U.S. Senate candidate wants to buy guns for homeless people - Polidicks

I love my guns, but damn is that a stupid idea. Yes lets just have a bunch of hobos with shotguns walking around the streets, never mind the fact that they are probably more interested in a warm place to sleep and some food. 20 shotguns worth of money can buy a hell of a lot more food and clothing than what those shotguns could provide, save they end up being used to illicit activities.

[quote]Ellison acknowledges his campaign, "Arm the Homeless," has shock value that will bring attention to his campaign. But he says as a third-party candidate going up against well-funded Democratic and Republican opponents, shock value is about the only thing he can do to get media coverage.[/quote] And there it is. Why do people like this double down on serious arguments for ideas that they admit are just for shock value. Like there are joke parties that throw ridiculous ideas out with satire that can actually contribute to discussion, then you get this shit.

I agree. But it's not like anyone is advocating for serious solutions to the problem of homeless people. Most policy towards the homeless population is focused on criminalising homelessness and shunting the population away from the eyes of the wealthy and middle-class. An easy, doable solution to this problem is simply to provide homeless people with houses, as most areas with sizeable homeless populations don't have a material shortage of housing. However, as this is clearly too much for some people to handle, maybe giving them a gun can help make wherever they're sleeping a little less dangerous for them, and a little more dangerous for those wishing to inflict harm upon them.

Let's just arm everyone in the nation. Kids? Sure, teach 'em in school. Old People? Here's a fucking M60 grandma! Blind and Deaf? They can learn echolocation, here's a pistol. The possibilities are endless!

Or desperate people will now be given firepower to do desperate things, people start robbing homeless people for the guns, police shootings of homeless people skyrocket because every passing encounter is now a potential shootout in their mind.

Well, homeless people don't exactly need guns in the first place for people to continually rob them and police to continually harass, assault, and murder them. There's no real change in the material conditions of homeless people either way.

facepunch is full of gun-toting cletuses, nothing new

Most Republican policy is, yes. Want change that actually aims to help those living at or below the poverty line? Vote Democrat

But the Democrats want to take away my guns! Over my dead body!!! Single-issue voting is a fucking blight on society.

You add more guns to that and more people get shot. I get what you're saying about the spirit but I think it's such a warped gesture, it almost feels like a severance from society eg "we aren't trying to protect you anymore, take this and git".

Democrats have also failed to help homeless people. There are plenty of examples of cities with large, suffering homeless populations (take New York City or San Francisco as examples) that also absolutely fail to house and protect homeless people, who even go so far as to criminalise homelessness and dismantle what little the homeless population has to offer.

It's a self-solving problem. Give a homeless man a spot in a homeless shelter, he's warm and fed for a night. Give a homeless man a shotgun, he can use it to overthrow the bourgeois capitalist pigdogs who put him in that situation, seize the means of production, and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Lift himself up by his bootstraps while blowing the oppressor clean out of his boots. Heck, if he's still hungry by the time we finish building our classless, marxian society, he can always eat the still-warm bodies of the factory owners. I, for one, see zero downsides, and propose we go forward with this plan immediately.

The real question here that I'm surprised no one is asking is what are they even supposed to do with the shotguns for storage? Just clutch them when they're sleeping and hope no one tries to rip it off them?

Then the homeless people all around my house could actually just murder the invisible people they are constantly yelling at.

The only time I ever felt the need to defend myself with a gun was when I was homeless.

I recall ages ago someone here arguing blind people should be allowed to drive.

Found it, if anyone's curious.

Maybe the homeless need guns. I still remember the homeless man they shot in Albuquerque even though they had lethal and non-lethal rounds AND a dog while all he had was a pocket knife.

I wasn't being literal when I said "if everyone had a gun no one would be in danger" you insane assholes oh my god calm down

"A cop on every corner, and a cap in every ass!" "Political bum! Political bum! He's got his opinion and a state-issued gun!"

I get what you're trying to say here but lets not pretend that gun nuts are some kind of hivemind, they all have separate opinions on these issues. I don't know any gun nuts personally that would support a piece of legislation like this

they'd probably just hock it off for some cash. what do they need the gun for?

Libertarian party is beyond retarded at this point. Will we ever see a legitimate 3rd party come about?

People would probably steal them as well to sell or keep since they can't really store them. Hell the homeless might even go at war with each other to steal their shotguns and sell them.

Let them eat lead.

Homeless people here will rip the hand sanitizer bottles off the wall of the hospital so they can drink it. Lets not arm them.

You're right, we need to take their arms off so they are harmless to sanitizer bottles as well as give them a gun so they can defend themselves

Perhaps this is a ploy to get the homeless people to kill themselves off and/or any of the local cops.

Not another Albuquerque, please. :/

There are a lot of reasons why this would be a monumentally stupid thing to do. Never mind all the issues with giving potentially mentally ill or drug addicted people with no address firearms, but where would they even keep them? You have someone who by definition has no home, so they'd be walking in public with a shotgun, keeping it in a tent or even out in the open where other homeless people or street thugs could steal them. If someone were to do this it would essentially be like dumping guns in the streets. I seriously can't understand who could possibly come to the conclusion that this is a smart thing to do.