January 14, 2005
Guns and Property
Kim du Toit inspired this little rant.
I have often felt that the correlation between strong gun rights and strong property rights is high. In the US, for the most part, we have both, though state by state there are differences. I would hazard a guess that a state which allows for broad interpretation of government property seizures would also have restrictive gun control laws.
Internationally, it does not surprise me that as a country tends more to socialism (government ownership of property) its citizens see (or can be more easily convinced of) less of a need for lethal self (private property) defense. Fine. Sweden and their UN ilk can do as they please. That they want to mold the US in their image is not OK.
One final thought. Pick your favorite self defense story as written by a liberal. Somewhere in that story is a line like: "a man (the intruder, shot by a homeowner) lay dead in defense of a toolbox." You see, in the liberal world, self defense is relative. It is not worth taking a life for a toolbox, right? This type of thinking of course begs the question: what is the economic quantum whereby self defense is justified? A Rolls Royce? Is this type of thinking behind the Rosie O'Donnells of the world when they want gun bans for the masses but not for their personal bodyguards?
In the conservative and libertarian world, self defense is absolute. You burgle my home, be it a single-wide trailer or a mansion, you can be shot and killed, period. Are you defending an economic interest? Yes. But the more important notion is that you are defending a principle: that you and your home are inviolable.
Posted by nopundit at January 14, 2005 10:15 AM