In the aftermath of the horrendous shootings in Aurora, Colo., late last week, there has been the usual torrent about tightening and/or loosening regulations on guns. Within hours of the event, a woeful infographic made it to my Facebook news stream telling me how many people have been killed in the U.S. compared to a number of (much smaller) European countries. From there, the sociosphere (i.e., the entirety of social media) from the Brady Campaign to Ice-T have made statements about gun control.
Of course, a number of prominent libertarians have thrown their hats into the ring. As a libertarian myself, I’m always interested to read or hear what others of my ilk have to say about … well, everything. But from what I’ve seen on this issue so far so far, I’ve been a bit disappointed.
Gun-Free Barrels
First, there’s Eric Raymond, who is probably the least-libertarian libertarian I follow. (At least, some people think he fails the libertarian test.) On his blog, Raymond writes about gun-free fantasy zones, claiming that posting “Gun-Free Zone” signs simply turns places like the Aurora theater where last Thursday’s shootings occurred into barrels — that is, the kind in which it’s easy to shoot fish. I tend to agree that advertising that there are no guns on the premises attracts people who want easy kills. At least not having a sign leaves a question of doubt.
However, in addition to saying gun-free zones are bad company policy, Raymond goes on to say that people should actively violate such policies.
For myself, from now on I plan to willfully violate every “gun-free zone” policy I run across. If enough sane people do likewise, perhaps the next massacre can be prevented.
This seems an odd statement for a libertarian. One of the prime tenets of libertarianism is the sanctity of private property, yet Raymond advocates violating a property owner’s policy. True, private property starts with the self, and being able to protect oneself is critical to preserving property. Nevertheless, while individuals have the right to protect themselves, that right doesn’t extend to violating the rules set forth by another property owner on their own property. If Raymond doesn’t like that Cinemark makes its movie theaters gun-free zones, the right response is to stay off the property — not to disregard the property owner’s policy and carry a gun onto the property anyway.
Raymond’s bluster here is a serious misconception of what liberty means. Libertarians believe that business owners have the right to make their own policy, even bad policy. If Cinemark wants to continue to have a gun-free zone, then that’s their prerogative. It’s their own customers at risk, and sooner or later those customers will realize they are at risk. Carrying a gun into Cinemark’s gun-free zones is not Mr. Raymond’s prerogative (unless he decides to buy out the company, then he can do whatever he wants there). To advocate otherwise is a perversion of free enterprise.
“I’d’ve got ‘im”
Raymond implies that having other people with guns in the crowd might have prevented or minimized the casualties of the shootings at the Aurora movie theater. This was almost certainly the case in that same town this past April, when a man walked into a church and opened fire, killing one woman. An off-duty cop in the congregation shot the gunman, possibly saving many others in the church from being killed or wounded. Likewise, Raymond indicates, had someone in the theater had a gun last Thursday evening, he or she might have stopped the gunman before he killed a dozen people and wounding nearly sixty more.
While Raymond only alludes to this sort of wishful thinking, others have actually stated it. One such prominent libertarian is the Libertarian Party’s own presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, whom I admire quite a bit. In a recent interview, Johnson said, “It’s made me rethink getting a concealed carry permit for myself that if I would have been in that situation, that I personally may have been in a position to bring it to an end.” He goes on to say:
It’s not legal to have tear gas, and this guy had tear gas. So laws don’t prevent criminals from conducting their activity. It’s law-abiding citizens that in this case, if just someone would have been armed in that theater, perhaps they could have brought this tragedy to an end or made it less of a tragedy than it was.
As much as I hate to point it out, because I really like the guy, Johnson does a bait-and-switch here. The problem in Aurora wasn’t related to government or the legality of certain weapons. Colorado is a “shall issue” state with regard to concealed carry permits, which means as long as you fill out the forms correctly, pay a fee and don’t have a violent criminal record, getting a concealed carry permit is easy as pie. This is a good thing, and if ex-Governor Johnson thinks he should get a concealed carry permit, then he probably should go ahead and do it. Very little is stopping him from doing so.
However, having such a permit wouldn’t have helped him or anyone else in that theater, unless Johnson (like Raymond) is willing to violate Caremark’s policy of a gun-free zone. To perhaps belabor the point, for Johnson to have had a gun in the theater has nothing to do with getting a concealed carry permit, but rather with violating the policy of a private property owner. This seems out of balance for a presidential candidate who a month ago said that property rights are the foundation of this country.
The Liberty Response
The best response in all this has come from Dave Kopel, a law professor at Denver University and a blogger at one of my favorite legal blogs, The Volokh Conspiracy. In a USA Today article published last Friday, Kopel urged media outlets not to make the Aurora killer into a celebrity, saying:
Tomorrow, there will be front page pictures of the Aurora crime. Those should be pictures of the victims, not of the murderer.
Although Kopel was talking to news organizations (who, unfortunately, have mostly ignored the advice), I would apply his idea to the discussion here. This senseless, tragic event is not something that should be used to badger people into changing laws, however one might want to change them. We do need to look at how these kinds of tragedies can be prevented in the future, but not in ways that eschew property rights or give false credence to shoulda-coulda-woulda hypotheticals.
Instead, let’s focus on the victims. Let’s acknowledge that sometimes bad things just happen, and no amount of laws or policies can stop them. Let’s remember that we’re all individuals, and that it’s most important to preserve our individual rights in times of tragedy when politicians and pundits would take them away. Even well-meaning politicians and pundits. Especially well-meaning politicians and pundits.
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