Gun Control and the Government
In the United States, the story is always the same. Some maniac (examples of whom, we might add, will be always found regardless of gun ownership rights) walks into a public building such as a school or shopping mall, opens fire and kills anything from a handful to tens of individuals. Then comes the usual tirade of arguments from the “gun control” advocates on the one side, crying out for more government control of private gun ownership in response to these heinous crimes, batted back by pro-gun ownership rhetoric from the likes of the NRA and the remainder of the gun lobby.
On a strictly theoretical level, gun ownership is no different from the ownership of any other homesteaded or voluntarily transferred physical good. A gun is simply a piece of matter like a pen or a wristwatch, and so the mere possession of it endows nobody with the right to interfere with you. Rather, it is the use of a gun (or, indeed, any one of these other items) to invade the person or property of another tha…
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