And 80% of Libertarians would blow his head off if they had a gun and could do so without putting a hostage or something like that in danger. We tend to have far less qualms about retaliating in self-defense than conservatives. That's one of the reasons why you won't see a libertarian having compassion for a heroin addict who committs a violent crime. We blame the a$$hole, not the drug for the crime.
Liberals and Libertaires must have led sheltered lives, if they really believe that stuff.
Leftists, yes. My libertarianism is the result of seeing the herd-mentality imposed on most of my peers by religious-totalitarianism and wanting none of it. You have no right to legislate away the product of my labor to fund your "poverty war" programs, to support your elderly who never bothered to save for their retirement nor your socialized healthcare for the poor. The only legitimate functions of government are providing basic infrastructure like roads, military, police and courts.
The level of corruption in both leftist and rightist dominated government in this country would make Ken Lay blush yet most people don't have the will to reform. They think they also have the right to continue grafting more of the wages of productive workers for their petty little programs. They think it is legitimate because they voted for it. Pure rubbish. Democracy is the most sinister form of might-makes-right. If government were limited to its true rightful functions people could be chosen at random from the law-abiding population to serve 1 year terms in Congress/State assembly. Such people would have far more balls when dealing with government corruption because they'd be coming in as some average joe who has had to spend most of his/her life funding it.
80 % is far to low.
Libertarians do not believe in the "initiation of violence", but we are well armed for defense, much more so than the average run of the mill conservative, and we are MUCH more against any laws against any personal weapon.
There are many conservative that are against private ownership of assault weapons, machine guns, dynamite, etc, that Libertarians, and all of American society for the first 150-200 years of our existance, saw no problems with.
That's why we don't turn women who have abortions into victims of abortion!!!