Though the gun registrations are public records, it was a huge invasion of privacy for the newspaper to publish the list of gun owners in the newspaper.  Clearly it was a political statement meant to increase readership.  The consequences were not taken into account and so we read of the break-ins and thefts.  Were I a resident of that town and a theft or worse happened to me because of this public invasion of my privacy, I would sue the daylights out of the newspaper's editor who made the decision to run the original article.