The newspaper learned that shame is a knife that can cut both ways. Apparently staffers were so intimidated by the outrage that they changed their tune on gun control and hired armed guards for protection. Police officers who reviewed an allegedly threatening email sent to an editor found no cause for concern. Behind its wall of armed guards, the newspaper promised to move forward with a third release of permit data from the dangerous gun owners in Putnam County.

According to the county’s clerk, though, that’s too bad.

“There is the rule of law, and there is right and wrong and The Journal News is clearly wrong,” said one county clerk. “I could not live with myself if one Putnam pistol permit holder was put in harm’s way for the sole purpose of selling newspapers.”

So what remains for employees at The Journal News? Their personal details are plastered all over the Internet, a county clerk has given them the boot, and the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association is calling for a boycott of jittery advertisers”€”all due to an irrational compulsion to shame gun owners for protecting their homes.

Nothing makes me happier than to see these fools stumble. In effect, we’re shaming the gun-shame lobby. We’re pointing out their ridiculous contradictions and the dangerously shallow foundations on which they stand, and we’re doing it with a laugh.

For instance, only four days after a wide array of celebrities released a video urging voters to “demand a plan to end gun violence,” a hysterical mashup was posted online: “Demand Celebrities Go F*CK Themselves.” Its creator interspersed each actor’s antigun message with movie clips of the same actor firing bullets like there’s no tomorrow”€”Conan O’Brien shooting with Hunter S. Thompson, Jeremy Renner murdering FBI agents in The Town, etc.”€”portraying the Hollywood hypocrisy we all know and love.

That’s the gun lobby’s future. They played the media against itself. It was quick, playful, spontaneous, and effective.

Image of guns and ammo courtesy of Shutterstock