Posted on 09/03/2009 9:58:50 AM PDT by Captain Kirk
The controversy about carrying guns in public is not new. In 1967, however, the political alignments on this issue were completely different. Many conservatives (and others) objected when the Black Panthers insisted on exercising this right. In response, Governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act banning the carrying of guns in public.
Many defenders of liberty have felt the need to reflexively defend gun-toting citizens at these rallies. This is a mistake, or at least an incomplete response. A far more productive contribution to an otherwise debate is to emphasize privatization as a solution. We can only find a just and efficient resolution by treating this as a tragedy of the commons issue.
Both sides have a point but neither can ever be satisfied as long as thoroughfares, parks, and other venues for town halls or rallies continue to be government owned. Under private property, the issue becomes a relatively simple one: the owner decides who can carry guns. The problem (to the extent it is a problem) arises only when we take private property out of the equation. In the absence of privatization, the controversy will never end until one side or the other forces its will over the commons through the brute force of legislation.
(Excerpt) Read more at hnn.us ...
If you can legally have a weapon in your car you should be able to legally carry the same weapon on your person walking down the road. For example; Say you are in an area where hunting is permitted and it is a short walk from where you are staying to the property where you will hunt. You should be able to carry as you travel by foot over a public road.
The issue here is private property. Do I have a right to "keep in bear arms" in your house or back yard without your permission? BTW, I agree that you do have this right on government land but that is not the same issue.
I believe that the right to own and control property is one of the unalienable rights. However, I also have a right to the integrity of my person and herein I would draw an important distinction that conservatives should be attuned to.
Does the right to control my own property extent to being able to post a blanket refusal for permission to enter for people of a certain race, or people who carry HIV? Can I deny entry to all females? Or just to trans-sexuals? We go to great lengths to prohibit such discrimination. We allow it on where the property owner can demonstrate a compelling need for such a policy and even then it must be as minimally discriminatory as possible.
People who carry concealed firearms under legal authority do so for defensive reasons. If I have something concealed upon my person, in the personal spaces upon my own body, what I have there is of no concern to anyone else. To allow otherwise is to allow the violation of my personal space for purposes by the property owner of verification.
Should we, for example, allow a property owner to forbid entry to females wearing tampons or panty liners? That would be absurd. Such items of female hygiene are only worn in a concealed manner for their own personal needs. Such a person would never consider the public display of those items, except under extraordinary circumstances.
My legally concealed weapon is absolutely no different in principle. The legal environment is such that it will only be displayed in public under exigent circumstances. Those circumstances are by definition life and death and would only follow the failure of security measures on the part of the property owner, a failure that puts his guests at risk of injury or death. On this particular point it must be given special consideration with respect to the property rights of others.
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