A last-minute Westville aldermanic candidate proposed a fix for New Havens street violence: take more young people to the gun range, and help them get more guns.

That way fewer potential shooters would mess with them, argued the candidate, Aaron Freeman.

Freeman just made the deadline to register as a write-in candidate in next Tuesdays election for alderman in Westvilles high-voting 25th Ward. Until a week ago, Democratic incumbent Adam Marchand was running for reelection unopposed. Then Michael Pinto, a prominent backer of mayoral candidate Justin Elicker, announced an 11th-hour candidacy as a write-in candidate. (Read about that here.) And now Freeman has entered the fray.

Pinto and Freeman are among two of five officially registered write-in candidates in next Tuesdays municipal elections. The others are perennial mayoral write-in candidate Roger Uihlein of the Neverending Books store; and aldermanic candidates Kevin Diggs and Patricia DePalma, who lost Sept. 10 Democratic aldermanic primaries in Beaver Hills/Westvilles Ward 27 and Fair Haven Heights Ward 11, respectively.

The candidates names wont appear on ballots. But because they registered, their votes will officially count if people write in their names. (West Havens incumbent mayor, John Picard, is running for reelection as a write-in.)

Aaron Freeman, a 59-year-old unemployed former pizza-delivery driver, is a registered Libertarian, he said, although I havent paid the $425 [the party] has been asking me for. He discussed his reasons for running the other evening in a conversation on a bench outside the Central Avenue apartment complex where he lives with his mother, a retired teacher and bookkeeper.

Want a Twizzler? he said, beginning the conversation by defying a a stereotypical criticism of Libertarians as selfish (as opposed to people who believe protecting individual rights produces the greater social good).

Politics today needs more initiative at the grassroots level, he said. I see so many 2nd Amendment advocates who dont take inner-city children out to the rifle range. We haven an entire constitution that needs to be brought into the spotlight to see what the moths have eaten away.

He said the rifle-range trips would help both the gun-owners and their young guestswhile offering a better alternative to city officials attempts to stem street shootings by seeking to ban guns.

It would make [the 2nd Amendment advocates] a lot of friends. It would give them better political clout, Freeman argued. It would demonstrate some willingness of outreach.

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Libertarian Candidate Calls For More Guns