Gun Fetishists Guns

What Could Go Wrong?

If you’re a resident of Tuscon, Arizona and you’re looking for a free shotgun, you may be in luck.

The so-called Armed Citizens Project is raising money to buy and hand out free loaded shotguns to local residents so they can “take back their city.”

Operating on the premise an armed neighborhood is a safer neighborhood, a group led by former mayoral candidate Shaun McClusky is raising money to purchase shotguns and provide training for anyone who lives in a mid- to high-crime neighborhood and can pass a background check. [...]

McClusky said he’s bringing the program to Tucson because the City Council has failed to properly fund the Police Department, leaving many residents easy targets for criminals.

“We need to take back our city, and it needs to come back to the citizens and not the criminals,” McClusky said. “Right now, the criminal element is winning.”

One local professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University can be quoted for saying that this is “unlikely [to] produce any crime reducing benefits,” to which I would say no shit. If they’re lucky, they won’t shoot themselves.

Not to take the argument that Tuscon is ridden with crime at face value — I spent a whole 15 minutes looking for information that says otherwise and easily found it.

According to FBI statistics, the number of rapes reported in the Tuscon increased in 2011 over 2010, but vehicle theft, burglary, assault, and murder has either declined sharply or remained flat since 2007. Overall, the number of violent crimes reported per year decreased by nearly 1000 between 2008 and 2011, and vehicle theft has declined by over 50 percent since 2007.

Given that specific forms of crime have either declined or remained flat since the Bush era, this newfangled, cockemamy plan to hand out free loaded shotguns couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the idea that President Obama is coming for our guns or to score cheap political points, could it? No.

Regardless of his motivations, the firearms industry would like to thank Shaun McClusky for spreading the fear and paranoia that leads to more gun purchases.

I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of what happened in Tuscon two years ago.