Call it thinking outside the box, but a U.S. candidate for the Senate has a novel idea about the homeless problem: arm them with shotguns.

Here is Libertarian Brian Ellison's plan, borne, no doubt, out of deep compassion:

... homeless people are “constantly victims of violent crime” and providing them with firearms would provide a deterrent.

[He] said he had settled on pump-action shotguns for practicality purposes.

“Frankly I think the ideal weapon would be a pistol,” he told the Guardian, “but due to the licensing requirements in the state we’re going to have a hard enough time getting homeless people shotguns as it is.

“Getting them pistols is probably next to impossible. The pistols need to be registered, people have to have addresses.”

Carrying a concealed pistol is illegal without a permit, Ellison said, “whereas open-carrying a long gun is completely legal”.

I can't help but wonder if it also occurs to Ellison that he may also have hit upon a cost effective plan to reduce the number of homeless people in America's midst.

Kind of a reversion to Hobbes' state of nature, eh?