Group wants to arm the homeless
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By Bob Paschen
Homeless people need food, clothing and a warm, safe place to sleep. But a 1993 Ohio State University graduate Jacque Climer, says the Columbus homeless population needs something else: guns.
That’s right; Climer wants local homeless people to pack heat. And to facilitate this effort, the former
OSU student recently founded a nonprofit group called the Arm the Homeless Coalition.
“The Arm the Homeless Coalition will be collecting donations to provide firearms for the homeless of Columbus,” wrote Climer in a recent press release. “Funds will be used to provide arms, ammunition and firearm safety training for homeless individuals who pass the coalition’s rigorous screening test. Homeless are selected for the program based on need, mental and emotional stability, and potential value to society at large.”
The guns will “provide desperately needed protection for America’s disadvantaged.”
Climer, a gun-enthusiast, historian and organic vegetable farmer, brushed off criticism concerning the Arm the Homeless Coalition, saying that the second amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
Climer said he first had the idea for The Arm the Homeless Coalition in the early ‘90s when he and friends, all graduate students, discussed the issue while attending
OSU.
“We just wanted to level the playing field for everyone,” said Climer. “This is not only about the right of self-protection. It’s about equality. The founding of this coalition has been 13 years in the making.”
Climer said that he and other Arm the Homeless Coalition volunteers will be at area malls on Saturday, April 1 from 12:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. collecting donations.
“We’ll be wearing Santa suits,” he said.
Climer said he is unsure at this time what types of guns the coalition will purchase for the homeless.
Climer and the Arm the Homeless Coalition have been at the center of a recent media storm.
Radio, print and television commentators across the country have denounced as callous and dangerous Climer’s plan to arm homeless people in Columbus. Some fear that Climer’s cause will be taken up and spread to other cities, creating a nationwide crisis of gun violence. Others feel that the Arm the Homeless Coalition and even Climer himself are fictitious and are simply an April Fool’s Day joke perpetrated on the students at Ohio State University. Those people would be right. Gotcha! Happy April Fool’s Day.
There is no Jacque Climer. There is no the Arm the Homeless Coalition. And, no, homeless people in Columbus will not be packing heat anytime soon.
But—and this is important—the above fake news article is based on a real prank perpetrated by three
OSU grad students in the winter of 1993 that duped local and national media outlets, not to mention thousands of Americans, creating a national uproar. Here’s what happened.
In December of 1993,
OSU grad students Paul Badger, Douglas Lloyd and Eric Zimmerman, sent out a press release announcing a new organization called the “Arm the Homeless Coalition.” A photograph showing a man in a Santa suit waiting to take donations accompanied the press release. The head of the coalition was named Jack Kilmer.
The aim of this group was to give guns to homeless people. And some of the information quoted above is from the actual press release sent out by Badger, Lloyd and Zimmerman in 1993.
A reporter from the Columbus Dispatch filed a story on the coalition, and interviewed Jack Kilmer, who was in reality one of the
OSU grad students. Columbus city officials and area homeless advocates were up in arms over the coalition’s goal to weaponize the homeless.
Within days, other Ohio newspapers, along with the Associated Press, CNN and Rush Limbaugh were reporting on the Arm the Homeless Coalition in Columbus.
Days after the story broke, a man in a Santa suit, on behalf of the faux-coalition, arrived at the Columbus City Center mall. Santa, though, didn’t take any donations.
Four days after the first media report on Kilmer and the Arm the Homeless Coalition, another Dispatch reporter traced the coalition’s P.O. Box to Paul Badger, and in short order the hoax was exposed.
The prank, though, refused to die.
According to MuseumofHoaxes.com, in October 1996 a man named David Gross used the Arm the Homeless Coalition-joke to fool the local television station in San Luis Obispo, California. More recently in 1999 the Phoenix New Times ran a page one April Fool’s Day story about the coalition that was so effective, 60 Minutes II and the Associated Press got punked.
There is actually a decades-long tradition of media outlets running April Fool’s Day pranks. To read about the Swiss spaghetti harvest, the Taco Liberty Bell, pantyhose color-TVs, and Burger King’s left-handed Whopper, visit
www.museumofhoaxes.com.
April 1 is this Saturday. Don’t forget to pull a prank on someone you care about.
http://www.uweekly.com/story.php?iidart=2353
