New York’s new gun control law may be the nation’s toughest, but it also includes broad new privacy provisions allowing would-be gun owners to shield their identities from reporters and the public.

It is part of the swift reaction to the Journal New’s publication last month of an interactive map with the names and addresses of thousands of permit holders. The paper defended its publication of public records, but it was inundated with complaints and even threats, and on Friday the newspaper pulled the information from its website.

“I am personally grateful that the Journal News will never be able to do something as dangerous and idiotic as this again,” said Republican state Sen. Greg Ball, who helped draft the provision.

The provision allows handgun permit applicants to ask that their personal information be kept secret for any of several reasons: if they are police officers, witnessed a crime, served on a jury in a criminal case or are victims of domestic violence. More vaguely, they can claim that they fear for their safety or they might be subjected to unwanted harassment.

Permit holders can also ask that their personal information from previous applications be withdrawn from the public record, for the same reasons.

Claiming the possibility of harassment is “a little bit of a stretch,” said Diane Kennedy, president of the New York News Publishers Association. “It just makes it really easy for anyone to opt out without really giving a particularly strong reason.”

Journal News Media Group publisher Janet Hasson said she too was disappointed with the broad nature of the provision. In a statement after the newspaper took the gun permit names and addresses down, she said the new law didn’t require the removal but “we believe that doing so complies with its spirit.” The interactive map had been viewed more than 1.2 million times since it was posted Dec. 23.

Hasson wrote that the decision to remove the names “is not a concession to critics that no value was served by the posting of the map in the first place.”

“Nor is our decision made because we were intimidated by those who threatened the safety of our staffers,” she said. “We know our business is a controversial one, and we do not cower.”

The Journal News published the gun permit information in Westchester and Rockland counties to accompany an article titled “The Gun Owner Next Door: What You Don’t Know About the Weapons in Your Neighborhood” as part of the newspaper’s coverage following the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

(Source: NBC New York)