Guns will make us strong, butter will only make us fat.

An avid social media user, his Instagram account shows the father-of-four -- who has admitted to occasionally carrying a Glock gun in public -- at a shooting range with his children.

"I just love to shoot," he declared in a recent interview, adding that he understood the rising trend of gun owners in Austria "given the current uncertainties".

From a profile of Norbert Hofer, the far-right candidate for the Austrian presidency. You'd think that the Austrian people would have taken one look at an Austrian-born race-baiting far-rightist with a two syllable surname starting with an "H" and remembered that the last candidate for high office who fitted that profile didn't turn out very well. But they apparently haven't made the connection, or don't care, even when Herr Hofer himself whacks them around the head with the clue stick ("As recently as 2013, Mr Hofer attended party gatherings wearing a blue cornflower on his lapel, a symbol used by the Nazis").*

All it takes for the  people of Austria to take a punt on a Nazi is, apparently, bit of image management ("He appears very modest and is very smart in front of the public, but he is rationalising the same far right-wing German nationalist discourse as Strache"). As our own dear Prime Minister, no stranger to the Dark Arts of Public Relations, would advise, "Put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem."

Meanwhile, in other news:

A gunman has opened fire at a concert in the western Austrian town of Nenzing, killing two people before shooting himself dead, police say.

Eleven other people were reported injured as the man appeared to fire randomly at about 03:00 local time (01:00 GMT).

The man, 27, had earlier reportedly argued with a woman in a car park.

He went to his car to get the gun and shot at a crowd of about 150 at the concert, hosted by a motorcycle club.

BBC

Maybe if they won't take the hint about electing Nazis, the Austrians might like to reconsider the wisdom of electing a gun nut? Or are they so mesmerised by the advertising that they'll go for the "Buy a Nazi and get a free gun nut" offer anyway?

"Wenn ich Kultur höre...entsichere ich meinen Browning!" ("Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’...I release the safety on my Browning!").

Hanns Johst, playwright and Nazi SS officer (often misquoted as writing something like “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” and usually misattributed to either Goebbels or Göring).


*"In 1933, the Nazis and the Greater German People's Party formed a joint working-group, and eventually merged. During the period while the Nazi Party and its symbols were banned in Austria, from 1933 to 1938, Austrian Nazis resumed the earlier pan-Germanist tradition of wearing a blue cornflower in their buttonhole."