Joe Rogan has been met with a barrage of criticism after he suggested you could shoot homeless people dead in order to steal their belongings.
During a chat with fellow comedian Tom Segura on his podcast, the duo landed on the topic of rough sleepers 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 that’s person’s property by law."
UFC commentator Rogan was surprised by the assertion and Segura added that you can't just take a homeless person's belongings.
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To which the podcast host 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."
Segura shockingly replied saying he 'liked' Rogan's 'ideas'.
The UFC commentator continued: "And if nobody claims it. I mean nobody does anything about violent crime in LA anymore."
The comments haven't gone down well on social media, with many people saying that even if it was a joke it's tasteless.
Theo Henderson, creator of the We the Unhoused podcast, told Variety that the comments were despicable.
“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."
Andy Bales, who serves as president and CEO of the downtown LA homeless shelter Union Rescue Mission, has invited Rogan to come down and see what it's like living on the streets.
He told Variety that murders of homeless people has been on the rise recently and comments like this don't help the situation.
"There is a bit of an unfortunate vigilantism already in Los Angeles towards people devastated by homelessness and they don’t need any encouragement," he said.
Stewart Perrie