Political gadfly Shaun McClusky has a new plan: He wants to hand out free shotguns in high-crime Tucson neighborhoods.
McClusky says the lucky recipients “will receive a cleaning kit, they’ll receive the shotgun, they’ll receive slugs, they’ll go through a background check and they’ll also go through the training class.”
The program is a local affiliate of the Armed Citizen Project, which launched in Houston earlier this year.
McClusky says he’s already raised $12,000 in pledges for the program. With each “package” costing about $350, that means he has enough money to hand out roughly three dozen “single-shot, break-action shotguns,” says McClusky, who hopes to raise more money to expand the program.
McClusky says the program will initially target three Tucson neighborhoods: Pueblo Gardens, Midvale Park and the Grant-Campbell area.
The latter area, he says, “is becoming rampant with break-ins.”
Ward 6 Councilman Steve Kozachik, who lives in the Campbell-Grant area, is not supportive of McClusky’s plan.
“For someone to say it makes sense to be giving away loaded shotguns in high-crime areas is absolute lunacy,” Kozachik says. “These people have lost their minds.”
But McClusky, who unsuccessfully ran for City Council four years ago and failed to make it on the ballot in the mayor’s race two years ago, says the City Council’s failure to fund the police department makes it necessary to hand out free shotguns.
“My question to Steve is: When is he going to fully fund public safety?” McClusky says. “Response times are climbing every year. They keep gutting police and fire. When they start fully funding police and fire, a program like this would not be needed.”
McClusky says in the next 30 to 45 days, he’ll drop fliers around the neighborhoods where he wants to hand out shotguns. Anyone who is interested will be invited to a meeting, asked to undergo a background check and, while supplies last, get a free shotgun.
Once the meetings are done, “we’re going to notify the entire neighborhood that we are going to arm citizens in your neighborhood and we’re going to protect your neighborhood. We’re going to take it back. The city council is failing to protect you with police and fire. We’re going to give you the opportunity to keep your home safe.”
McClusky expects the program will reduce crime.
“Think about the impact this is going to have on a neighborhood,” he says. “If you’re a criminal and you go into a neighborhood and we have a yard sign that says, ‘This neighborhood is protected by armed citizens,’ you’re going to go to the next neighborhood, if you’re the criminal.”
This article appears in Mar 21-27, 2013.
Wow. What’s this dude been smokin’?
Consider him nominated! “What the f@*%sky, McCluskey? Get outta town!”
uh.. so since this group is out of Texas, does Tucson get a vote on this?
Let’s see, Grant-Campbell, students live in that ‘hood, Friday night, lots of drinking – what could possibly go wrong?
I would suggest pump action shotguns.
The article said they would go through a background check and training before they get the shot gun. I have no problem with that besides nutty Joe said “get a shotgun”. If I remember correctly nutty Joe was also the one that said “shoot through the door”.
McClusky has totally lost it. His idiotic plan will not only keep the criminals away, but everybody else too, including law enforcement! All sane people in Tucson should thank their lucky stars that this imbecile did not get elected.
OMG – really?! Free SHOTGUNS?! What an idiot. Is he from Mississippi? Oh no, wait, that’s an insult to MS.
Guns, penises. All the same. That’s all these guys think about are their pieces.
I WANT ONE!
Burglars take note:
There will be shotguns available for the stealing in the Grant-Campbell area.
Someone needs to explain the McClusky that burglars don’t break in when the owner is sitting at home, shotgun in lap.
you realize the ignorance in these statements go as far as the ignorance in the statements used against gay marriage. “it doesn’t make any sense, it scares me and I don’t like it. it goes against what i believe and now i think the world is going to end because of it”. Does that thought process sound familiar to you?
you do realize that they follow the laws on giving these out and go even further than they have to with the safety classes. Everyone that gets one will be well educated, trained in firearm usage and safety and a be a law abiding citizen
the fact that most of the comments in here seem like knee jerk reactions based on personal emotions that nobody took more than half a second to think of really sheds light to me that the very people that proclaim to be progressive and open-minded are themselves very ignorant and arrogant.
and yes I take personal offense to some of the derogatory comments made against the people that live in “those” areas, because i live in one of “those” areas. By making the assumptions and derogatory comments about the kind of people that live in that area you have insulted me, and not just me but my neighbors, hard working law abiding American citizens just trying to get by in life that are losing the safety of their neighborhood to thugs, drug addicts and criminals. Not everyone that lives in a poor underprivileged neighborhood is a criminal, or a ditsy college student or stupid with fire arms. That is a very racist and judgmental thought process shared only by those that you would consider homophobic and misogynist. The type of people that would be receiving the firearms are the mechanics, landscapers, painters, roofers. the kinds of people that couldn’t afford to live in better neighborhoods much less make enough to get by or buy their own personal firearms but under this program can now have one.
Its not a move for vigilante justice, it’s a move for deterrence. When this program becomes well known and neighborhoods post signs that they have been safe guarded by this program, any one that was thinking about attempting any form of crime in that area would keep going until they found an area without the protection.
I’d take two, sell them, and buy something more useful — a computer, car repairs, food, crack.
God, what a fracking sucker, tool, trouble maker.
Really, who pours gas on a fire? Only people with an interest in burning things down.
A fine idea whose time has come. Don’t want a gun in your house? Then don’t ask for one. There is no danger to those who abide by the law. And above all, remember that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
I claim troll.No one experienced with home security recommends a single shot shotgun,and on top of that,firing “slugs”. This entire article screams troll.
Just dont let Biden provide pointers
Didn’t Joe Biden just tell everyone that all you need is a shotgun? So you are all anti VP Biden now? McCluskey did say they’d do background checks as we’ll.
No, not Biden. Let’s ask VP Cheney for shotgun etiquette pointers. He’s an educated, law abiding citizen…
This will be like his failed Mayoral bid, as well as his effort to defeat the road bond proposition. Half baked and half assed. Three dozen guns, wow! This also shows that someone who can make any statement can be taken seriously. It is interesting that Arizona Illustrated’s favorite guest gets a quote on this, again.
Great idea, and everyone knows Joe Biden will be all for it.
Let the accidental shootings by wanna be heroes begin.
Interesting that the Star story today doesn’t mention the Grant/Campbell neighborhood.
Interesting that McKlusky doesn’t recognize that a MAJOR reason the City is cash-strapped is because of his bat-crap crazy right-wing republican friends in the Legislature that take more from Tucson than is returned…in order to provide tax breaks for his rich friends…
Oh, and the phony “war on drugs(tm)” that wastes an immense amount of police time…and that he hasn’t the courage to demand its end…
McClucky: “The city council is failing to protect you with police and fire. We’re going to give you the opportunity to keep your home safe.”
So, I guess when their house is on fire they can put it out with their shotgun?
Pretty frustrating stuff. I’d move out of such a neighborhood if this went through. One thing gun owners don’t get is how very unsavory their a) preference, b) hobby or c) lunacy is to those who don’t believe that violence solves problems. Personally, I’d LOVE a registry, like the one we have for sexual predator, for gun owners. They get outraged at such a suggestion, but had I been Adam Lanza’s neighbor, I would’ve wanted to know his household had 5 guns in it. I would have certainly thought twice about BEING a neighbor….
But I have a different question–how is this group able to do background checks when we were told by a person who runs the gun shows at Tucson Convention center that that is impossible? She told me that only certified gun vendors can do background checks. Is this group one of those? We were told that it was virtually impossible to expand background checks because of a heightened concern for privacy … yet this nutcase and his backers have access to the files to do background checks? The world has gone crazy. The Beatles got it right for Arizona…happiness is a warm gun.
Have there been any studies or data-gathering to indicate that increasing the number of firearms held by presumably “good” people (background check, training) in a neighborhood actually reduces crime in that neighborhood?
Why not just have every homeowner and renter plant a ‘This neighborhood is protected by armed citizens’ sign in the front yard?
If Mr. McClusky does not have an FFL (Federal Firearms License) I think this would be illegal.
He doesn’t actually have ay money. Just “pledges.” I suspect McClusky is just engaging in JT Ready style attention seeking. Unfortunately, his attention comes at Arizona’s expnse
McClusky did not approach the boards of either Pueblo Gardens or Midvale Park neighborhood associations; this was bomb-dropped on them without so much as a phone call in advance. Whatever one may think of the program, his utter disregard for the NA’s — who might have supported the idea if he’d asked, or might not, but we’ll never know now — speaks volumes. So, what’s the real intent if it’s not about reaching out to and building neighborhoods? Election’s coming up, PGNA and MPNA are in Ward 5, does Fimbres have a challenger?
There is very little data as to whether more guns reduce crime because the right made it very difficult for police agencies, the FBI and others (including the CDC) from gathering that data into a single location in order to affirm or denounce this rhetoric with some actual facts. A central database of gun violence is part of the bill being fillibustered by some right wing House members.
This McClusky fellow is potentially putting these novice potential gun-owners in grave danger by giving them a single-shot shotgun to defend their homes with, instead of the more widely used pump shotgun for self-defense. Should the first shot miss the homeowner has to break open the action, load another shell, and close the action, giving his adversary time to react, and inflict grave bodily harm on the homeowner, even if the homeowner has practiced his re-loading technique and does not fumble during the procedure. Aside from the high and mighty arguments about the efficacy of this program, someone in authority should intervene on behalf of the inexperienced and hapless homeowners, to insure they are well aware of the dangers they could be exposing themselves and their families to by participating in this program as currently designed.
JED!! Fetch me a free shotgun!!
a couple of points: one shot isn’t enuf. In a panic, one will fumble shells, maybe drop the gun. Other posts are right, a pump shotgun is needed, otherwise, you ARE in mortal danger?Gauge: 12? Nah, you don’t need a cannon inside a house – 20 G will do it or a 410 will stop anyone moving in on the Mrs, you or the kids. Remember, keep shooting until he (them) drops or leaves. They will. Have a back-up, pistol or knife, or additional ammo for the s/gun, and know how to reload on the move. Practice. DON’T assume it will never happen, especially in those three neighborhoods. Councilman Steve is lately given to hystrionic outcries, so remember, unless you plan to call HIM for protection, gear up just in case.