Controversial New App Encourages People to Flag Gun Owners, Businesses as 'Dangerous' and 'Unsafe

A new Android app reportedly developed by University of San Diego lecturer Brett Stallbaum apparently allows people to "Geolocate Dangerous Guns and Owners."

The app, titled "Gun Geo Marker," literally pinpoints the locations of homes, businesses and other sites where "dangerous" guns might be located. The controversial app was released on July 4, 2013.

The app's description states:

The Gun Geo Marker operates very simply, letting parents and community members mark, or geolocate, sites associated with potentially unsafe guns and gun owners. These locations are typically the homes or businesses of suspected unsafe gun owners, but might also be public lands or other locations where guns are not handled safely, or situations where proper rights to own or use any particular type of firearm may not exist. Electronically marking these locations can help others in the area learn about their geography of risk from gun accidents or violence. No matter what your safety concern with firearms might be, you should feel free to use this tool to provide the most accurate information you can such that others can make their own safety decisions.

"The general guideline is that you should mark any location about which you have a gun related concern, while trying to provide enough extra information for others to make their own determination about safety," the app's website states.

In other words, a home, business or gun owner could be determined to be "unsafe" just because someone flags them as such.

The move is similar to the controversial decision to publish the names and addresses of gun owners in New York by the Journal News.

Unsurprisingly, some of the same households listed on the "gun map" were later burglarized. Further, a criminal went straight for a homeowners guns in one case.

Americans across the country have decried publishing gun owners' personal information as an invasion of privacy and a danger to the families. Even former criminals have admitted that it is like "gold" to know who is armed and who isn't.

(H/T: Slashdot, Weasel Zippers)

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