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One Houston Second Amendment advocate is taking matters into his own hands and arming a neighborhood in Northwest Houston with free shotguns through his Armed Citizen Project, which aims to "[deter] crime by empowering neighborhoods." Empowering them with firepower.
"We give brand new pump action shotguns, 12 gauge or 20 gauge," Kyle Coplen, Armed Citizen Project founder, told KRIV, Houston's Fox affiliate. "The area we're doing has about 400 homes in it. There was 107 home invasions last year."
In January, WWII veteran Elbert Wood had his house broken into and vandalized, and is what motivated Coplen to form Armed CItizen Project.
So far, residents have been responsive. "Put the safety off. My finger is not on the trigger. That's how you unload the gun," Sara Dimitt demonstrates to KRIV with her new shotgun.
While Coplen is eager to give a gun to anyone in the area who wants one, he isn't just giving them away without any kind of oversight. "To qualify for a firearm with us you have to pass a background check. You have to take and pass our training course which is legal, safety and tactical training," he tells KRIV. But his mission doesn't stop in Houston.
Coplen has also given free guns to ten Houston single moms. He plans to hand out shotguns to 500 women nationwide next month. Signs that read "nothing in my house is worth your life" are put up it in neighborhoods where guns have been given.
"Anyone who's handled one of these, the sound of a shell being racked, it's the universal get out of my house," Coplen said to KRIV.
It's been a good year for free firearms. In May, Texas congressman Steve Stockman held a contest for a free Bushmaster AR-15 (a $850 value!).