Joe Rogan is once again in the middle of a very public backlash. This time, the UFC color commentator was under fire for suggesting that you could shoot homeless people to steal their belongings.
In a recent episode of his podcast with guest star Tom Segura, the duo landed on the topic of the homeless and how their property is protected under law.
“When you see stuff like that on the streets, at least in Los Angeles or California, that’s protected property,” Segura said.
“Like by law. That’s person’s property by law,” Segura added, implying that you can’t just take a homeless person’s belongings there.
Rogan then replied: “You’d get arrested. Hilarious.”
“But they wouldn’t arrest you if you shot somebody. Maybe you should just go shoot the homeless people,” said Rogan clearly being sarcastic.
The sarcasm was then followed by some criticism of the rising crime rate in Los Angeles.
“I mean, nobody does anything about the violent crime in L.A anymore. It’s a f**king joke.”
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However, despite the explanation that followed the statement, many are outraged at what he said.
One of them is Theo Henderson, the creator of the We the Unhoused podcast.
“It’s repulsive,” Henderson said. “It’s infuriating because it’s not only out of touch, but the reality is that unhoused people are targeted by housed people.”
“To advocate trying to shoot at unhoused people or just giving these dog whistles to people that do not see unhoused people as human beings — I can’t believe you’d advocate for it.”
He added: “It’s a very abysmal response to a varied situation that we all should be really concerned and working aggressively to put people in housing right now.”
The CEO of the downtown LA homeless shelter Union Rescue Mission, Andy Bales also voiced his concern about Rogan’s comment. He also added that the violence over homeless people has been on the rise recently and this kind of comment won’t make things better.