on Dec. 22 of gun permit holders across three counties in New York state. The database article on LoHud.com includes a map with dots for each household licensed to own a handgun—pistols and revolvers.

The map has gone viral, having been widely tweeted and liked on Facebook almost 28,000 times as of Dec. 26.

INCREASE IN GUN PERMIT APPLICATIONS
You're unlikely to see the same kind of map for Minnesota.

"In Minnesota, addresses of permit holders is private data and not available without a court order," explained Cmdr. Paul Sommer of the Anoka County Sheriff's Office by email Wednesday.

That's not to say there's not a lot of local activity.

In the days after the Newtown, CT, shooting, Dakota County experienced an uptick in applications for permits to carry a pistol.

Dakota County Sheriff Dave Bellows said the county received 30 requests Monday following the shooting, about three times higher than the typical day of processing.

Click here to read more about Dakota County’s recent increase in gun permit requests.

Minnesotans held 91,221 permits to carry guns as of Dec. 31, 2011, according to MinnPost.

PLAYDATE DILEMMA
Some parents, in the wake of the Newtown school shootings, have expressed their desire to know which homes their kids might be playing in have potentially lethal weapons in them.

One woman wrote on Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch’s Facebook page: “I just watched on the news: 38 percent of the people in America have a gun in their houses. Should we ask about this when our children go to a playdate?”

In Minneapolis earlier this month, a 4-year-old boy shot and killed his 2-year-old brother when they found a loaded gun hidden in a bed.

PRIVACY VIOLATED?
This is the second time the newspaper and website has published database reporting on gun ownership. The release of the info online this year has some gun advocates worried for their safety and complaining of their privacy infringement, according to the Daily Beast. 

The information was obtained by filing Freedom of Information requests.

The Journal News management stands behind its decision. "We knew publication of the database would be controversial, but we felt sharing as much information as we could about gun ownership in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings," CynDee Royle, editor and vice president/news of The Journal News, said to the Daily Beast.