Why Libertarians Oppose Romney

With the likelihood of Romney’s ascension to presidential nominee becoming more likely by the day it’s not surprising that friction is developing between self-proclaimed conservatives and libertarians. We’re being bombarded with self-proclaimed conservatives demanding libertarians get behind Romney because the alternative is so much worse. When libertarians say they will only support Ron Paul they’re seen a whiners who are upset because they didn’t get their way. Truth be told libertarians refusal to support Romney has nothing to do with Ron Paul losing the nomination, it has everything to do with the very foundation libertarianism is based upon. There is such a vast difference between so-called conservatives and libertarians that they will likely never come together politically:

A simple way to demonstrate the chasm that separates libertarians from “conservatives” of the 21st century is to use news incidents and media images as Rorschach inkblots and consider how differently each would respond.

When a libertarian witnesses an emaciated destitute, confronted, seized, and roughly rifled by the constabulary under dubious pretenses on “reality” TV, he is not immediately elated. Most of us question the necessity of such an action even if a joint, crack pipe, or penknife is found. We are offended by the image of a man abject — on the ground and in the clutches of enormous, armored, and heavily armed men — without substantive evidence that he has harmed someone else. That these same public servants can bust into people’s homes, terrorize their children, kill their pets, shackle their persons, and destroy personal property on the flimsiest of pretexts is repellent to anyone placing even a modest value on the word liberty.

This debate is no more prevalent than in the gun community. Many gun owners are now backing Romney because they perceive Romney as “less” evil than Obama when it comes to gun rights. Other gun owners, such as myself, won’t back Romney because he opposes the vary foundation of libertarianism, the non-aggression principle.

First and foremost I’m not a libertarian because I support gun rights, I support gun rights because I’m a libertarian. Above all I strive to bring forth a world as free of coercion as possible. I don’t see gun rights as an isolated issue but as a right derived from self-ownership. As a self-owner I have the right to choose what I want to expend my labor to achieve and I also have a right to defend my person and property. If I want to purchase a firearm it is my right to labor to achieve that goal. Nobody has a right to prevent me from purchasing a firearm just as nobody has a right to prevent me from purchasing a car or television. The non-aggression principle opposes the initiation of force but not the return of force in self-defense, so ownership of firearms in no way violates the foundation of libertarianism. As a libertarian I also cannot justify coercing others into providing me security so I must provide my own and a firearm is a tool that allows me to do so.

When you boil it down all people are single-issue voters. If you’ve studied Austrian economics you’ve learned value is subjective and ranked. Each individual has a ranked list of things they value with more valued things appearing higher on the list than less valued things. At the very top of our list we have our most valued thing and, ultimately, that thing is our single issue that we will forsake all other issues for.

Here is where the main philosophical difference comes in between libertarians and those claiming we must support Romney if we have any hope of preserving gun rights. Libertarians’ single issue is the non-aggression principle whereas those demanding gun owners support Romney have gun ownership as their single issue. In order to support Romney I would have to forsake my single issue because Romney favors the use of force and coercion to control the actions of others. He supports war outside of self-defense, which is nothing more than forcing other countries to bow to the will of the United States. Romney also supports drug prohibition, which is a use of force to prevent individuals from deciding what manufacture, sell, and use. Let’s also not forget his support for the “assault” weapons ban, which is the use of force to prevent people from buying certain firearms. Asking a libertarian to support Romney is like asking a proponent of gun rights to support Sarah Brady.

Libertarians aren’t refusing to support Romney because we’re butt hurt over Paul not getting the nomination, we’re refusing to support Romney because Romney opposes the non-aggression principle. If you’re a proponent of gun rights who is angry at Paul supporters for not getting behind Romney you need to put yourself into our shoes and imagine yourself being asked to chose between Michael Bloomberg or Sarah Brady for president. Let’s further expand the situation and say you were supporting John Lott during the presidential nomination process but he lost to Bloomberg. Would you back Bloomberg because he is the “lesser” or two evils? I would certainly hope not. If you would then gun rights are not your most valued issue.

Protecting Our Second Amendment Rights Event

I thought I should give my readers a bit of a heads up. On Monday April 23rd Andrew Rothman, the vice president of Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, will be a presentation on gun rights for the Southwestern Metro Tea Party (ignore their horrible, horrible site). The presentation will be at the Chanhassen Rec Center located at 2310 Coulter Blvd. Chanhassen, MN 55317 and goes from 19:00 to 20:30.

I’m not sure what the exact presentation will be about but knowing Andrew’s work it’ll be good.

An Important Thing to Remember About the Virginia Tech Massacre

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. While many people have been using this anniversary to push a gun control agenda the truth is the amount of people killed by the shooter could have been reduced greatly if only students and faculty were allowed to carry on campus:

Speaking for myself, I would give anything if someone on campus; a professor, one of the trained military or guardsman taking classes or another student could have saved my daughter by shooting Cho before he killed our loved ones. Because professors, staff and students are precluded from protecting themselves on campus, Cho, a student at Virginia Tech himself, was able to simply walk on campus and go on a killing rampage with no worry that anyone would stop him.

What enabled the killer to walk around the campus and murder random individuals wasn’t a lack of gun control laws, it was to presences of them. Serial killers like Cho select gun-free zones for a reason, they can be reasonably sure that they won’t encounter any resistance and therefore hold all of the power. For many of these killers their real desire is power over others and killing unarmed individuals gives a person a feeling of power.

When the state prohibits you from carrying a firearm they are stripping you of your ability to defend yourself. No free society should ever find it acceptable to use the threat of violence (if you carry a gun you will be kidnapped and tossed into a cage) to prevent others from defending themselves. It’s ridiculous. The very fact that nonviolent individuals wanting nothing more than the ability to defend themselves are subjected to the threat of violence by the state should be appalling to everybody.

Although the Virginia Tech massacre couldn’t have been prevented entirely the number killed could have been greatly reduced. Instead society allowed the gun control advocates to get their way and it has cost lives. We should all remember the aftermath of Virginia Tech and vow to fight for individuals’ right to self-defense.

The NRA Just Threw Gun Rights Out the Window

It appears that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has decided to surrender on the topic of gun rights this election cycle:

The NRA leadership is throwing its wholehearted support behind Republican Mitt Romney, who once incurred its ire by supporting stiff gun restrictions as governor of Massachusetts. Despite that history, it sees Romney as a vastly better gamble than President Obama, although Obama has done almost nothing to restrict gun use.

“We believe Mitt Romney would do a better job than President Obama,” said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, which claims nearly 4 million members. “We believe that any of the candidates on the Republican side would be better on the 2nd Amendment” — the right to bear arms.

Thanks for nothing guys. I’m sorry but endorsing Romney is not the answer, it’s not even a valid option when it comes to supporting gun rights. I talked about this before but the NRA’s approach of supporting the “lesser” of two evils is pointless. We are all aware of Romney’s track record when it comes to gun rights, it’s abysmal. The very fact that he signed a permanent “assault” weapon ban in Massachusetts should have disqualified him from receiving any support from the NRA. I’d rather see the NRA come up and publicly state a vote of no confidence then concentrate their policial money on the legislature. Better yet move on to a new strategy like emulating the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) tactic of suing state entities that violate the rights of gun owners.

You know what else pisses me off? Not only are the leaders of the NRA supporting Romney but, as I predicted, members of the NRA are now backing the dumb bastard as well. He suckered a huge audience with one speech. One measly speech caused a massive number of NRA members, the supposed guardians of gun rights in this country, to forget Romney’s track record and get behind him. What… the… fuck?

I knew this would be the outcome but it still hurts to see it officiated. Romney isn’t going to be any better than Obama when it comes to gun rights (or anything else for that matter). He’s talking a big game now as he’s trying to gather support from suckers voters but we’ll be tossed under the bus the second he’s in office. Personally I’m not a fan of supporting a man when I know he’s going to run a knife in my back the second it’s turned.

There is No Right, There is No Left

It seems any topic imaginable gets split between the political right (Republicans) and left (Democrats). Laws against abortions are generally considered right, laws allowing for abortions are generally considered left. Laws allowing gays to marry are usually considered left, laws prohibiting gays from marrying are usually considered right. Guns are no different, laws supporting gun ownership are usually seen as right while guns opposing gun ownership are usually seen as left. There is a problem with such thinking though: there is no right and there is no left, just one giant authoritarian party:

Of course, the biggest piece of anti-freedom, anti-gun legislation was the 1968 Gun Control Act, which stopped the unrestricted, ungoverned interstate sale of firearms and gave us the immortal BATFE Form 4473. “HEY, HEY, LBJ, HOW MANY KIDS DID YOU KILL TODAY?” Yeah, old Lyndon put that one through and it sailed through a Democratic House and Senate and was signed by a President I’ve despised all my life.

This is where everybody likes to stand up and say, “See! The Democrats hate our gun rights!” What these same people seldom stand up and say is that Republicans hate our gun rights as well. Let’s not forget what the man who is an symbol of all that is supposedly conservative, good, and holy to the Republican Party did to fuck gun owners over:

Ronnie Reagan is the one who really stuck it to Gun Owners. He signed the legislation that capped the NFA pool at what it is today and stopped the New registration of machine guns. What few on our side of this issue want to talk about is the fact that more than a few prominent machine gun collectors lobbied FOR this law. Dolf Goldsmith being the most prominent one I could find in the testimony in the Congressional Record. Why? Because it made him Rich! It was Greed, pure and simple and Good Ole Ronnie signed it into law.

The cap on licensable machine guns, brought to us courtesy of the Huges Amendment, was not only signed by the “most amazingest conservative president EVAR!” but was also supported by those who owned machine guns. It’s not surprising to see machine gun owners supporting such a bill for the same reason many companies that face additional expenses from regulations public support said regulations: it eliminates competition and therefore makes the good or service you provide more valuable.

When the state gets an idea in their head to regulation some inane process related to a business the large businesses will usually jump in and exclaim their undying support. They do this because they realize their smaller competitors won’t be able to afford complying with the regulation and will therefore go bankrupt.

The very same mentality went through the heads of machine gun owners when the Huges Amendment was introduced. Think about it for a minute, you own a machine gun that is valued at, say, $500.00. The value of your machine gun doesn’t go up because new ones are constantly being produced. Suddenly a politician comes out and says he wants to halt the production of new machine guns, which would mean new ones won’t get produced to compete with the one you own. It’s in your best interest to support the legislation because it will cause the value of your machine gun to increase over time as the pool of available machine guns slowly dries up and no new ones are being produced to refill the pool.

Another example of this are tax cabs, the number of which many cities put a limit on. This is one of the classic examples of state enforce monopolies given by Murray Rothbard and he talks about it extensively in his microeconomics lecture on monopolies. Needless to say, like machine gun owners supporting the Huges Amendment, taxi cab drivers support the cap on the number of taxis that can operate within a city. Let’s move on to more of this left/right paradigm destruction:

After Reagan, Bush the Senior outlawed the importation of ‘assault weapons’ and then Clinton stuck us for 10 years with the ban on over 10 round magazines. Fortunately, that last piece of anti-freedom crap had a sunset provision and died a natural, but none too soon, death and some sanity has been restored. We still wouldn’t have many different ‘assualt rifles’ if the 922(e) provision for American manufactured parts hadn’t been introduced. Otherwise, you would have AR’s, M-1A’s and, Oh Yeah, a whole bunch more AR’s and damn few other options.

Most gun owners remember how Clinton screwed us but few remember how Bush Sr. screwed us (or the fact Geore W. Bush said he would sign a renewal to the “assault” weapon ban if it crossed his desk). So what’s the conclusion? Can’t we just blindly vote for Republicans to defend our gun rights? Nope:

So, if you evaluate Presidents and political parties by what they’ve done and NOT by their soundbites, my feeling is the Republican Presidents have screwed gun owners more than the Democrats have. Only 2 Democratic Presidents have signed anti-gun, anti-freedom national legislation; Johnson and Clinton, while on the Republican side, we have Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush Senior.

There is no right and there is no left, there are no Republican and there are no Democrats. When it comes to issues there are only politicians who will screw you over at the drop of a hat if it means they gain money, power, or a better chance to be reelected so they can get more of the two latter things. Saying Romney will protect our gun rights more than Obama is an argument not backed with any factual information. Romney’s record on guns is horrible. Both Obama and Romney state support for “assault” weapon bans but only one, Romney, has actually signed a ban.

Between the two Romney will be the candidate promising gun owners protection but the rhetoric is irrelevant, whether or not he will deliver is the only important question. Judging by his voting record he won’t support us. Some people are claiming he’ll support us because he needs us to get elected , which is false. Romney doesn’t need to pander to us because he knows our options are either him or Obama and most gun owners hate Obama to such a degree that they’ll vote for anybody else.

When it comes to gun rights there is no lesser evil. I will not support either candidate and I encourage my readers to abstain from supporting either candidate as well. If two candidates who oppose my right of self-defense want to duke it out in a popularity contest they can, I don’t recognize the authority of the state anyways so whichever dictator gets into office is entirely irrelevant to me. Those of you who plan to donate your time and money to Romney know that you’re only helping sow your own destruction. Have fun with that, I’ll be sitting this out. While I may be powerless to stop any destruction of gun rights in this country I certainly will not help the bastards planning that destruction.

Another Failure of Gun Control

Last night I reported about the murder of Jody Lynmarvin Patzner Jr., the 22 year-old gunned down on his bicycle. The police have arrested a suspect in Patzner’s murder and if the suspect is indeed the murdered this story will certainly be yet another demonstration of how futile gun control is:

The man suspected of gunning down Jody Lynmarvin Patzner Jr. in a robbery attempt on a Minneapolis street Monday night was the subject of a mental health commitment hearing three years ago after he was found carrying a pistol without a permit, according to court records.

In Minnesota you first offense for carrying a firearm without a permit is a gross misdemeanor while a second offense is a felony. Furthermore anybody who has been found mentally incompetent to stand trail is a prohibited person [PDF, Page 11]. The suspect in Patzner’s murder wasn’t charged for carrying a weapon without a permit because he was ruled mentally incompetent to stand trial:

His past includes proceedings in 2009 and 2010 in which court officials and county social workers determined he was mentally ill but not so dangerous that he should be locked up, according to records.

“The defendant is not at risk of imminent harm to self or others,” Judge Richard Hopper determined in a June 10, 2009, court order that found the man incompetent to stand trial on the weapons possession charge.

Therefore it was illegal for the suspected murder to own or carry the murder weapon. Once again gun control has failed as a person who is ineligible to own a firearm in the state of Minnesota managed to obtain a firearm in the state of Minnesota.

Whether or not the suspect is the murderer has no bearing on the fact he was able to get a gun even though the law forbid him from doing so. According to advocates gun control laws are the cure to the problem of bad people getting weapons. Every time there is a murder with a firearm the gun control advocates crawl out of their deep holes and demand a new piece of legislation be introduced, a piece of legislation they claim would have prevented the murder in the first place. Reality is not kind of gun control advocates though, as the laws they introduce to be the cure all are proven entirely ineffective. I don’t think they realize the fact that people willing to commit murder have no problem violating laws against possession of weapons.

The Empty Words of Mitt Romney Coming to an NRA Convention Near You

It’s a presidential election year and the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) convention is upon us. That can only mean one thing: a presidential candidate will try to win the support of gun owners by speaking at the NRA convention. Lo and behold Mitt Romney is going to be lying at the convention this year:

Mitt Romney will address the National Rifle Association‘s annual meeting later this week, a speech that comes at a crucial time for the candidate who is working to appeal to the conservative base of his party as he inches closer to clinching the Republican nomination.

Romney, who tells voters on the campaign trail that he believes “we have all the laws we need” in regard to gun control, revealed for the first time just over a month ago that he owns two shotguns. When asked about his stance on gun control during a town hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, in February, Romney said, “I believe in the second amendment, I’ll protect the second amendment. I have guns myself.”

In response to Romney’s quote that “we have all the laws we need” I must say we don’t have all the laws we need, we have too many laws. A presidential nominee isn’t going to win me over… no matter what he says, but really isn’t going to win me over by taking the safe ground on gun rights. Saying we have enough laws or we should be enforcing the laws we already have are two of the biggest copouts in the fight for gun rights. There is no reason the provisions outlined in the National Firearms Act (NFA) should be enforced and the Hughes Amendment should be discarded faster than an unwanted pregnancy on prom night. I would go so far as to say we shouldn’t enforce any laws on firearm ownership as firearms are inanimate objects and the actual issue is bad people using firearms, which requires dealing with the bad people.

Likewise, the mere fact one owns a gun doesn’t mean one is a proponent of gun rights. Sarah Brady, gun control advocate supreme, purchased a rifle for her son. Saying “I have guns myself” is an entirely empty statement as far as I’m concerned. I know a number of people who hunt, owner rifles for their sport, but are supportive of banning any weapon system they don’t own. We need to remember that this is the same Mitt Romney who supporter Massachusetts’s extremely restrictive gun control laws.

It is unfortunate that Romney will likely walk away with a great deal of support from the NRA convention. A large number of gun owners appear to have very short members, especially when a political candidate has an (R) after his name. After his speech I’m expecting a great deal of posts on various social networking sites from convention attendees proclaiming their support for Romney. Some may justify their support by claiming Romney isn’t great but he’s better than Obama while others will outright claim Romney is a strong proponent of gun rights. I do not have a short memory, in fact I rarely forget a transgression. Under no circumstance will I support Romney in any way, shape, or form. He’s scum, in fact he’s worse than scum, he’s a politician.

Don’t fall for the scam artist’s tricks. If you truly believe the Republican Party is our best chance of expanding gun rights then send a message to them, let them know you will not support them unless they have a strong proponent of gun rights. This means refusing to support Romney, even if you believe he’s “better” than Obama. When you settle for the “lesser” or two evils you just encourage both parties to run candidates who are evil.

Cook County’s “Assault Weapon” Ban to be Challenged

It appears that the Illinois Supreme Court will be hearing the challenge to Cook County’s “assault weapon” ban:

Gun rights advocates scored a victory Thursday when the Illinois Supreme Court decided to allow a challenge to Cook County’s assault weapons ban to proceed.

The court ruled that lower courts were wrong to throw out the challenge. The Supreme Court said it wants the trial court to hear evidence on whether assault weapons get the same Second Amendment protections as handguns.

[…]

The ban was challenged by three Cook County residents who said they had perfectly valid reasons to own the prohibited weapons, from hunting to target shooting to personal protection. They argued that the law was too vague and too broad, with little connection to the goal of increasing public safety.

This could be good news to the denizens of Cook County but it’s even month on how the Illinois Supreme Court will rule. Illinois has a hardon for gun control and are the last remaining state that offers no means for a citizen to legally carry a firearm. Furthermore, even though the Supreme Court shot down Chicago’s handgun ban city officials have been doing everything in their power to prevent residents from purchasing handguns (and any other type of firearm).

The Canadian Long Gun Registry is Dead

Good news for my northern neighbors, the Canadian long gun registry has finally been put down:

The Conservative government vowed during the 2011 election to eliminate the long-gun registry. On Wednesday night, the bill to officially end the registry had its final vote in the Senate — leaving only a signature from the Governor General needed to officially kill the registry.

That signature signing Bill C-19 into law should come Thursday morning.

By a vote of 50-27, senators approved the bill, marking the last political hurdle needed to kill the registry.

It’s good to see Canada finally killing off the $2.7 billion registry that didn’t manage to solve a single crime. Of course the battle isn’t entirely over as Quebec has made it known that they want to maintain their own registry:

The Quebec government has asked repeatedly that records on Quebec residents be transferred so the province can create its own registry, but the federal government has steadfastly rejected the request.

Hopefully the federal government continues to maintain tight control over the long gun registry data. If Quebec wants to implement its own registry make it cost them dearly for their stupidity.

But Remember, Guns are Bad News for Women

Linoge over at Walls of the City likes to point out the absurdity of the common anti-gunner myth that guns are bad news for women. Chalk another one up to those bad news tools for women:

An armed 16 year old entered a FL convenience store, demanded money and began firing at the female clerk. The clerk is a concealed weapons permit holder and drew a gun carried on her person. The clerk fired at least one shot at the suspect, hitting him. The would be robber later died from his injuries. More info in the video below.

And there was also another recent story that demonstrates the dangers firearms hold for women:

“First he tried to grab it, but I jerked it away and fired,” she said. “So I really didn’t have time to aim.”

She said one of the men said, “Oh, hell no,” and they took off running up North Shamrock Street.

[…]

She said, “Every woman needs to get a concealed weapons permit and carry a gun, because it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t be here.”

So much for criminals taking her gun and using it against her. I’m glad enough stories like these finally being reported for the average person to see how full of it anti-gunners are.