Many private establishments, such as restaurants or banking offices, would not allow the entry of people with a firearm in possession.
People who oppose laws against carrying firearms in public occasionally justify their stances on grounds of “freedom”. They would have a hard time explaining why they would want to do in public what they would presumably not do in other people’s premises, when those people are free to turn them out and often do turn such people out.
How are they also going to explain that on public streets, they possibly violate the preferences and inclinations of other people who have paid for the construction of roads, streetlights, traffic lights, and pavements on those streets? Is that really freedom for others? And if that street were really privately owned, what are the odds their behaviour would be allowed to still be the same?
All in all, I find debates on possession and carry of firearms to be futile. The problem for those who want to use freedom as an argument here is that they would eventually have to admit that the problem is not firearms itself, but lack of property rights. And if any increase in property rights leads to reduction in gun possession outside one’s home, they can no longer use freedom as an argument. Which means that it would be pointless to demand freedom in gun carriage now.
Of course, people may argue that the result of increase in property rights would be the opposite. But the burden of proof is on them, not others to establish it to be so.
If society were so pious that it could voluntarily establish a de facto absence of dangerous weapons, it would be pious enough to have them and use them responsibly too.
I agree with you on every level, not only on the issue of firearms. Every statist measure is not wrong in itself, but rather wrong by proxy since the state doesn’t really own all the land. So, at the bottom, all arguments boil down to who justly owns the land.
I agree it is an issue of property rights. But I think what people are discussing is, given the fact that the state “owns” certain properties (streets, public parks, etc) and that they will not relinquish ownership of these any time soon, what rights do private citizens have on that property? There is no clear cut answer, but my inclination is to treat it as unowned and unownable land, meaning that no one has a claim to anything on it, except to their own bodies. therefore, if you are on “public” land, you should not be banned from doing things that do not aggress against the other people on that land. carrying a piece of property (i.e. a gun) does not, in and of itself, agress against the rights of other people.
Now, on private land, the owner should have absolute say as to what is allowed. right to bear arms, freedom of speech, etc, all this takes a backseat to property and contract rights.
A tactic of the more subversive State apologists is to espouse cartoonish versions of moral arguments against the State and push them to absurd extremes. This is the modus operandi of the intelligence agencies in deploying “anarchist” agents provocateur in any riot or violent protest in their country.
Public land should be assumed to be owned by a mutual association of all citizens (i.e. the state). Hence whatever state laws say about it, that is the rule set that should apply.
Public land is not private property because it was not obtained through voluntary means. Claiming that the state is the rightful private owner of the property with the rights to determine how the land will be used overlooks the fact that control of the land was obtained through violent means. Public property is an altogether different concept. One which would likely not exist in a voluntaryist society.
Merlin’s position seems like a bastardization of Hoppe’s view - the State is a de facto owner of all public lands and public resources over which it exercises control. That doesn’t mean it ought to own all the public lands and resources over which it has seized control. The correct response is to force the State to accept full legal liability for its actions in connections with the land and resources it “owns”. This means that these are assets over against the debts which the State has run up and, since all modern States are de facto bankrupt entities, these assets should be assigned pro rata to the State’s creditors (sans central banks or other bankrupt sovereign entities). If you fall and hurt yourself on whatever State “property” is not reassigned in this process (perhaps roads), then the State should bear the same liability as a private owner would. If you get in a car wreck on a State-operated highway, the State should be liable to lawsuit. And so on.
In leiu of state accepting full liability (since it seems like they would never accept sucha thing), how should the rights of those people using the state’s land be determined?
The issue I see seems to be that no one accepts the concept of full propertyrights: people are used to as neo-feudal tired system of property rights. I can do certain things with my land, the state can do certain things with all land. There’s no one with full sovereignty on his land, not even the state. It’s a legal limbo, with no one free to act (and get it wrong) as he pleases.
This concept is what should be challenged: I’d gladly leave all sovereignty to the state on 90% of land, if the individual owners retained full sovereignty on their houses alone. This concept of one sovereign owner, to whom all rights accrue, must come into existence. If we need leave sovereignty to the state on most of the land to achieve this, so be it, its worthwhile in the long run.
Ironically, only socialist government came close to claiming their ‘rights’ as a sovereign owner.
Interesting question, I’ll assume you are discussing America.
Let me ask you a few questions.
Some private esablishments bar free speech on thier property, would it be ok to ban free speech in punlic on these grounds?
Some location allow people to carry firearms on thier property, why do their wishes get overrulled by the ones who don’t?
On public streets my preferences, and inclinations are violated by people who wear baggy pants with their underwear showing, Can I get a law banning them?
The arguments against possession and carry of firearms are futile to me, People want to argue it’s for public safety but they refuse to admit the problems are not the firearms themselves, but either people who do not respect the laws, or people who wish it impose their beliefs on other because they ‘feel’ something. If Gay men make someone ‘feel’ uncomfortable then should those gay men be forced to only be gay on thier own private property?
These questions are futile. They are insoluble because they are all based on the false premise that “pubic” streets and “public” property do in fact exist.
This is the problem with the approach of “given the current circumstances”, or “given the current political reality”, this and that is more just or lest just, etc…
Both sides are incorrect. The only solution is to eliminate from the problem what does not exist, that is, “Pubic” property. The OP has it right.
Heh, this is pretty much the end conclusion of every major ongoing debate I see in the mainstream or even the fringe.
It’s how I feel about that “debate” as to whether the Arab revolutions are a good idea or bad. The answer is, we don’t know, we don’t have enough information, and there is no point in deciding so early who is the least evil alternative between Mubarak or any other problematic incumbent who may become Egypt’s leader in the future.
And then we have some really really unfortunate statements by Friedrich Hayek and Ilana Mercer in their endorsement of Pinochet’s killing of politically idealist youth. It’s all in an attempt to try to decide who would have been the least worst for Chile - Pinochet or the youth he killed if they ever came to power or Allende. It may be false equivalence to compare Allende to Pinochet, but it will be the social engineer’s tone to decide what measure will cause the least hurt or pain to Chileans or what other experiments of political idealists the generally apolitical Chileans have to suffer.
In short, for anyone concerned with freedom in even a simple and modest sense, sometimes the only position to take is to take no position at all. To take a slightly religious tone, despite being atheist, I say that the Devil has many faces and many forms.