Ellison, a Libertarian who is expected to be the party's candidate in the November midterm election, said he had settled on pump-action shotguns for practicality purposes."Frankly I think the ideal weapon would be a pistol," he told the Guardian, "but due to the licensing requirements in the state we're going to have a hard enough time getting homeless people shotguns as it is. "Getting them pistols is probably next to impossible. The pistols need to be registered, people have to have addresses." [...]
Regarding the pump-action shotguns, Ellison said he and his team would aim to "pre-qualify" homeless people who wanted shotguns and were deemed suitable candidates to own them.
The homeless people would not be forced to carry pump-action shotguns, Ellison said. [...]
Ellison said he did not think the plan was dangerous.
"Well, are you worried about the police being armed with military weapons?" he asked. "I am. The world we live in is a scary world, where the police who used to dress in short-sleeved shirts and carry a revolver now have long rifles with scopes and bulletproof vests and armoured vehicles.
"And quite frankly that scares me much more than a homeless person trying to defend themselves with a shotgun."
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Getting them housing? Crazy talk. Getting them guns? A perfectly fine idea. Starting to think the wrong side won the Cold War.
I'm at like.... 70% on this being satire, but honestly it's so hard to tell these days.
Previously: The Phoenix New Times used to do an annual April Fool's cover story that never failed to sail over some reader's heads. In 1999 it was Arm the Homeless. The letters to the editor the following week were priceless.
This story, sadly, does not seem to have the same genesis.
I'm just wondering how The Onion is even still in business these days. Maybe they've updated their format to 'hard news'?
It's older than that. Dig the Subgenius reference too.
https://sniggle.net/ath.php
I think this was the original one though
http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/arm_the_homeless
I was joking a while back that proposing replacing SNAP/food stamps with gun handouts would probably (a) win a disturbing amount of support and (b) lead to actual gun control once wealthy, clueless types got wind of it. Clearly, I'm not the first.
And as usual, a libertarian missed the part about it being a joke.
Oh lord no. Everybody knows all those food stamp people are Negroes. That's why we HAVE the Second Amendment, to keep those people in their place.
So it’s safe to say that this guy doesn’t live in (or anywhere near) San Francisco.
A Libertarian wanting to give away government - subsidized shotguns and shells? Sounds to me like he's making a joke, and/or looking for free publicity.
I thought "Arm the homeless" was just a provocative slogan written on that Rage Against The Machine guy's guitar.
I don't entirely disagree with him about the police, but I'm not really keen on spending more state monies on firearms. Can we just give the armoured personnel carriers and sniper rifles the cops are using now to the homeless instead?