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A former mayoral candidate in Tucson plans to provide residents of high-crime neighborhoods with free shotguns to defend themselves, reports the Arizona Daily Star. Shaun McClusky has raised $12,000 for the project so far, and his group plans to hand out the first weapons within 60 days. He figures it will cost up to $400 per person to provide a gun, ammo, and training, plus a background check.

"We need to take back our city, and it needs to come back to the citizens and not the criminals," says McClusky. Counters a councilman: "To suggest that giving away loaded shotguns in high-crime areas will make anybody safer is pure idiocy." The police department hasn't weighed in yet. McClusky says he got the idea from a University of Houston grad student who started a similar program in that city, called the Armed Citizen Project. (Read more shotgun stories.)