How Did You Get More Human Rights Than Me?
By tzo - March 11, 2011
Chicago’s now ex-mayor Daley is back in town. He’s talking about guns. Typically, those who want gun laws “abhor violence” and yet they use violence to try and get what they want. Ironic.
Yes, if there were no guns, there would be no gun violence. But let’s return to the real world for a moment.
Fewer guns may translate into less gun violence, but if I can’t possess a gun then the only gun violence that can occur in my world is gun violence against me. You know very well that gun laws do not prevent the bad guys from acquiring guns, because bad guys break laws. That’s why they’re the bad guys. Knowing they are armed, you recommend that I be unarmed? No thank you.
Now, do you want to force me to comply? Do you support gun-restriction legislation?
That would mean that if I wish to own a gun but you, the reader, do not want me to, then I cannot. I do not possess the proper authority to own a gun, you might claim, but the only way you can enforce your wish is to point a gun at me. Somehow, you possess the authority to wield a gun, either directly or through some agent to whom you have granted your authority, but I do not.
You obviously have been born with more human rights than have I. How did that happen?
I really do abhor violence, but I don’t think the rational solution is to wish it didn’t exist. It is also not rational to use violence in a misguided and ineffectual attempt to enforce nonviolence.
If my concerns for my own personal safety do not count against the utilitarian end of saving lives in society, please consider that many, many more people die every year due to car accidents than from being shot by guns.
If you want to deny my human right to defend myself by not allowing me to own a gun in the name of saving lives, then I insist on denying your “privilege” to travel by automobile. My action will save many more lives than yours.
If the end result—saving lives—is all that matters, how can you justify all the dead bodies that are a result of you insisting upon a mere convenience?
Credit: tzo, “How did you get more Human Rights than me?” with no copyright claimed. tzo is trying to build the case for the viability of human society built solely upon voluntary interactions.
http://dallas.libertarianleft.org/blog/2011/how-did-you-get-more-human-rights-than-me
Q: What do you call 1,000 Republican politicians chained together with 1,000 Democrat politicians at the bottom of the ocean? A: A good start.
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