Today’s Libertarian Party is not the same party your father knew. The party known for promoting civil liberties, minimal government regulation (including ending drug laws), free market capitalism and the end of welfare seems to have wavered in its original mission. This election cycle, the Libertarians have enjoyed extra support with all of the early “Never Trump” talk. More people have looked into the Libertarians, but not everyone – especially gun owners – likes what they’ve found.
First, The People Of The Gun are concerned about the ticket’s anti-gun vice-presidential nominee, gun-hating former Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Then we learn they’ve welcomed a Moms Demand Action spokeswoman as their Delaware Campaign Chair.
Now, the head of the Cato Institute – a libertarian think tank – has come out in support of gun control. What in the world is going on among the Libertarian Party? Have they sold their souls to the devil in exchange for a shot at some power in Washington D.C.?
Vice-President William Weld?
Former Massachusetts Governor William Weld claims he’s solidly pro-gun. His actions, both while in office and since, tell a far different story.
He’s come out supporting gun bans for people on secret government lists. He’s called America’s favorite rifle, the AR-15, a “weapon of mass destruction.” He’s supported gun rationing and hinted for the abolition of handgun ownership. He says those handguns are an even bigger problem than modern sporting rifles.
Libertarian VP Candidate William F. Weld Continues to be Anti-Gun
As governor of Massachusetts, William Weld supported various gun control schemes, including a ban on semi-automatic firearms. Unfortunately, and despite being the Libertarian candidate for vice president, Weld continues his anti-gun ways.
In July 2016, while NRA and other groups concerned with civil liberties were hard at work fighting legislation that would have stripped Americans of their Second Amendment rights without due process based merely on their placement on a secret government watch list, Weld expressed support for such measures.
In an interview with the Washington Post Editorial Board, Weld said of watch list gun control legislation:
I think the Susan Collins stuff looks good. I mean, it’s hard for me, uh, having proposed this super-duper task force getting bits of information from all over to say, it wouldn’t lie with good grace in my mouth to say ‘no, don’t use the terrorist watch list as a source of such information.’ So I would go with that.
In an August interview with Revolt.tv, Weld reiterated this position. When asked about what can be done “to control this flow of guns,” Weld responded, “you shouldn’t have anybody who’s on a terrorist watch list be able to buy any gun at all.”
At another point in the interview Weld characterized commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines as potential weapons of mass destruction. Displaying a level of ignorance usually attendant to politicians carrying the endorsement of the Brady Campaign, Weld told the interviewer:
The five-shot rifle, that’s a standard military rifle. The problem is if you attach a clip to it so it can fire more shells and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon. And those are independent criminal offenses. That’s when they become essentially a weapon of mass destruction.
Weld went on to suggest to the interviewer that both handguns and AR-15s are a “problem,” stating, “The problem with handguns is probably even worse than the problem of the AR-15.”
Moms Demand Action spokeswoman as Delaware State Campaign Chairwoman?
Yes, Gary Johnson almost tripped over himself appointing Melissa Joan Hart, a Hollywood pop tart and Moms Demand Action spokeswoman as his Delaware Campaign Chair.
Melissa Joan Hart, star of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Melissa & Joey, and Christian-right drama God’s Not Dead 2, has just been appointed the Connecticut chairwoman of the 2016 presidential campaign of Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson.
“I want to break away from this two-party system and I think it’s important for people to know that there’s another candidate out there who really toes the line between Democrat and Republican,” Hart, who has a residence in Connecticut, toldPeople. “I mean he’s libertarian. But socially he’s liberal, but fiscally conservative … [Johnson] was on a border state, so if you want to talk about immigration, he’s the guy.”
Here’s the story about her and her role as spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action and a plug for her gun control video on Facebook.
Cato Institute head supporting gun control?
Bringing the Libertarians full circle in their support for government intrusion into civil liberties is Robert Levy, head of the libertarian think tank The Cato Institute. In a new initiative, he’s pitching gun bans, magazine bans, and the end of the private sale of firearms without the government’s blessings.
…That said, some weapons can be banned. For example, automatic weapons have, for all practical purposes, been banned since 1934. But banning popular semi-automatic rifles, merely because they have a military-type attachment that doesn’t affect their lethality, makes no sense. The task, therefore, is to identify semi-automatic weapons that are not commonly used and not needed for lawful purposes. The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban went too far, but a more limited version might be viable.
2. High-capacity magazines.
…To my knowledge, no actual or potential (civilian) victim has fired dozens of rounds in self-defense. Perhaps that suggests a ban on magazines with more than, say, 20 rounds.
3. Universal background checks.
…It may be time to revisit and, if necessary, fine-tune Manchin-Toomey.
Robert Levy is chairman of the Cato Institute.
Just yesterday there’s news of a jewelry store owner in Texas who faced off against four armed robbers. Dozens and dozens of rounds were fired and the store owner was darn glad he had an AK-47 rifle on hand to save his life and the lives of other innocents. Robert Levy must not read the news or know how to use Google.
Imagine what would have happened if the jewelry store owner – who had been robbed at gunpoint before – had been holding a daisy instead of that rifle.
So today’s Libertarians appear willing to sell their souls to the devil to finally get a seat at the table in Washington. Keep that in mind when you step into the voting booth in November, or the next time you get a phone call or email from the Cato Institute asking you for financial support. Given all the enthusiasm for gun control among ostensibly Libertarian leadership, is it any wonder why the Libertarian Party continues on its path of insignificance and irrelevance?
“libertarian” has never been able to figure out if they are luddites, anarchists, or closet fascist. But always potheads. Just quit playing games girls and declare dimtard. They will share their pot.
‘Nuff said. Anything I could add to that would be largely redundant.
The people mentioned in this article aren’t libertarians, not real ones at least. One might call them LINOs. I can assure you that real libertarians are not at all fascistic. Fascism is the complete opposite of every fundamental libertarian principle. The unifying factor among libertarians is a deeply held respect and desire for individual liberty. Yes some of us are anarchists, since they reject government on principle as an encroachment on personal liberty, others are minarchists, believing in a small, limited government that exists solely to defend the liberties of the people.
Gun control is actually a pretty good litmus test to determine whether or not someone is actually libertarian. If they support it, they’re not.
So much ^^^^THIS!
These morons can not understand an open border/mass immigration of largely marxist people will result in them being replaced/out numbered and out voted, they view humanity as all wanting the same things, valuing the same ideals with is the ultimate collectivism.
They do not value gun rights as their views on immigration ensure the death of the 2nd Amendment as well as all freedoms as the leftist use immigration to rig the system by adding a never ending hordes of welfare voters.
Libertarians like Rothbard,Cantwell, Molynunex and Hoppe are real Libertarians, the rest of these sub humans are largely leftists doing what they do, inflating and taking over a competing movement.
Libertarians who can read, have always been anarchists. And always will be. It’s good to know how to read, sometimes.
As for the “Man, It really sucks to be so free. Why can’t Massa start robbing me and telling me what to do and stuff” faction, they hardly differ from the “Let’s Stomp Our Boots for Dear Leader” indoctrinati, that clutters up the rest of our degenerate, post civilized polity.
Excellent point.
Very good article and very good title. I’m 50 and the Libertarian Party of today is not what it used to be. I always stuck with the Constitution Party (except for this year as the current presidential candidate is another “patriotic” Putin worshiper) but I would often support some Libertarians. After watching Reason Magazine’s Editor-In Chief, Nick Gillespie, talk 2nd Amendment with some “gun expert” a few years ago, I saw a continuing trend of the leftward movement on gun rights by Libertarians as the interview takes an “Elmer Fudd” take on firearms rights. Gillespie, who is extremely talented in defending Libertarian principles (you may have seen him as a regular guest on Judge Napolitano’s show before it was cancelled by the Faux Network), basically just shook his head in agreement during the whole thing only added that he is not into guns as when he went shooting he found that it was not a pleasant experience.
WHAT DO YOU (AND OTHERS) THINK ABOUT THIS BELOW?
I’m starting to feel that the Libertarian Party’s real purpose is to drive true conservative groups to the left on many issues that conservatives would not have even considered in the past in support of ultimately electing leftists.
Back 25 years ago, diehard conservatives just wanted to have their rights and be left alone and that’s when Libertarians became favorable to them over most Republican as RINOs became discovered. In the 1990s, conservatives started to say “Hey, be gay if you want but leave my gun rights alone.” – “Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.” Conservatives were tempted (or courted) to give in a bit on gay rights, open borders, decreased military spending, abortion, marijuana deregulation, etc. in exchange for Libertarian “supposed” support for gun rights, decreased or elimination of most taxes, decreased government regulation of all types, etc.
So where are we now? We have the Republican Party largely supporting LGBT rights, abortion has softened in the party platform, many Republicans are no longer for a strong military, gun rights are defined by the Heller Decision instead of what the Founding Fathers stated, AND THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY AND NOW THE CATO INSTITUTE HAS MOVED WAY MORE TO THE LEFT. Most conservatives are no longer opposed to gays in government office and the gays who did get elected are leftists NOT Libertarians and are banning gun rights everywhere they can for the most part – just look what has happened with gun rights in the past few months with gay government leadership in Oregon and Massachusetts. Even though we have had some Libertarian-leaning Republicans like Rand Paul fighting for the Bill of Rights it looks like overall that we may have been “played” by the Libertarian movement.
>> We have the Republican Party largely supporting LGBT rights
That’s a nice joke.
… oh wait. You’re serious.
These “Libertarians” are actually statists. That they insist on calling themselves libertarians is intellectually dishonest.
Simply put, you can’t be a statist and be a libertarian.
From Wikipedia:
“In political science, statism is the belief that the state should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism. An individual who supports very limited intervention by the state is a minarchist.””
The time for an “Objectivist” party has come (well, really long past due). But it’ll never succeed until the motor of the world has stopped first.
…the good, and bad news is that it’s slowing down at an alarming rate.
O2
Well, there are Objectivist groups all over the country. They’d love to have you join them sometime.
They even have national conferences…
1) How does a Libertarian get elected governor of Massachusetts of all places? Isn’t that kind of like a member of the Green Party getting elected Governor of Texas?
2) What is Robert Levy thinking? Aren’t Libertarians supposed to be all about resistance to tyranny and all of that? The Cato Institute I believe was one of the right-wing organizations back in the 1990s that came out against the individual mandate that the Republicans were proposing as an alternative healthcare proposal to Hillarycare at the time.
He was a Republican when he was governor, h’s been a Libertarian for about 5 minutes
He was a RINO before hitching his wagon to Johnson.
As a Libertarian the problem with Libertarians is that tons of people that identify as Libertarians are different kinds of libertarians. There are even “socialist libertarians”. I’m not going to no true Scotsman them, but the party is the most split party. I’m realizing for that reason alone they’ll never win a major election.
If that makes sense at all. I’m a right Libertarian, which is kind of like a fiscal conservative who doesn’t care what other people do in their personal lives. That’s how I define it, however after this year and election cycle though, I’m leaving the party.
Every single candidate running, Trump, Hillary, Stein, and Johnson has some form of gun control support in their policy. Party doesn’t matter anymore.
Keep your powder dry.
Libertarianism is about individual freedom. Many these days call themselves libertarian because it sounds “cool” and “different”. That’s the problem.
Libertarians can only, by definition, be anarchists or minarchists. No government or small government.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe has some interesting thoughts on Democracy. I lot of his though boils down to the liberty of a people being directly proportional to the respect of personal property rights by a government.
Anyhow, that means you do need a strong (but narrow) government, along with a high respect for the law (which should coincide with rather few laws).
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the guy who said, “There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society.”
“social order”!
So much for individual freedoms.
Many Libertarians seem to care very much about illegal drugs or same sex marriage. They seem to care very little about statism, taxation, Obamacare, and gun control. Libertarianism has turned into a few social issues.
But duude! If you and the government and the gungrabbers can just light a kind spleef together, you’ll learn to set aside all your differences. And realize all there really is, is (same sex?) looooooove…..
The problem with that so-called social liberal/ fiscal conservative halfbreed is that the social liberal part always comes creeping back to get on someone’s back and force them to do something and into their pockets to force them to pay for something. At that point, the fiscal part vanishes and you’re left with plains old statist liberal.
Oh, really? Sight your evidence for this assertion. Or just explain how it is true for me. Many people who call themselves libertarians do have such failures of logic but that is anecdotal evidence for the species as a whole.
Like claiming to be a Libertarian while holding the position that a Christian baker/photographer should be forced by law to provide services for gay weddings…for example.
At least that hold true in the case of Johnson, which, in addition to gun control, is how I know he is no libertarian.
I know what you mean, it is quite simple. What I am saying is that it is not common among people who have even the slightest bit of understanding of the subject.
If you want to have some fun, ask some of these “libertarians” what they think of Freedom of Association and whether they support anti-discrimination laws.
Libertarianism in the current year is about weed and sodomy. Nothing else.
Of course they don’t support anti-discrimination laws!
But it’s sure as heck not PC to mention that in public.
That isn’t the zinger that you think it is. Apparently you haven’t read Reason magazine. I consider myself a libertarian and I sure as hell support freedom of association and I don’t know any other libertarian who don’t.
My thought as well.
I think any person or group should be able to discriminate against anyone they like. As the NAACP, Congressional black caucus, etc support wholeheartedly. Problem?
>> As a Libertarian the problem with Libertarians is that tons of people that identify as Libertarians are different kinds of libertarians. There are even “socialist libertarians”.
I’m one of those people.
Politically, as an organized movement, socialist anarchists of various brands predate capitalist anarchists and minarchists, so “No True Scotsman” would probably not go the way you wish here 🙂
That said, both groups generally maintain the separation as desirable, and so it’s usually very obvious whether any particular person self-identifying as libertarian is on the left or on the right, economically – they’ll let you know real fast.
In terms of how left libertarianism works, it’s really pretty simple. It asserts that the notion of private property is an abstract social concept (as opposed to personal property – that which you actually physically use or occupy). Basically, if you live in Florida, but own a patch of land in Montana, all you really own is a piece of paper that the society chooses to recognize as a valid claim to that land.
But it’s up to the society to do so, and protect your property from infringement by others, or not. If it does so, either as a matter of law (for minarchism) or social conventions (for anarchism), then the abstract concept becomes implemented. But if the society refuses to recognize the abstract notion, it never manifests – you can go around saying that you own the land, but if the government (for minarchism) or everyone else in the society (for anarchism) disagree, your opinion doesn’t really matter much.
Now, the only distinction between socialist and capitalist varieties of libertarianism is whether they believe the society and/or the government should recognize such property rights or not. Everything else follows from there.
Consequently, neither is a self-contradictory ideology. They start with different sets of axioms, and are self-consistent within the boundaries set by those axioms.
Beautiful!
Legitimate personal/private property falls under the “fruits (and derivatives) of one’s labor” description. Land, not so much.
That argument is idiotic. You have to be able to own land own a home, a business, a farm, etc. if you paid for the land, you own it, same as any other property. If i leave my gun collection in Florida and I’m in Montana i don’t forfeit the rights to my property. The same is true with land. Left-libertarian arguments are juvenile at best.
Your opinion is irrelevant in this case. Ultimately, it’s what the society decides. You can believe that you own it all you want, and no-one will care, until someone else decides to use it. What then? If no-one other than you believes that you own it, then no-one will protect those guns when another person takes them and uses them.
On a more abstract level, this stems from the fact that there’s no such thing as ownership in nature – there’s only possession. Ownership is purely a social construct, and as such, the forms that it takes and the limits that it has are defined by the society.
This isn’t even a uniquely left anarchist thought, for that matter. Here’s Jefferson, whom I think no-one in a sane mind could accuse of being left-leaning, writing in 1813:
“It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all… It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.”
Note that this doesn’t mean that you have to accept such a radical arrangement. The point is not to say that all property rights are bad and the perfect social arrangements are ones where they don’t exist (although there are certainly many anarchists that believe that). Rather, if you acknowledge that property is a social construct, it becomes one of the things which society can legitimately adjust as need to produce the best outcome for all – because property rights are not natural rights, they’re subject to societal regulation. So, for example, insofar as private property provides stability and motivation to people, it’s a good thing. But when a single person can acquire property rights to so much that they can effectively monopolize large areas or markets to the detriment of the rest, it’s a bad thing, and we can introduce regulation to prevent it. The precise amount and nature of that regulation can be discussed – it’s the principle that matters, and that distinguishes left libertarianism from right libertarianism (the latter generally viewing property rights as natural rights, and therefore sacrosanct).
So basically the Green party has rebranded and folded into the Libertarians, while actual Libertarians are… Sitting this one out? I don’t know. Freedom Caucus and hold-your-nose-and-vote-Republican?
I’m just hoping all this left-leaning stuff is a play to steal the far left away from Hillary, given her big business ties. They may end up a spoiler for both parties (which wouldn’t do anything). They drum up enough support from the #Bernouts it might actually hurt the Dems.
“So basically the Green party has rebranded and folded into the Libertarians,…”
The ‘Greens’ have morphed into ‘Watermelons’
What’s a ‘Watermelon’ you ask?
Green on the outside and Red (Socialist, Marxist, Communist) on the inside…
Rothbard turns in his grave.
The Libertarian Party has become largely leftist since the 2012 election. Sad.
It really is no different than seeing a formerly intelligent and earnest friend become a dope-chasing stoner.
Same reasons, same results.
Was it better back in the days when it was cheering South African apartheid?
Yeah, maybe if Cruz or Paul were on top of the ticket i’d listen to this, but Trump is an anti who continues to show a lack of understanding on the gun issue. He literally called for a no fly list gun ban during the debate last week, when are y’all gonna realize he’s not one of us.
No, he didn’t. Context matters.
Jimmy, you are listening to lies. Who will benefit from you believing this crap? Cruz? Paul? Johnson? Who? THINK!
What the hell is going on with Levy and Cato?
For those who don’t know, Cato put together the Heller case and won at the District Court and Circuit Court levels, and Levy was responsible for financing the case. Gura didn’t take over until the SCOTUS level, but he got all the pub.
And now Levy’s sticking the knife in our backs?
I wondered the same thing. Maybe he wants more invitations to the right dinner parties? Like Justice Roberts?
Levy is might be just another example of how power corrupts. He might have started out with the idea to defend the rights of the “people” from government abuse; but after sitting in his own position of “power and authority” for a while, he has come to be more in sympathy with the statist need for power and control, rather than defending us from the abuse of such.
Either way, at this point, he is showing himself to be just another a boot licking ‘judenrat”; trying to convince the rest of us that slavery is freedom, and that to compromise our freedom, is to be “reasonable”, rather than in reality, we would just be plain cowards. .
Judging by accompanying picture of Levy, he’s gone full Nosferatu. No longer safe for anyone to be around.
This is why I went from voting Johnson in 2012 to voting Trump in 2016. Screw the sellouts in the Libertarian party.
This forum is no exception, self proclaimed libertarians here have posted they support government control over personal health care decisions.
Way too many people of the “I don’t want to be regulated, but I don’t mind regulating you” mindset.
Nice try.
Just because abortions are performed by people with medical degrees using surgical tools, that doesn’t make it “health care” any more than a DD boob job is health care.
No. PG2 is just keen on his “right” to roll around in public being a Typhoid Mary.
Lol, says the guy who flees when he’s asked questions on a subject he pretends to have some knowledge on.
No, I just ignore cretins who have no idea how the human immune system works.
Lol, right serge, I forgot you know a guy that knows a guy that went to medical school, so you’re an expert. Funny how you use the EXACT same emotional and empty ad hominem tactics that gun grabbers use, and you duck, dodge, and run for cover when you face any questions that require a factual answer. So predictable.
And?
What you need to concern yourself with,is whether you have the right to defend yourself against Typhoid Mary, should she pose a threat to you and yours.
Yes. Yes I do. I have an inalienable right to strap to a table anybody stupid enough to not get vaccinated and put my family in danger and pump whatever vaccine is necessary into their vein. I also have the right to do this at gunpoint if necessary. Your right to make medical decisions ends what those decisions affect people other than your ignorant ass. Don’t like it? Move to a deserted island.
Serge wants a North Korea style medical police state so he can feel safe….but he pretends to support some other individual rights like owning a pistol in case you get mugged. Whatever serge, you’re an imposter.
One last newsflash serge, my rights, and no one else’s rights end where your feelings begin. You highlight exactly why the 2A exists; so the people can protect themselves from the “gunpoint” statist tyranny you are cheerleading for. You’re a fraud serge.
That wasn’t even on the radar screen but thanks for playing.
I don’t care whether you call it health care or not. I call it legal, and I call it none of your business unless you are a pregnant woman. All the silly excuses in the world will not change that. And if you manage to stop medical professionals with training and tools, the procedure will be performed by drunks with coathangers, just as for thousands of years, while you congratulate yourself for causing so many women to die. And it *STILL* will be none of your business, or mine. You seek control, just like others we abhor.
Sorry if I don’t particularly care about people willing to commit infanticide.
Yep, a woman can come out of an abortion clinic; and be arrested and put in jail for decades for putting an illegal substance in her body that hurts no one but herself , because the “right to privacy” only allows the murder of the most innocent and vulnerable among us.
“Sorry if I don’t particularly care about people willing to commit infanticide.”
But you’ll still defend to death their right to do so, right?
No. They have no such right. But please, point out the portion of the CotUS that protects your right to murder another human being.
It’s typical Demokkkrat argument.
In the 1800s they didn’t consider anybody other than whites to be human.
These days, they simply replaced “negro” with “fetus” and kept using the same slogans.
The real right of the child to live trumps any imagined right to murder them.
“The real right of the child to live trumps any imagined right to murder them.”
But the right of both the child and it’s wannabe murderer, to not suffer under a government sufficiently intrusive and totalitarian to have any idea whether a parental consent murder of a child too helpless to complain actually took place, in practice renders the child’s right unactionable. Young, helpless children need parents to look after them. If their parents fail to do so, whether due to incompetence or malice, it simply sucks to be those parents’ child. Like life is wont to do sometimes.
Some may have. That doesn’t mean you get to paint all of us that way.
I didn’t say all have. Some definitely have.
Were Hillary not the Democratic candidate (and were the Supreme Court balance for the next generation not hinging on this election), then with Trump as the Republican nominee, I would have likely voted Libertarian, but then the Libertarians run Johnson and Weld, . . . so it’s back to voting Trump.
Process of elimination makes sense, to me.
Weld is a democrat hack and Johnson is a stoned, no nothing nutburger.
*know-nothing.
Anyways,
Johnson 2016
I am embroiled in, shall we call them “spirited discussions”, from time to time and I cannot find the reference which proclaims that law-abiding defenders shoot/injure bystanders at a rate significantly lower than law enforcement officers. Does anyone know the reference for that?
U_S, I have heard that given as gospel for quite a few years, but have no idea where it came from. I suspect the FBI reports would be the only credible source.
The best I’ve been able to find is that in one study, only 2% of criminals shot by civilians were misidentified as criminals, while 11% of those shot by police were misidentified as criminals. This archived version of the National Center for Policy Analysis website (http://web.archive.org/web/20080513031245/http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st176/s176d.html) mentions these stats and cites this: Ibid; Kleck, Point Blank; Kleck, “Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force,” Social Problems, 1988, Vol. 35, pp. 1-21; and Gary Kleck and Karen McElrath, “The Effects of Weaponry on Human Violence,” Social Forces, Vol. 67, No. 3, March 1991, pp. 669-92.
I wouldn’t rely on that unless you can actually obtain those papers and have the time to find the stats in them (lest we have another Robert Farago situation; each time he keeps citing a study claiming it says 80% of murders are gang-related, when the study makes no mention of gangs at all).
Truthfully, I suspect the “civilians hit less innocents bystanders” comes from a combination of the more thoroughly researched/reported statistics relating to CCW holders being more law abiding (lower murder, rape, etc rates) than police officers (for example: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2814691) and the constant flow of reports of police (especially New York police) hitting innocents bystanders. I think these two things may be getting confused and blended together, making people think there is a study out there claiming this. or maybe I’m wrong and I just haven’t been able to find the study.
There’s a reason that so many of us libertarians are not members of the Libertarian Party. The party leadership seems to have lost the point of the whole thing a long time ago. Great, we get someone calling themselves a Libertarian in the public spotlight – but that doesn’t do us any good if that person has zero understanding of the philosophy of libertarianism.
DING!!!
Double ding.
Just from scrolling through some of these comments, it’s becoming very apparent to me that many of my fellow TTAG readers know less than nothing about libertarian thought.
We gun owners get so infuriated when the anti-gunners have the nerve to talk about guns while making it painfully obvious that they know nothing about them. Many here have demonstrated a similar lack of understanding of libertarianism, yet here I am, reading dozens of strong opinions on libertarianism that seem to be derived entirely from a small handful of biased articles.
You can’t just read a couple articles bashing Johnson or Weld (and no, I’m not defending either of them), assume you understand the ideology, and then start commenting as if you have it all figured out. You have to read. Books. Whole books.
Remember how pissed we all got when we heard, “It’s the shoulder thing that goes up”? How about we practice what we preach?
#thelibertarianpartyisover
This entire election has infuriated me the most for how my party has completely imploded into virtue signalling BS and constant excuses for Gary Johnson’s very VERY anti-libertarian policies.
And you know what? If Donald Trump’s version of the Republican party is the future then I’ll take it gladly compared to ANYTHING from Johnson, Stein, and OBVIOUS anything from Hillary ‘We Came, we saw, he died’ Clinton.
If only I could live in your fantasy world that more guns make us safe when statistically they’re not.
The 5 states with the highest “number” of violent crimes
1. Vermont
2. Texas
3. Florida
4. Maine
5. Alaska
Troll been getting high with Gary Johnson?
What you just posted is factually untrue and so easily refuted you have to know it’s just a very poor troll attempt.
Do better, man. At least make it sporting!
Some folks will say anything.
I commented one place that there was a saying, “An armed society is a polite society.” Some fellow answered in all caps that I was lying that there was no such saying and that the saying was “An unarmed society is a a polite society.” I found that rather funny.
Willy_Lunchmeat/A_Concerned_American, is this your new handle?
Care to look at cities instead?
Vermont? Alaska? you have to know this is a joke, right? Nobody is that stupid, even when they try!
If you truly prefer Trump’s platform to Johnson’s, how are you a libertarian? Given that Trump is a conservative authoritarian populist…
Good God, that picture of Levy…is he part bat? I bet he can hear what I’m thinking with those things.
Shame about the liberal-atarions, I used to like what they had to say, ’cause it was about personal freedom and less gov’t intrusion and lower spending.
I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised, in the end, seems no matter which royalty is in power, they never want the peasants to have arms. Nothing but tax bags, we are, to be milked, and tossed aside.
Screw him and his dumbo ears.
I’ve been registered LP since I was able to vote in the 1990s. So I’ve been involved with the Party long enough to see the “infection” kick in.
Back when I signed up, it was really about the individual rights plank. Drugs, guns, minimal-to-no-taxation, etc.
However, disgust with the whole two-party system has led to an influx of people with different priorities into the Party, some (and maybe a lot of them) want to do it just to sound cool.
Truth be told, a lot of them are Bernie Bros who just want their weed. They don’t care for guns, they don’t like guns, and they aren’t averse to taxation.
The LP did “alright” by having Johnson in 2012. He seemed to be on point with most of the platform, and still is from where I sit. I saw him speak in Miami, and the gun question came up – and he unequivocally stated his support for the Second Amendment. However, like most politicians, he paid lip service to the issue of terrorists and crazy folk getting guns, though he had no solution to the problem when he spoke. It was to get cheers from the lefties in the room.
However, Weld seems to be the poison pill here. He’s been waffling on guns. At the same Miami meeting, he admitted to being “mistaken” on his gun point of view (this was after the Revolt interview) but I kind of felt it was to appease the pro-2A people in the audience. I’m still OK with Johnson, I just am really suspicious with Weld.
Weld has led to a lot of Libertarians to question their party affiliation, especially if they are ardent supporters of the Second Amendment. Johnson himself was controversial during the LP convention – Austin Petersen is closer in ideology to the LP platform, but they selected Gary due to visibility.
It’s been a tumultuous year for the D, the R, and the L. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greens are having issues too. Jill loves to get arrested, ya know.
For me, I see other, very obscure parties out there that match up better with firearms and individual rights. But if the LP doesn’t have a chance, these parties won’t see much of anything in the press for decades.
“Weld seems to be the poison pill here. He’s been waffling on guns.”
He’s as anti-gun as they come. A lot of TTAG commenters ragged on Mitt Romney as a RINO, but Weld makes Romney seem like Jeff Cooper.
He didn’t say a word when Johnson came out in support of the Second Amendment when I saw them speak. But that doesn’t mean much, in reality.
If there ever was a presidential election cycle where I would do as I have done in the past (Vote L) this would be at the top of the list. And then you see who the L candidates are and what positions they’re taking…. well I never thought I would do it but I guess I’ll just have to hold my nose and vote Trump.
People have repeatedly contested my assertion that, from my experience in the Libertarian Party in California in the 90’s, that {L,l}ibertarians are about dope, buttsecks and cheating on your taxes, and that they’ve never really cared about gun rights.
Some people have made the logical fallacy of “no true Scotsman” ie, that “real” libertarians are four-square against gun control. No one has yet articulated a test by which we may discern the “real” libertarians from the phonies, though.
Now we have no less a libertarian than Mr. Levy (above): He’s a guy who helped fund and bring Heller to the SCOTUS. In other words, prior to joining Cato and being infected with the “libertarian virus,” he was a strong RKBA proponent, and put major money where his mouth was.
And after eight years in association with the “professional libertarians” of the Cato institute, a bunch of debate society poindexters if ever there were one, you get the above.
Tell me again what friends of liberty the libertarians are. Go ahead. I’ll sit back, pour myself a wee dram, and listen with rapt attention.
This election cycle has been very good for one thing: Figuring out who really hates America. From the stuffed shirts at National Review to Cato, I’ve been making a list and it looks pretty bad for the smarter-than-us set in DC/NYC.
Awesome post.
+1!
Do you propose that Trump is a champion of personal freedom and or fiscal restraint? This is a sincere rather than rhetorical question.
I’d like to know as well. There don’t seem to be any in the politics at the moment.
Trump is doing the smart thing to get elected.
And that’s being ambiguous on his positions. Modify your spiel to the audience you are currently speaking to. Let people *think* you see their viewpoint.
Take southern border illegal immigration. The bottom line is, the Left wants them in the country for their voter base, and the Right wants them in the country for their cheap labor.
I can’t figure out why they won’t cook up some type of non-citizenship ‘guest worker’ status for these folks and collect their taxes from their labor. I understand that quite a few Mexican villages send groups of their youths up here to co-habituate an apartment or house they use for their base while they get to work so they can send money back home to their village.
I have zero problem with folks that want to work so they can better the lives of their families back home.
“I have zero problem with folks that want to work so they can better the lives of their families back home.”
Neither do I, so long as they are in the country and working legally. There is no reason the groups you describe cannot be accommodated, but ignored just does not get it. We need to control our borders. We apparently have a need to control every damn thing else, but never mind the borders.
“Let people *think* you see their viewpoint.”
Has he done this on the 2A?
Rothbard, Mises, Friedman.
In this case the No True Scotsman argument is kind of appropriate. The logical fallacy only comes in when you try to defend a generalization.
In this case, libertarian is a descriptor based on political beliefs. Therefore if a politician does not adhere to those beliefs, they are by DEFINITION not a libertarian. Ascribing values to the term “libertarian” isn’t the same as making generalizations about libertarians.
And just because they call themselves one doesn’t mean we have to take them at face value. After all I could call myself President of the United States, but that doesn’t mean I can kick Mr. Obama out of his house.
Of course if the label becomes onerous enough (Gary Johnson is doing a lot to make this happen), some might reject the label even if it technically applies to them. Because nobody wants to associate themselves with Gary Johnson’s crackpot brand of libertarianism.
Classical libertarians are getting forced out into anarchism.
“Classical libertarians are getting forced out into anarchism.”
Best news I’ve heard in a long time! Perhaps this Johnson fella ain’t so bad, after all!
>> Some people have made the logical fallacy of “no true Scotsman” ie, that “real” libertarians are four-square against gun control. No one has yet articulated a test by which we may discern the “real” libertarians from the phonies, though.
You have just articulated that test yourself. Real libertarians are in favor of all individual liberties. If someone claims to be one, but then supports limitations on such liberties, then they’re not a true libertarian. See, it’s pretty easy after all.
None of the parties today resemble the parties that existed when my parents (or grandparents) were my age. What else is new?
I changed my party to vote for Paul, then when they selected Johnson I saw no reason to go back.
I must admit I’ve come to like bugging all the primary Ruplicians into promising NFA repeal, even if Rubio’s reentry ruined everything.
Rand Paul is more true to the Libertarian platform than even Johnson is. I think Rand should go LP. Can politicians change parties while in office?
Yes. It’s done all the time.
Hey, no problem! The New Libertarian Party just decided to go “all the way”. I mean, if libertarianism means freedom, then that include the freedom to redefine a political party, ideologies, yourself, and even reality itself. Its the flavor of the day!
Whatever, any so called libertarian who agrees with the current direction is either a redefined liberal or a fool who doesn’t bother paying attention. Screw ’em.
What’s funny to me is that every few years, a previously sane ideology and its associated political parties gets suborned by statists and becomes just another collection of low information foolery. People are frequently dissatisfied with the status quo and try something else on, yet their laziness, selfishness, and lack of intelectual commitment lead to more of the same, every time. “I want the government to declare and enforce “x” ideology!”. That couldn’t *possibly* be part of the problem, now could it? I’m looking at you, “conservatives”, “liberals”, “libertarians”, “green partiers”, “democratic socialists”. I see every ideology moving inevitably towards one form of statism or another. How about “leave each other the hell alone-eology? Well that’d just be crazy…
Meh…the libertarian/stoner party will never mean anything more than “fringe”. I just hope they don’t get the hildebeast/Timmy!ticket erected. Trump/PENCE for President.
I suspect Gary Johnson will draw more support away from Clinton than he will from Trump. I can’t see much appeal for right leaning voters for the current iteration of the Libertarian Party ticket. More left leaning voters who are unhappy with the Democrats and their support of the war on drugs could very well find Johnson appealing.
Well then perhaps a Trump PAC needs to be running Johnson ads in purple urban markets.
Left leaning voters will look at Johnson’s platform, see “disband IRA, EPA and Department of Education” there, decide that he must be nuts, and go somewhere else.
The party of choice for disappointed lefties is Green. Libertarians are the same for right-wingers who were in the party primarily for the sake of fiscal conservatism and personal liberties.
That’s normally the case, but Gary Johnson hasn’t highlighted that aspect of Libertarian-ism this time around. The stuff that he has been touting this election cycle (open borders, de-criminalization of drugs, prison reform, pro-gun control, etc) will attract the disappointed left more so than the disappointed right. It’s no coincidence that I have friends who voted for Johnson last time around will either not vote or vote for Trump this time around.
When I was on active duty in the US Army I carried a copy of the US Constitution. It was free from the Cato institute. I read it over and over. It has Cato written on the back side.
I will not throw it away. It helped me to understand my oath to protect the country.
But the Cato institute is now compromised. I no longer trust them. Like a clock they will be correct twice a day, for the few things they say I agree with.
Perhaps they will change their welfare reform position as well. They were supporters of the Bill Clinton welfare reform law.
I was told over 20 years ago the libertarians were really republicans who wanted to smoke dope.
Their “you have a right to put anything into your body” has been their most repeated statement.
The libertarians at UT Austin want to put over sized dildo’s into their bodies. Others want to put crystal meth into their bodies to improve their sexual experience.
It seems drug addicts think self defense is not as important as getting intoxicated.
In fact self defense to them interferes with the intoxication.
Libertarians suffer from mental illness. I never thought that would happen. Just as liberals suffer from mental illness.
“The libertarians at UT Austin want to put over sized dildo’s into their bodies. Others want to put crystal meth into their bodies to improve their sexual experience.”
Why the flaming Hell would I *CARE*? Posting this kind of nonsense is simply ridiculous. Do you claim some kind of authority over the size and shape of dildos that libertarians may use? Where do you get that authority? If someone wishes to introduce 25 lbs of crystal meth into their bodies before sex, what difference would that make to me? Or you? This is a continuation of efforts to control other people’s lives, with no cited benefit or authority.
Right-wing attempts to control drugs and sex are actually attempts to control the political discourse in disguise. As Nixon found out back in the day, when you can’t go after your political opponents directly, what you do is find some trait that they have in common (e.g. smoking weed), then declare it the source of all social evils, and ban it to public applause. Now all your opponents are all criminals, and if they get caught, they lose their vote, too.
For bonus points, the more politically savvy authoritarians in your electorate will vote for you precisely because they understand this plan. How many of the “silent majority” voted for Nixon because he promised to deal with hippies, war protesters, and the like – and delivered that in form of WoD?
“Right-wing attempts to control drugs and sex are actually attempts to control the political discourse in disguise.”
You’re partially right.
Their other, more traditional and arguably more “justifiable,” reason for “controlling” sex and drugs, is that they do, statistically, lead to outcomes that look so bad that it makes it easier for the government to claim “we need to do something.” “Fatherless” whoresons, abandoned by crack-momma and roaming around as starving street kids, being a typical example.
Principled libertarians will see through all this and simply live and let live. Or live and let die. As the saying goes, Freedom is the highest end. Even a billion dead kids piled up in the streets, don’t justify the government restricting anything at all. Or, heck, even existing. But traditionally, in practice, dead kids in the street, have always made it easier for Government to claim “we” need to do something.
Most “Libertarians” have never heard of the Non Agression Principle. Most of them just want to make sure murdering babies and smoke weed are legal. F em.
No Republican (or Democrat) has honored the non-aggression principle either.
Pro-choice libertarians know about NAP – they just don’t believe that it applies to non-persons, such as fertilized eggs or unborn fetuses.
Using data at the FBI site, Crime in the United States, 2014, we find that the top 10 murder states for 2014 are as follows:
1. Louisiana (a state that has been no. 1 in murders for OVER 20 years); 2. Mississippi; 3. Missouri (they eradicated their gun laws in 2007 , and are now no 3 in murders in 2014); 4. S. Carolina; 5. Maryland; 6. Nevada; 7. tied Delaware, Florida (isn’t Florida the leader in concealed carry permits?); 8. tied Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee; 9. tied Alaska, Arkansas; and 10. Michigan.
Does the NRA read anything before suggesting endangering women with more guns? The South has more guns and fewer laws than anyone else. Thus the higher murder rates. Wake up women. Gun lobbyists are out for money, not for safety or a LOWER MURDER RATE.
A meta-study of 130 studies from 10 countries concluded that gun control efforts work in reducing gun violence
Yep, the NRA selling fear to get Trump elected so we can all be afraid but don’t worry Trump, with the help of the NRA, is going to save us all by making us more afraid.
I know it works well for older people and not so intelligent people but the rest of see this for what it is, fear mongering.
Let me just repeat what everyone already knows. No one is trying to take your guns away and there’s no way anyone in government would be able to do it even if they wanted to.
Second and more importantly, what the NRA isn’t telling you is that firearms don’t make us safer. They make us less safe. Per law enforcement statistics, for every one time a gun is used in self defense, there are literally dozens of times when a gun is used in the commission of a homicide, used in a suicide, or causes a fatality due to an accident.
I’m going to repeat that again, since I want people to understand: guns do not make us safer. They do not add to public safety. They detract from it. More often than not, when a firearm is used in our society, it’s for a bad purpose. Not for self defense.
I can fling back just as many stats that show “gun control” makes us “less safe”. For example, we could go to one of the states that allow concealed carry without a license and see extremely low crime rates. We could go to certain counties in your violent states and see murder rates of zero, even counties with hundreds of thousands of people and even more guns. We could go to Brazil, with gun bans and a huge murder rate. We could do this forever.
Fortunately, it doesn’t matter at all. Because I have a right to life, liberty, and property. So if guns make “us less safe”, it doesn’t matter. If they make us more safe, all well and good, but it doesn’t matter.
So I guess mass shootings are rare like you claim they do…Welp…This link proves you and this website wrong as usual.
Yo, dipshit. He did not make any such claims, he merely pointed out that your lies don’t matter at all, because we have a RIGHT to be armed, feel free to propose an Amendment to attempt to change that, in order to cause a civil war killing tens of millions (including yourself), but you already know such an amendment would never even approach passage, because such lies cannot withstand scrutiny. Dodge and jink, bob and weave, anybody who can’t tap dance is queer, but what you spew is simply nonsense.
Per the CDC, there are between 50-500 thousand defensive gun uses per year. That’s ALOT more than the number of people killed with guns in a year. your statistics are incredibly doctored and specifically tailored to show “proof” where it isnt.
Post citation proof linking increased gun ownership and concerning these “DGUs” or they didn’t happen.
As studies shown…More guns do not make us safe.
Post rinse repeat, I don’t see the civilized world turning to fascism.
If the rest of the “civilized world” is so wonderful, why don’t you go there to live?
The fact is, the U.S.A. was designed to be different. It was designed as a nation where the people have the right to be armed, in case such arms are needed, as a last resort, to fight tyranny.
History will ultimately tell us whether or not this was a good design. If you don’t think so, then you have the God-given right to get on a plane and find your precious utopia somewhere else.
I can post links all day. There are more DGU’s in this country per year than crime involved shootings. You’re being on this site is nothing less than trolling. We know your statistics are skewed and bullshit, you refuse to look at ours and consider anything as being right. Grow up, go home, and hope no one ever tries to mug your family, or decides to come into your home at night.
“As studies shown…More guns do not make us safe.”
About 20 years ago, gun deaths were roughly *double* what they are now.
20 years ago, there were about 40 percent fewer guns in circulation.
Source – factcheck.org –
“Here are some other facts. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world — by far. And it has the highest rate of homicides among advanced countries. And yet, gun crime has been declining in the U.S. Firearm murders are down, as is overall gun violence — even as gun ownership increases.”
Tens of *millions* more guns in circulation, gun deaths *down* about 50 percent.
More guns, less crime…
Your trollism! You have not provided citations for any of your drivel, yet you dare to demand such from others?
Nice try.
Utah, Wyoming, Vermont and perhaps a few other states have fewer restrictions on gun ownership than the ten you mentioned. And they are among the states with the lowest violent crime rates.
The differences in murder/violent crime rates between states is small, compared to the differences between urban and rural areas in the same state. Looking at county-by-county data tells a much more powerful story.
1. Violent crime is an overwhelmingly urban problem.
2. Almost all of it is gang related.
3. It happens wherever there are large, Democrat-controlled cities, regardless of state gun laws.
4. Sparsely populated rural areas, with high rates of gun ownership, few police officers per capita and slow police response times, have very low violent crime rates, regardless of state gun laws.
False and Rubbish.
1.Utah, Wyoming, Vermont and other “pro-gun” states have higher per capita murder and suicide rates versus states with strict gun control laws.
2.Most guns in anti-gun states have been smuggled from lax law states.
3.Pro-gun states are known to intentionally fudge their crime stats to make it seem like crime is at an all time low despite the facts and evidence that it is not.
4. Rural Areas have higher capita murders and rates of suicides versus urban areas which have lack of firearm ownership, improved healthcare facilities, strong police presence and lower crime.
Talk how many guns would be “just right” ? And please try to avoid sarcasm and emotionally driven illogical feels.
This is serious.
If you truly want to be serious, then you need to start getting your data from more reliable sources. Start with the FBI and the CDC, do your own analysis. I have.
But I don’t think you want to be serious. I think you want to be a troll.
Anti-gun states, and countries even, are known to fudge stats so they look good. In concert with the media, they have their agitprop down pat. Think about how CNN got caught in a lie a few years ago, with the “one school shooting a day” myth. They padded the stats to include people from like 12-21, and also shootings off campus – for example, two teenage gangbangers who haven’t seen the inside of a school in years, get involved in a shooting incident miles from campus. But they are of “school age” so it’s a school shooting according to CNN.
You have this mistaken assumption that gun control works. Here’s a clue – it doesn’t. Other factors, regardless of “gun status” skew states’ crime rates up and downward…
• Economics. The old, rusting areas of the North are high in crime due to desperation and decades of repression. The abundance of gun control doesn’t do much to stem the tide of violence.
• Racism. See above – old racial tensions, again, having eff-all to do with guns, drives the violence.
• Education. Educated people don’t have time to be running around shooting each other. There’s plenty of educated areas in the South and Texas where crime is very low.
Address the issues of economic conditions, education, and racism, and the violence issue will fade, even more dramatically than it already has.
Well if you want to be taken seriously, then you should probably read More Guns Less Crime by John R. Lott Jr. The stastical analysis that is done within this book is excellent and it is as scientifically/statistically valid as any I have seen. And the data clearly disagrees with your claims.
Yes, the DATA disagrees with you. This might come as a shock to you, because that kind of objective, repeatable data and analysis is often hidden in books.
Explain Chicago to me. And then after that explain Jamaica to me. You should really spend some time looking at the evolution of the guns laws and the murder rate in Jamaica over the last 40 years.
By the way, why do you only care about violent crime that involves guns, shouldn’t you be worried about ALL violent crime?
It happens in ALL large cities, regardless of which party runs them.
Help me with the data.
Please name all of the large cities that have been controlled by Republicans for fifty or more consecutive years.
Give me the list, I’ll be happy to do the research.
Why 50 or more years? Is there something magical about that number?
Indianapolis was controlled partly or wholly by Republicans for close to 40 years, if I remember correctly. Plenty of time to prove you right, in my opinion. Except they didn’t.
Conveniently left off the list, even though they’re in that same dataset, Puerto Rico, with a rate nearly twice as high as Louisiana, and D.C., with a rate nearly half again as high as Louisiana. Both gun control havens. That dataset, by the way, is here: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-5
Other tables have breakdowns at other levels of analysis, such as by MSA, county, etc.
Here’s the top of the table, with the actual rates:
There are a couple highly restrictive states in there, namely Massachusetts and Hawaii, but mostly it’s a collection of states that regulate guns very lightly.
Quick glance: homicides are up in California and down in Utah. In Washington state, a full year after passing UBCs, the homicide rate is up 16%. Thanks Bloomberg.
Thank you, Carlos.
I once took the statewide crime data and threw it on a scatter graph in various orders, for example:
* Rankings by gunsandammo.com best/worst states for gun rights, best/worst states for concealed carry, etc.
* Rankings (basically in reverse) done by one of the gun control groups.
* Categorized by Constitutional carry, shall issue, may issue, no issue.
No matter how I tried to slice and dice the numbers, I couldn’t create a graph that visually showed an advantage or disadvantage to gun rights using statewide data. Of course you could cherry pick from it, or do a regression analysis to come up with some sort of weak correlation.
Fact is, our safest states include Hawaii and Vermont. Our most dangerous states include Louisiana and Maryland. There are too many other forces at work that affect violent human behavior for a layman to draw clear conclusions about gun rights at a glance.
Yeah, I was feeling flippant by the end of all of this, but yes, that’s the key insight: gun policy and violent crimes are fundamentally unrelated. Given that, I think the laws should be oriented towards greater freedom. Since both Hawaii and Vermont are both safe, then let’s be like Vermont and have both safety and freedom.
I’m going to repeat that again, since I want people to understand: guns do not make us safer. They do not add to public safety. They detract from it. More often than not, when a firearm is used in our society, it’s for a bad purpose. Not for self defense.
A group of friends of mine just read this, thought it was lunacy, and then bought a crate of ammo just because of what you said. They think that you are really scary. Over 330 million guns in the US and “more often than not, when a firearm is used in our society, it’s for a bad purpose?” Absolute lunacy. More often than not 99.9999999999999% of bullets fired are hurting no one and at most out of those 330 million guns maybe 7000 (likely less) are used in homicides. Meanwhile the lowest figure of 50,000 defensive guns uses are employed every year. No telling how many lives are saved by guns, furthermore, who gives a shit? We don’t take object A from “Bob” because of something “Frank” did with something similar to object A. That’s not conducive to a free nation, but to a fascist nation. We have and historically punished people for the actions they perform, not their ownership of things. You are spouting nothing more, than hoplophobic anti-gun nonsense, simply because you don’t like guns. Let’s not blame people for their actions right? Lets blame guns. And you call us facist. Hilarious.
Let me just repeat what everyone already knows. No one is trying to take your guns away and there’s no way anyone in government would be able to do it even if they wanted to.
That’s a lie. Blatant lie. AR15’s have been banned in California, Massachusetts and several other states. Those firearms are being taken from people “progressively.” Just as the liberal democratic party is the progressively party. Progress to them is banning guns. No provisions were provided to people in those states to pass their firearms down to their children. You guys are simply taking everyone’s guns in small incremental progressive steps by means of limiting people’s future purchases and limiting their ability to transfer those firearms alive or dead. Furthermore, everyone knows your ridiculous laws are ridiculous. Even progressive liberals know it. Your endless and nonsensical laws serve only your planned and intended means to reduce the incentive and motivation of people to purchase and collect firearms.
Ben Shapiro put it best:
“Perhaps the saddest party in the saddest year in major party history is the libertarians. All they had to do was nominate a libertarian.”
+1
This was really the LP’s year to draw a contrast against two unpopular candidates and get some market share in political landscape. Instead they went with a horrible ticket more leftist than both Hillary and Trump. So utterly disappointing.
I have voted Libertarian before, but this year they have not put forward a candidate.
To be fair, Weld saying he supports the 2nd Amendment with his track record is no different than Trump saying he is “pro gun”. I don’t read much into this.
Really? ?? Really????
Since Trump has never held office he has no track record. He does have two sons who have changed his mind on the second amendment. You can believe him or not.
Weld does have a track record. He signed a state AWB years before bill Clinton signed the national AWB. That national AWB has expired. But the state of Massachusetts is stuck with its state ban because of former governor William Weld.
Has an libertarian asked Weld if he thinks the state ban he signed should be repealed????
Has the great representative of libertarianism, Reason Magazine, asked Weld any questions on the current Mass attorney general, Maura Healy and her illegal, anti-freedom, anti-second amendment actions????
The libertarian press is covering for Weld and Johnson just like the MSM is covering for Hillary.
Trump supported the assault weapons ban, and helped fund every Clinton election till now. That is a track record. Money talks. Plus his bullshit about stop and frisk, plus HE STRONGLY SUPPORTS no fly-no buy. I’ll believe he’s changed his mind when he shows it. I’m a skeptic by nature, and I don’t trust Trump any more than Weld with 2nd Amendment issues
Just like Fox and all these other news sites try to put a positive spin on Trumps past.
The alternative, the ONLY alternative, is Clinton, who *PROMISES* to do the things you are afraid Trump *might* do.
The crux of the problem is that “Today’s Libertarian Party” isn’t libertarian.
Controlled opposition
Well crap, I just unsubscribed from the Cato Institute newsletter. They appear to have also been infiltrated by the National Socialists…
Who the heck writes this _ _ _ _?
The [U.S.] “Libertarian Party” was formed on December 11, 1971. It was formed in response to to the 1960’s born movement of “Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30”, and it was an attempt to sell:
LIBERALISM TO YOUTHS
It is all BULLSH_T and so are ALL of it’s candidates.
You need to check your definition of ‘mass shooting.’
Nice try at agitprop, though. You are trying to make weak ass association with campus shooting, mass shooting or active shooter with an uninvited guest at an off-campus party shooting two individuals.
Weak. Weak. Weak. You know, like your brain.
Another day, another “liberal” trying to “liberate” the hard working people of America of their “liberties.”
Thanks anyways.
Regardless, what’s wrong with mass shootings? If it’s ok to kill babies. Babies mind you … before they pass through a womb. I imagine that same person who would accept that, would also accept mass shootings as something to be acceptable. Right? No reason to prepare or protect from them. They are only human lives right?
These statements made by Johnson and Weld concerning watch lists and gun bans upset me and unfortunately there’s not much criticism of Johnson and Weld in this article that couldn’t be applied to Trump as well, based on his past and recent statements and no actual experience governing. Even now he speaks from a puddle of consciousness and you have no idea what he would actually do.
Vote your conscience but prepare for betrayal. It doesn’t really matter though because he’s not really even trying to win.
Sounds about right to me.
We’re screwed all of the ways this go-around.
I stopped telling people I was libertarian long ago. The writing has been on the wall for a while now the way these statists-lite have been talking and who they’ve been trying to appeal to.
Now I just say I’m a damn anarchist. It accomplishes two great things: 1)the inquirer knows I don’t give a shit about their politics and 2)the inquirer ceases inquiry and leaves me alone.
My motto is I don’t give a shit about you or the things you do so please stop giving a shit about me or the things I do. Now go away.
I’m going to have a family crest made up.
Yea. The libertarian party seems to have been taken over by pot smoking modern hippies ready to get elected and blow their gun control wad.
Libertarians are simply Democrats with extra cheese.
Levy at Cato has been awful on the 2A for years. Back in January of 2013 I heard him on Bill Bennet’s old radio show, he had the exact same spiel about weapons bans and mag capacities- trying to find just the right level to determine when the government should send a man to put you in a cage. He is not a friend of freedom, and his employment casts doubt on Cato in general.
This story is complete shit and illogical. Melissa Joanhart campaigning with Gary has about as much to do with gun control as drew Carey campaigning with Johnson has to do with improv.
It sounds like the Libertarian Party is trying to be the next Political Party that is completely out of touch with its core principles and its constituency.
As long as the Libertarian platform is one that the disaffected Bernie Democrats can vote for, let them flee the DNC in droves and vote Gary instead of Hillary for all I care.
When the 2A voters have no alternative to Trump, that’s one of our best weapons against the possibility of Mrs President Clinton.
When you get a group of dissimilar people together and unite them under an ultimately untenable goal, you will never achieve freedom.
The LP has proven the above.
The State is too big for an actual LP to exist. Once people realize that they’re voting to remove the jobs of their friends and family (21.995 million people, 6.9% of the US population [14.5% of the US workforce]- slightly more than twice the population of Greece), they back down and keep up their statist ways.
I trust myself to be moral in a world with no laws. Do you?
My government employed family and friends can get a real job.
I may trust myself, but I definitely don’t trust others.
Make your positions known. Tell Cato that they need to smarten up. Same for the liberals calling themselves Libertarians.
Read the party’s platform…it’s pretty clear on 2A issues: “We oppose all laws at any level of government restricting, registering, or monitoring the ownership, manufacture, or transfer of firearms or ammunition.”
Weld and Johnson are not the party. Cato is most certainly not the party.
This reads like a hit piece written out of fear that the 1-8% of the electorate who will likely vote for Johnson will cost Trump the election. If that’s the point: just come out and say it. TTAG is better than this.
Glad to see so many people taking notice of the way the Libertarians have self-degraded over the past 40 years. (40 years of failing to get significant numbers of votes, too). It’s best for now to just dismiss the Libertarians -they are too little (again) and too late to have any but negative impact in this election and on the Bill of Rights.
Beyond that, it’s a mistake to think that an 8% drain on votes for Trump and Republicans isn’t significant. Thats because Trump and the Republicans haven’t done that well in their campaigning. AND not enough of the 100 million gun owners are showing up in polls and other areas visible enough to get an idea of if gun owners will take this chance to become a really big factor in American Politics. It’s up to us – the power to defend freedom can be historic IF we just participate.
Yes he did. Both Trump and Clinton (and now the NRA) say that No Fly No Buy is a good place to start. Trump has also publicly and recently stated he is for Stop and Frisk. Trump it not a Republican and he is certainly not a conservative. You don’t get to suspend portions of the Bill of Rights as it suits your political motive or the context of the day. The Kool-Aid here for Trump is pretty thick and it’s honestly very disappointing.
Trump it not a Republican and he is certainly not a conservative.
Read “Cuckservative” and re-assess that statement:
Trump not being a “Republican” and not being a “Conservative” is actually a plus.
Cucks sure are funny, though. Gotta give ’em that.
Robert Levy’s comments were taken way out of context. I was shocked to read TTAG’s edited version, having read a lot of the 2A literature coming out of Cato. So I read Levy’s entire piece. On each of the three items–assault weapons, magazine limits, and UBC, Levy basically says, regulations don’t work, the data doesn’t support liberal talking points, but if compromise is the goal, you might try this.
One of those times I wish I could vote comments to the top. This one deserves more attention than the “Nosferatu” and “dumbo ears” comments way above it that add nothing to the discussion.
TTAG authors gives trump a pass on nationalist, authoritarian, fascistic nature and past and current love for all things left, does not understand that other people evolve on policy or that Libertarian In Name Only is a thing… Really?!?
-A Minarchist upset at the inability of Republicans, “Conservatives”, Democrats and most Libertarians to be consistent and understand freedom.
So sad, TTAG has been pro Trump despite his nationalism, racism, and yes, anti-gun statements since day one. Now that Johnson is starting to gain steam both the statist and neo-con (also statists) writers are attacking the Johnson/Weld ticket because they are scared that their precious two party system will come crumbling down.
I would urge everyone to do their own research. Both Weld and Johnson have clearly stated that as President and VP they will support no form of gun control. Much better stance than Clinton’s “Australian style gun control” or Trump’s support of banning people on secret lists from owning/purchasing guns. Not to mention that Trump has a history of banning firearms in his buildings and also has a history of literally donating millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton. A vote for Trump is a vote for Hillary and a vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump. They are both big government progressives and don’t offer the American people any real choice.
JB- Clarissa is not the Delaware campaign chair. She’s the Connecticut campaign chair. It even says so in the article you cite. How dare you mix up small, unimportant states!
First, The People Of The Gun are concerned about the ticket’s anti-gun vice-presidential nominee, gun-hating former Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Then we learn they’ve welcomed a Moms Demand Action spokeswoman as their Delaware Campaign Chair.
“libertarian” has never been able to figure out if they are luddites, anarchists, or closet fascist. But always potheads. Just quit playing games girls and declare dimtard. They will share their pot.
‘Nuff said. Anything I could add to that would be largely redundant.
The people mentioned in this article aren’t libertarians, not real ones at least. One might call them LINOs. I can assure you that real libertarians are not at all fascistic. Fascism is the complete opposite of every fundamental libertarian principle. The unifying factor among libertarians is a deeply held respect and desire for individual liberty. Yes some of us are anarchists, since they reject government on principle as an encroachment on personal liberty, others are minarchists, believing in a small, limited government that exists solely to defend the liberties of the people.
Gun control is actually a pretty good litmus test to determine whether or not someone is actually libertarian. If they support it, they’re not.
So much ^^^^THIS!
These morons can not understand an open border/mass immigration of largely marxist people will result in them being replaced/out numbered and out voted, they view humanity as all wanting the same things, valuing the same ideals with is the ultimate collectivism.
They do not value gun rights as their views on immigration ensure the death of the 2nd Amendment as well as all freedoms as the leftist use immigration to rig the system by adding a never ending hordes of welfare voters.
Libertarians like Rothbard,Cantwell, Molynunex and Hoppe are real Libertarians, the rest of these sub humans are largely leftists doing what they do, inflating and taking over a competing movement.
Libertarians who can read, have always been anarchists. And always will be. It’s good to know how to read, sometimes.
As for the “Man, It really sucks to be so free. Why can’t Massa start robbing me and telling me what to do and stuff” faction, they hardly differ from the “Let’s Stomp Our Boots for Dear Leader” indoctrinati, that clutters up the rest of our degenerate, post civilized polity.
Excellent point.
Very good article and very good title. I’m 50 and the Libertarian Party of today is not what it used to be. I always stuck with the Constitution Party (except for this year as the current presidential candidate is another “patriotic” Putin worshiper) but I would often support some Libertarians. After watching Reason Magazine’s Editor-In Chief, Nick Gillespie, talk 2nd Amendment with some “gun expert” a few years ago, I saw a continuing trend of the leftward movement on gun rights by Libertarians as the interview takes an “Elmer Fudd” take on firearms rights. Gillespie, who is extremely talented in defending Libertarian principles (you may have seen him as a regular guest on Judge Napolitano’s show before it was cancelled by the Faux Network), basically just shook his head in agreement during the whole thing only added that he is not into guns as when he went shooting he found that it was not a pleasant experience.
WHAT DO YOU (AND OTHERS) THINK ABOUT THIS BELOW?
I’m starting to feel that the Libertarian Party’s real purpose is to drive true conservative groups to the left on many issues that conservatives would not have even considered in the past in support of ultimately electing leftists.
Back 25 years ago, diehard conservatives just wanted to have their rights and be left alone and that’s when Libertarians became favorable to them over most Republican as RINOs became discovered. In the 1990s, conservatives started to say “Hey, be gay if you want but leave my gun rights alone.” – “Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.” Conservatives were tempted (or courted) to give in a bit on gay rights, open borders, decreased military spending, abortion, marijuana deregulation, etc. in exchange for Libertarian “supposed” support for gun rights, decreased or elimination of most taxes, decreased government regulation of all types, etc.
So where are we now? We have the Republican Party largely supporting LGBT rights, abortion has softened in the party platform, many Republicans are no longer for a strong military, gun rights are defined by the Heller Decision instead of what the Founding Fathers stated, AND THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY AND NOW THE CATO INSTITUTE HAS MOVED WAY MORE TO THE LEFT. Most conservatives are no longer opposed to gays in government office and the gays who did get elected are leftists NOT Libertarians and are banning gun rights everywhere they can for the most part – just look what has happened with gun rights in the past few months with gay government leadership in Oregon and Massachusetts. Even though we have had some Libertarian-leaning Republicans like Rand Paul fighting for the Bill of Rights it looks like overall that we may have been “played” by the Libertarian movement.
>> We have the Republican Party largely supporting LGBT rights
That’s a nice joke.
… oh wait. You’re serious.
These “Libertarians” are actually statists. That they insist on calling themselves libertarians is intellectually dishonest.
Simply put, you can’t be a statist and be a libertarian.
From Wikipedia:
“In political science, statism is the belief that the state should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.[1] Statism is effectively the opposite of anarchism. An individual who supports very limited intervention by the state is a minarchist.””
The time for an “Objectivist” party has come (well, really long past due). But it’ll never succeed until the motor of the world has stopped first.
…the good, and bad news is that it’s slowing down at an alarming rate.
O2
Well, there are Objectivist groups all over the country. They’d love to have you join them sometime.
They even have national conferences…
1) How does a Libertarian get elected governor of Massachusetts of all places? Isn’t that kind of like a member of the Green Party getting elected Governor of Texas?
2) What is Robert Levy thinking? Aren’t Libertarians supposed to be all about resistance to tyranny and all of that? The Cato Institute I believe was one of the right-wing organizations back in the 1990s that came out against the individual mandate that the Republicans were proposing as an alternative healthcare proposal to Hillarycare at the time.
He was a Republican when he was governor, h’s been a Libertarian for about 5 minutes
He was a RINO before hitching his wagon to Johnson.
As a Libertarian the problem with Libertarians is that tons of people that identify as Libertarians are different kinds of libertarians. There are even “socialist libertarians”. I’m not going to no true Scotsman them, but the party is the most split party. I’m realizing for that reason alone they’ll never win a major election.
If that makes sense at all. I’m a right Libertarian, which is kind of like a fiscal conservative who doesn’t care what other people do in their personal lives. That’s how I define it, however after this year and election cycle though, I’m leaving the party.
Every single candidate running, Trump, Hillary, Stein, and Johnson has some form of gun control support in their policy. Party doesn’t matter anymore.
Keep your powder dry.
Libertarianism is about individual freedom. Many these days call themselves libertarian because it sounds “cool” and “different”. That’s the problem.
Libertarians can only, by definition, be anarchists or minarchists. No government or small government.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe has some interesting thoughts on Democracy. I lot of his though boils down to the liberty of a people being directly proportional to the respect of personal property rights by a government.
Anyhow, that means you do need a strong (but narrow) government, along with a high respect for the law (which should coincide with rather few laws).
Hans-Hermann Hoppe is the guy who said, “There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society.”
“social order”!
So much for individual freedoms.
Many Libertarians seem to care very much about illegal drugs or same sex marriage. They seem to care very little about statism, taxation, Obamacare, and gun control. Libertarianism has turned into a few social issues.
But duude! If you and the government and the gungrabbers can just light a kind spleef together, you’ll learn to set aside all your differences. And realize all there really is, is (same sex?) looooooove…..
The problem with that so-called social liberal/ fiscal conservative halfbreed is that the social liberal part always comes creeping back to get on someone’s back and force them to do something and into their pockets to force them to pay for something. At that point, the fiscal part vanishes and you’re left with plains old statist liberal.
Oh, really? Sight your evidence for this assertion. Or just explain how it is true for me. Many people who call themselves libertarians do have such failures of logic but that is anecdotal evidence for the species as a whole.
Like claiming to be a Libertarian while holding the position that a Christian baker/photographer should be forced by law to provide services for gay weddings…for example.
At least that hold true in the case of Johnson, which, in addition to gun control, is how I know he is no libertarian.
I know what you mean, it is quite simple. What I am saying is that it is not common among people who have even the slightest bit of understanding of the subject.
If you want to have some fun, ask some of these “libertarians” what they think of Freedom of Association and whether they support anti-discrimination laws.
Libertarianism in the current year is about weed and sodomy. Nothing else.
Of course they don’t support anti-discrimination laws!
But it’s sure as heck not PC to mention that in public.
That isn’t the zinger that you think it is. Apparently you haven’t read Reason magazine. I consider myself a libertarian and I sure as hell support freedom of association and I don’t know any other libertarian who don’t.
My thought as well.
I think any person or group should be able to discriminate against anyone they like. As the NAACP, Congressional black caucus, etc support wholeheartedly. Problem?
>> As a Libertarian the problem with Libertarians is that tons of people that identify as Libertarians are different kinds of libertarians. There are even “socialist libertarians”.
I’m one of those people.
Politically, as an organized movement, socialist anarchists of various brands predate capitalist anarchists and minarchists, so “No True Scotsman” would probably not go the way you wish here 🙂
That said, both groups generally maintain the separation as desirable, and so it’s usually very obvious whether any particular person self-identifying as libertarian is on the left or on the right, economically – they’ll let you know real fast.
In terms of how left libertarianism works, it’s really pretty simple. It asserts that the notion of private property is an abstract social concept (as opposed to personal property – that which you actually physically use or occupy). Basically, if you live in Florida, but own a patch of land in Montana, all you really own is a piece of paper that the society chooses to recognize as a valid claim to that land.
But it’s up to the society to do so, and protect your property from infringement by others, or not. If it does so, either as a matter of law (for minarchism) or social conventions (for anarchism), then the abstract concept becomes implemented. But if the society refuses to recognize the abstract notion, it never manifests – you can go around saying that you own the land, but if the government (for minarchism) or everyone else in the society (for anarchism) disagree, your opinion doesn’t really matter much.
Now, the only distinction between socialist and capitalist varieties of libertarianism is whether they believe the society and/or the government should recognize such property rights or not. Everything else follows from there.
Consequently, neither is a self-contradictory ideology. They start with different sets of axioms, and are self-consistent within the boundaries set by those axioms.
Beautiful!
Legitimate personal/private property falls under the “fruits (and derivatives) of one’s labor” description. Land, not so much.
That argument is idiotic. You have to be able to own land own a home, a business, a farm, etc. if you paid for the land, you own it, same as any other property. If i leave my gun collection in Florida and I’m in Montana i don’t forfeit the rights to my property. The same is true with land. Left-libertarian arguments are juvenile at best.
Your opinion is irrelevant in this case. Ultimately, it’s what the society decides. You can believe that you own it all you want, and no-one will care, until someone else decides to use it. What then? If no-one other than you believes that you own it, then no-one will protect those guns when another person takes them and uses them.
On a more abstract level, this stems from the fact that there’s no such thing as ownership in nature – there’s only possession. Ownership is purely a social construct, and as such, the forms that it takes and the limits that it has are defined by the society.
This isn’t even a uniquely left anarchist thought, for that matter. Here’s Jefferson, whom I think no-one in a sane mind could accuse of being left-leaning, writing in 1813:
“It is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all… It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.”
Note that this doesn’t mean that you have to accept such a radical arrangement. The point is not to say that all property rights are bad and the perfect social arrangements are ones where they don’t exist (although there are certainly many anarchists that believe that). Rather, if you acknowledge that property is a social construct, it becomes one of the things which society can legitimately adjust as need to produce the best outcome for all – because property rights are not natural rights, they’re subject to societal regulation. So, for example, insofar as private property provides stability and motivation to people, it’s a good thing. But when a single person can acquire property rights to so much that they can effectively monopolize large areas or markets to the detriment of the rest, it’s a bad thing, and we can introduce regulation to prevent it. The precise amount and nature of that regulation can be discussed – it’s the principle that matters, and that distinguishes left libertarianism from right libertarianism (the latter generally viewing property rights as natural rights, and therefore sacrosanct).
So basically the Green party has rebranded and folded into the Libertarians, while actual Libertarians are… Sitting this one out? I don’t know. Freedom Caucus and hold-your-nose-and-vote-Republican?
I’m just hoping all this left-leaning stuff is a play to steal the far left away from Hillary, given her big business ties. They may end up a spoiler for both parties (which wouldn’t do anything). They drum up enough support from the #Bernouts it might actually hurt the Dems.
“So basically the Green party has rebranded and folded into the Libertarians,…”
The ‘Greens’ have morphed into ‘Watermelons’
What’s a ‘Watermelon’ you ask?
Green on the outside and Red (Socialist, Marxist, Communist) on the inside…
Rothbard turns in his grave.
The Libertarian Party has become largely leftist since the 2012 election. Sad.
It really is no different than seeing a formerly intelligent and earnest friend become a dope-chasing stoner.
Same reasons, same results.
Was it better back in the days when it was cheering South African apartheid?
Yeah, maybe if Cruz or Paul were on top of the ticket i’d listen to this, but Trump is an anti who continues to show a lack of understanding on the gun issue. He literally called for a no fly list gun ban during the debate last week, when are y’all gonna realize he’s not one of us.
No, he didn’t. Context matters.
Jimmy, you are listening to lies. Who will benefit from you believing this crap? Cruz? Paul? Johnson? Who? THINK!
What the hell is going on with Levy and Cato?
For those who don’t know, Cato put together the Heller case and won at the District Court and Circuit Court levels, and Levy was responsible for financing the case. Gura didn’t take over until the SCOTUS level, but he got all the pub.
And now Levy’s sticking the knife in our backs?
I wondered the same thing. Maybe he wants more invitations to the right dinner parties? Like Justice Roberts?
Levy is might be just another example of how power corrupts. He might have started out with the idea to defend the rights of the “people” from government abuse; but after sitting in his own position of “power and authority” for a while, he has come to be more in sympathy with the statist need for power and control, rather than defending us from the abuse of such.
Either way, at this point, he is showing himself to be just another a boot licking ‘judenrat”; trying to convince the rest of us that slavery is freedom, and that to compromise our freedom, is to be “reasonable”, rather than in reality, we would just be plain cowards. .
Judging by accompanying picture of Levy, he’s gone full Nosferatu. No longer safe for anyone to be around.
This is why I went from voting Johnson in 2012 to voting Trump in 2016. Screw the sellouts in the Libertarian party.
This forum is no exception, self proclaimed libertarians here have posted they support government control over personal health care decisions.
Way too many people of the “I don’t want to be regulated, but I don’t mind regulating you” mindset.
Nice try.
Just because abortions are performed by people with medical degrees using surgical tools, that doesn’t make it “health care” any more than a DD boob job is health care.
No. PG2 is just keen on his “right” to roll around in public being a Typhoid Mary.
Lol, says the guy who flees when he’s asked questions on a subject he pretends to have some knowledge on.
No, I just ignore cretins who have no idea how the human immune system works.
Lol, right serge, I forgot you know a guy that knows a guy that went to medical school, so you’re an expert. Funny how you use the EXACT same emotional and empty ad hominem tactics that gun grabbers use, and you duck, dodge, and run for cover when you face any questions that require a factual answer. So predictable.
And?
What you need to concern yourself with,is whether you have the right to defend yourself against Typhoid Mary, should she pose a threat to you and yours.
Yes. Yes I do. I have an inalienable right to strap to a table anybody stupid enough to not get vaccinated and put my family in danger and pump whatever vaccine is necessary into their vein. I also have the right to do this at gunpoint if necessary. Your right to make medical decisions ends what those decisions affect people other than your ignorant ass. Don’t like it? Move to a deserted island.
Serge wants a North Korea style medical police state so he can feel safe….but he pretends to support some other individual rights like owning a pistol in case you get mugged. Whatever serge, you’re an imposter.
One last newsflash serge, my rights, and no one else’s rights end where your feelings begin. You highlight exactly why the 2A exists; so the people can protect themselves from the “gunpoint” statist tyranny you are cheerleading for. You’re a fraud serge.
That wasn’t even on the radar screen but thanks for playing.
I don’t care whether you call it health care or not. I call it legal, and I call it none of your business unless you are a pregnant woman. All the silly excuses in the world will not change that. And if you manage to stop medical professionals with training and tools, the procedure will be performed by drunks with coathangers, just as for thousands of years, while you congratulate yourself for causing so many women to die. And it *STILL* will be none of your business, or mine. You seek control, just like others we abhor.
Sorry if I don’t particularly care about people willing to commit infanticide.
Yep, a woman can come out of an abortion clinic; and be arrested and put in jail for decades for putting an illegal substance in her body that hurts no one but herself , because the “right to privacy” only allows the murder of the most innocent and vulnerable among us.
“Sorry if I don’t particularly care about people willing to commit infanticide.”
But you’ll still defend to death their right to do so, right?
No. They have no such right. But please, point out the portion of the CotUS that protects your right to murder another human being.
It’s typical Demokkkrat argument.
In the 1800s they didn’t consider anybody other than whites to be human.
These days, they simply replaced “negro” with “fetus” and kept using the same slogans.
The real right of the child to live trumps any imagined right to murder them.
“The real right of the child to live trumps any imagined right to murder them.”
But the right of both the child and it’s wannabe murderer, to not suffer under a government sufficiently intrusive and totalitarian to have any idea whether a parental consent murder of a child too helpless to complain actually took place, in practice renders the child’s right unactionable. Young, helpless children need parents to look after them. If their parents fail to do so, whether due to incompetence or malice, it simply sucks to be those parents’ child. Like life is wont to do sometimes.
Some may have. That doesn’t mean you get to paint all of us that way.
I didn’t say all have. Some definitely have.
Were Hillary not the Democratic candidate (and were the Supreme Court balance for the next generation not hinging on this election), then with Trump as the Republican nominee, I would have likely voted Libertarian, but then the Libertarians run Johnson and Weld, . . . so it’s back to voting Trump.
Process of elimination makes sense, to me.
Weld is a democrat hack and Johnson is a stoned, no nothing nutburger.
*know-nothing.
Anyways,
Johnson 2016
I am embroiled in, shall we call them “spirited discussions”, from time to time and I cannot find the reference which proclaims that law-abiding defenders shoot/injure bystanders at a rate significantly lower than law enforcement officers. Does anyone know the reference for that?
U_S, I have heard that given as gospel for quite a few years, but have no idea where it came from. I suspect the FBI reports would be the only credible source.
The best I’ve been able to find is that in one study, only 2% of criminals shot by civilians were misidentified as criminals, while 11% of those shot by police were misidentified as criminals. This archived version of the National Center for Policy Analysis website (http://web.archive.org/web/20080513031245/http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st176/s176d.html) mentions these stats and cites this: Ibid; Kleck, Point Blank; Kleck, “Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force,” Social Problems, 1988, Vol. 35, pp. 1-21; and Gary Kleck and Karen McElrath, “The Effects of Weaponry on Human Violence,” Social Forces, Vol. 67, No. 3, March 1991, pp. 669-92.
I wouldn’t rely on that unless you can actually obtain those papers and have the time to find the stats in them (lest we have another Robert Farago situation; each time he keeps citing a study claiming it says 80% of murders are gang-related, when the study makes no mention of gangs at all).
Truthfully, I suspect the “civilians hit less innocents bystanders” comes from a combination of the more thoroughly researched/reported statistics relating to CCW holders being more law abiding (lower murder, rape, etc rates) than police officers (for example: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2814691) and the constant flow of reports of police (especially New York police) hitting innocents bystanders. I think these two things may be getting confused and blended together, making people think there is a study out there claiming this. or maybe I’m wrong and I just haven’t been able to find the study.
There’s a reason that so many of us libertarians are not members of the Libertarian Party. The party leadership seems to have lost the point of the whole thing a long time ago. Great, we get someone calling themselves a Libertarian in the public spotlight – but that doesn’t do us any good if that person has zero understanding of the philosophy of libertarianism.
DING!!!
Double ding.
Just from scrolling through some of these comments, it’s becoming very apparent to me that many of my fellow TTAG readers know less than nothing about libertarian thought.
We gun owners get so infuriated when the anti-gunners have the nerve to talk about guns while making it painfully obvious that they know nothing about them. Many here have demonstrated a similar lack of understanding of libertarianism, yet here I am, reading dozens of strong opinions on libertarianism that seem to be derived entirely from a small handful of biased articles.
You can’t just read a couple articles bashing Johnson or Weld (and no, I’m not defending either of them), assume you understand the ideology, and then start commenting as if you have it all figured out. You have to read. Books. Whole books.
Remember how pissed we all got when we heard, “It’s the shoulder thing that goes up”? How about we practice what we preach?
#thelibertarianpartyisover
This entire election has infuriated me the most for how my party has completely imploded into virtue signalling BS and constant excuses for Gary Johnson’s very VERY anti-libertarian policies.
And you know what? If Donald Trump’s version of the Republican party is the future then I’ll take it gladly compared to ANYTHING from Johnson, Stein, and OBVIOUS anything from Hillary ‘We Came, we saw, he died’ Clinton.
If only I could live in your fantasy world that more guns make us safe when statistically they’re not.
The 5 states with the highest “number” of violent crimes
1. Vermont
2. Texas
3. Florida
4. Maine
5. Alaska
Troll been getting high with Gary Johnson?
What you just posted is factually untrue and so easily refuted you have to know it’s just a very poor troll attempt.
Do better, man. At least make it sporting!
Some folks will say anything.
I commented one place that there was a saying, “An armed society is a polite society.” Some fellow answered in all caps that I was lying that there was no such saying and that the saying was “An unarmed society is a a polite society.” I found that rather funny.
Willy_Lunchmeat/A_Concerned_American, is this your new handle?
Care to look at cities instead?
Vermont? Alaska? you have to know this is a joke, right? Nobody is that stupid, even when they try!
If you truly prefer Trump’s platform to Johnson’s, how are you a libertarian? Given that Trump is a conservative authoritarian populist…
Good God, that picture of Levy…is he part bat? I bet he can hear what I’m thinking with those things.
Shame about the liberal-atarions, I used to like what they had to say, ’cause it was about personal freedom and less gov’t intrusion and lower spending.
I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised, in the end, seems no matter which royalty is in power, they never want the peasants to have arms. Nothing but tax bags, we are, to be milked, and tossed aside.
Screw him and his dumbo ears.
I’ve been registered LP since I was able to vote in the 1990s. So I’ve been involved with the Party long enough to see the “infection” kick in.
Back when I signed up, it was really about the individual rights plank. Drugs, guns, minimal-to-no-taxation, etc.
However, disgust with the whole two-party system has led to an influx of people with different priorities into the Party, some (and maybe a lot of them) want to do it just to sound cool.
Truth be told, a lot of them are Bernie Bros who just want their weed. They don’t care for guns, they don’t like guns, and they aren’t averse to taxation.
The LP did “alright” by having Johnson in 2012. He seemed to be on point with most of the platform, and still is from where I sit. I saw him speak in Miami, and the gun question came up – and he unequivocally stated his support for the Second Amendment. However, like most politicians, he paid lip service to the issue of terrorists and crazy folk getting guns, though he had no solution to the problem when he spoke. It was to get cheers from the lefties in the room.
However, Weld seems to be the poison pill here. He’s been waffling on guns. At the same Miami meeting, he admitted to being “mistaken” on his gun point of view (this was after the Revolt interview) but I kind of felt it was to appease the pro-2A people in the audience. I’m still OK with Johnson, I just am really suspicious with Weld.
Weld has led to a lot of Libertarians to question their party affiliation, especially if they are ardent supporters of the Second Amendment. Johnson himself was controversial during the LP convention – Austin Petersen is closer in ideology to the LP platform, but they selected Gary due to visibility.
It’s been a tumultuous year for the D, the R, and the L. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Greens are having issues too. Jill loves to get arrested, ya know.
For me, I see other, very obscure parties out there that match up better with firearms and individual rights. But if the LP doesn’t have a chance, these parties won’t see much of anything in the press for decades.
“Weld seems to be the poison pill here. He’s been waffling on guns.”
He’s as anti-gun as they come. A lot of TTAG commenters ragged on Mitt Romney as a RINO, but Weld makes Romney seem like Jeff Cooper.
He didn’t say a word when Johnson came out in support of the Second Amendment when I saw them speak. But that doesn’t mean much, in reality.
If there ever was a presidential election cycle where I would do as I have done in the past (Vote L) this would be at the top of the list. And then you see who the L candidates are and what positions they’re taking…. well I never thought I would do it but I guess I’ll just have to hold my nose and vote Trump.
People have repeatedly contested my assertion that, from my experience in the Libertarian Party in California in the 90’s, that {L,l}ibertarians are about dope, buttsecks and cheating on your taxes, and that they’ve never really cared about gun rights.
Some people have made the logical fallacy of “no true Scotsman” ie, that “real” libertarians are four-square against gun control. No one has yet articulated a test by which we may discern the “real” libertarians from the phonies, though.
Now we have no less a libertarian than Mr. Levy (above): He’s a guy who helped fund and bring Heller to the SCOTUS. In other words, prior to joining Cato and being infected with the “libertarian virus,” he was a strong RKBA proponent, and put major money where his mouth was.
And after eight years in association with the “professional libertarians” of the Cato institute, a bunch of debate society poindexters if ever there were one, you get the above.
Tell me again what friends of liberty the libertarians are. Go ahead. I’ll sit back, pour myself a wee dram, and listen with rapt attention.
This election cycle has been very good for one thing: Figuring out who really hates America. From the stuffed shirts at National Review to Cato, I’ve been making a list and it looks pretty bad for the smarter-than-us set in DC/NYC.
Awesome post.
+1!
Do you propose that Trump is a champion of personal freedom and or fiscal restraint? This is a sincere rather than rhetorical question.
I’d like to know as well. There don’t seem to be any in the politics at the moment.
Trump is doing the smart thing to get elected.
And that’s being ambiguous on his positions. Modify your spiel to the audience you are currently speaking to. Let people *think* you see their viewpoint.
Take southern border illegal immigration. The bottom line is, the Left wants them in the country for their voter base, and the Right wants them in the country for their cheap labor.
I can’t figure out why they won’t cook up some type of non-citizenship ‘guest worker’ status for these folks and collect their taxes from their labor. I understand that quite a few Mexican villages send groups of their youths up here to co-habituate an apartment or house they use for their base while they get to work so they can send money back home to their village.
I have zero problem with folks that want to work so they can better the lives of their families back home.
“I have zero problem with folks that want to work so they can better the lives of their families back home.”
Neither do I, so long as they are in the country and working legally. There is no reason the groups you describe cannot be accommodated, but ignored just does not get it. We need to control our borders. We apparently have a need to control every damn thing else, but never mind the borders.
“Let people *think* you see their viewpoint.”
Has he done this on the 2A?
Rothbard, Mises, Friedman.
In this case the No True Scotsman argument is kind of appropriate. The logical fallacy only comes in when you try to defend a generalization.
In this case, libertarian is a descriptor based on political beliefs. Therefore if a politician does not adhere to those beliefs, they are by DEFINITION not a libertarian. Ascribing values to the term “libertarian” isn’t the same as making generalizations about libertarians.
And just because they call themselves one doesn’t mean we have to take them at face value. After all I could call myself President of the United States, but that doesn’t mean I can kick Mr. Obama out of his house.
Of course if the label becomes onerous enough (Gary Johnson is doing a lot to make this happen), some might reject the label even if it technically applies to them. Because nobody wants to associate themselves with Gary Johnson’s crackpot brand of libertarianism.
Classical libertarians are getting forced out into anarchism.
“Classical libertarians are getting forced out into anarchism.”
Best news I’ve heard in a long time! Perhaps this Johnson fella ain’t so bad, after all!
>> Some people have made the logical fallacy of “no true Scotsman” ie, that “real” libertarians are four-square against gun control. No one has yet articulated a test by which we may discern the “real” libertarians from the phonies, though.
You have just articulated that test yourself. Real libertarians are in favor of all individual liberties. If someone claims to be one, but then supports limitations on such liberties, then they’re not a true libertarian. See, it’s pretty easy after all.
None of the parties today resemble the parties that existed when my parents (or grandparents) were my age. What else is new?
I changed my party to vote for Paul, then when they selected Johnson I saw no reason to go back.
I must admit I’ve come to like bugging all the primary Ruplicians into promising NFA repeal, even if Rubio’s reentry ruined everything.
Rand Paul is more true to the Libertarian platform than even Johnson is. I think Rand should go LP. Can politicians change parties while in office?
Yes. It’s done all the time.
Hey, no problem! The New Libertarian Party just decided to go “all the way”. I mean, if libertarianism means freedom, then that include the freedom to redefine a political party, ideologies, yourself, and even reality itself. Its the flavor of the day!
Whatever, any so called libertarian who agrees with the current direction is either a redefined liberal or a fool who doesn’t bother paying attention. Screw ’em.
What’s funny to me is that every few years, a previously sane ideology and its associated political parties gets suborned by statists and becomes just another collection of low information foolery. People are frequently dissatisfied with the status quo and try something else on, yet their laziness, selfishness, and lack of intelectual commitment lead to more of the same, every time. “I want the government to declare and enforce “x” ideology!”. That couldn’t *possibly* be part of the problem, now could it? I’m looking at you, “conservatives”, “liberals”, “libertarians”, “green partiers”, “democratic socialists”. I see every ideology moving inevitably towards one form of statism or another. How about “leave each other the hell alone-eology? Well that’d just be crazy…
Meh…the libertarian/stoner party will never mean anything more than “fringe”. I just hope they don’t get the hildebeast/Timmy!ticket erected. Trump/PENCE for President.
I suspect Gary Johnson will draw more support away from Clinton than he will from Trump. I can’t see much appeal for right leaning voters for the current iteration of the Libertarian Party ticket. More left leaning voters who are unhappy with the Democrats and their support of the war on drugs could very well find Johnson appealing.
Well then perhaps a Trump PAC needs to be running Johnson ads in purple urban markets.
Left leaning voters will look at Johnson’s platform, see “disband IRA, EPA and Department of Education” there, decide that he must be nuts, and go somewhere else.
The party of choice for disappointed lefties is Green. Libertarians are the same for right-wingers who were in the party primarily for the sake of fiscal conservatism and personal liberties.
That’s normally the case, but Gary Johnson hasn’t highlighted that aspect of Libertarian-ism this time around. The stuff that he has been touting this election cycle (open borders, de-criminalization of drugs, prison reform, pro-gun control, etc) will attract the disappointed left more so than the disappointed right. It’s no coincidence that I have friends who voted for Johnson last time around will either not vote or vote for Trump this time around.
When I was on active duty in the US Army I carried a copy of the US Constitution. It was free from the Cato institute. I read it over and over. It has Cato written on the back side.
I will not throw it away. It helped me to understand my oath to protect the country.
But the Cato institute is now compromised. I no longer trust them. Like a clock they will be correct twice a day, for the few things they say I agree with.
Perhaps they will change their welfare reform position as well. They were supporters of the Bill Clinton welfare reform law.
I was told over 20 years ago the libertarians were really republicans who wanted to smoke dope.
Their “you have a right to put anything into your body” has been their most repeated statement.
The libertarians at UT Austin want to put over sized dildo’s into their bodies. Others want to put crystal meth into their bodies to improve their sexual experience.
It seems drug addicts think self defense is not as important as getting intoxicated.
In fact self defense to them interferes with the intoxication.
Libertarians suffer from mental illness. I never thought that would happen. Just as liberals suffer from mental illness.
“The libertarians at UT Austin want to put over sized dildo’s into their bodies. Others want to put crystal meth into their bodies to improve their sexual experience.”
Why the flaming Hell would I *CARE*? Posting this kind of nonsense is simply ridiculous. Do you claim some kind of authority over the size and shape of dildos that libertarians may use? Where do you get that authority? If someone wishes to introduce 25 lbs of crystal meth into their bodies before sex, what difference would that make to me? Or you? This is a continuation of efforts to control other people’s lives, with no cited benefit or authority.
Right-wing attempts to control drugs and sex are actually attempts to control the political discourse in disguise. As Nixon found out back in the day, when you can’t go after your political opponents directly, what you do is find some trait that they have in common (e.g. smoking weed), then declare it the source of all social evils, and ban it to public applause. Now all your opponents are all criminals, and if they get caught, they lose their vote, too.
For bonus points, the more politically savvy authoritarians in your electorate will vote for you precisely because they understand this plan. How many of the “silent majority” voted for Nixon because he promised to deal with hippies, war protesters, and the like – and delivered that in form of WoD?
“Right-wing attempts to control drugs and sex are actually attempts to control the political discourse in disguise.”
You’re partially right.
Their other, more traditional and arguably more “justifiable,” reason for “controlling” sex and drugs, is that they do, statistically, lead to outcomes that look so bad that it makes it easier for the government to claim “we need to do something.” “Fatherless” whoresons, abandoned by crack-momma and roaming around as starving street kids, being a typical example.
Principled libertarians will see through all this and simply live and let live. Or live and let die. As the saying goes, Freedom is the highest end. Even a billion dead kids piled up in the streets, don’t justify the government restricting anything at all. Or, heck, even existing. But traditionally, in practice, dead kids in the street, have always made it easier for Government to claim “we” need to do something.
Most “Libertarians” have never heard of the Non Agression Principle. Most of them just want to make sure murdering babies and smoke weed are legal. F em.
No Republican (or Democrat) has honored the non-aggression principle either.
Pro-choice libertarians know about NAP – they just don’t believe that it applies to non-persons, such as fertilized eggs or unborn fetuses.
Using data at the FBI site, Crime in the United States, 2014, we find that the top 10 murder states for 2014 are as follows:
1. Louisiana (a state that has been no. 1 in murders for OVER 20 years); 2. Mississippi; 3. Missouri (they eradicated their gun laws in 2007 , and are now no 3 in murders in 2014); 4. S. Carolina; 5. Maryland; 6. Nevada; 7. tied Delaware, Florida (isn’t Florida the leader in concealed carry permits?); 8. tied Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee; 9. tied Alaska, Arkansas; and 10. Michigan.
Does the NRA read anything before suggesting endangering women with more guns? The South has more guns and fewer laws than anyone else. Thus the higher murder rates. Wake up women. Gun lobbyists are out for money, not for safety or a LOWER MURDER RATE.
A meta-study of 130 studies from 10 countries concluded that gun control efforts work in reducing gun violence
Yep, the NRA selling fear to get Trump elected so we can all be afraid but don’t worry Trump, with the help of the NRA, is going to save us all by making us more afraid.
I know it works well for older people and not so intelligent people but the rest of see this for what it is, fear mongering.
Let me just repeat what everyone already knows. No one is trying to take your guns away and there’s no way anyone in government would be able to do it even if they wanted to.
Second and more importantly, what the NRA isn’t telling you is that firearms don’t make us safer. They make us less safe. Per law enforcement statistics, for every one time a gun is used in self defense, there are literally dozens of times when a gun is used in the commission of a homicide, used in a suicide, or causes a fatality due to an accident.
I’m going to repeat that again, since I want people to understand: guns do not make us safer. They do not add to public safety. They detract from it. More often than not, when a firearm is used in our society, it’s for a bad purpose. Not for self defense.
I can fling back just as many stats that show “gun control” makes us “less safe”. For example, we could go to one of the states that allow concealed carry without a license and see extremely low crime rates. We could go to certain counties in your violent states and see murder rates of zero, even counties with hundreds of thousands of people and even more guns. We could go to Brazil, with gun bans and a huge murder rate. We could do this forever.
Fortunately, it doesn’t matter at all. Because I have a right to life, liberty, and property. So if guns make “us less safe”, it doesn’t matter. If they make us more safe, all well and good, but it doesn’t matter.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/shootings-u-colleges-deadlier-more-frequent-report-finds-163001548.html
So I guess mass shootings are rare like you claim they do…Welp…This link proves you and this website wrong as usual.
Yo, dipshit. He did not make any such claims, he merely pointed out that your lies don’t matter at all, because we have a RIGHT to be armed, feel free to propose an Amendment to attempt to change that, in order to cause a civil war killing tens of millions (including yourself), but you already know such an amendment would never even approach passage, because such lies cannot withstand scrutiny. Dodge and jink, bob and weave, anybody who can’t tap dance is queer, but what you spew is simply nonsense.
Per the CDC, there are between 50-500 thousand defensive gun uses per year. That’s ALOT more than the number of people killed with guns in a year. your statistics are incredibly doctored and specifically tailored to show “proof” where it isnt.
Post citation proof linking increased gun ownership and concerning these “DGUs” or they didn’t happen.
As studies shown…More guns do not make us safe.
Post rinse repeat, I don’t see the civilized world turning to fascism.
If the rest of the “civilized world” is so wonderful, why don’t you go there to live?
The fact is, the U.S.A. was designed to be different. It was designed as a nation where the people have the right to be armed, in case such arms are needed, as a last resort, to fight tyranny.
History will ultimately tell us whether or not this was a good design. If you don’t think so, then you have the God-given right to get on a plane and find your precious utopia somewhere else.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/defensive-gun-ownership-gary-kleck-response-115082
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms-self-defense-important-crime-deterrent
http://crimeresearch.org/2016/07/four-defensive-gun-uses-permitted-concealed-handguns-just-days/
I can post links all day. There are more DGU’s in this country per year than crime involved shootings. You’re being on this site is nothing less than trolling. We know your statistics are skewed and bullshit, you refuse to look at ours and consider anything as being right. Grow up, go home, and hope no one ever tries to mug your family, or decides to come into your home at night.
“As studies shown…More guns do not make us safe.”
About 20 years ago, gun deaths were roughly *double* what they are now.
20 years ago, there were about 40 percent fewer guns in circulation.
Source – factcheck.org –
“Here are some other facts. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world — by far. And it has the highest rate of homicides among advanced countries. And yet, gun crime has been declining in the U.S. Firearm murders are down, as is overall gun violence — even as gun ownership increases.”
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/
Tens of *millions* more guns in circulation, gun deaths *down* about 50 percent.
More guns, less crime…
Your trollism! You have not provided citations for any of your drivel, yet you dare to demand such from others?
Nice try.
Utah, Wyoming, Vermont and perhaps a few other states have fewer restrictions on gun ownership than the ten you mentioned. And they are among the states with the lowest violent crime rates.
The differences in murder/violent crime rates between states is small, compared to the differences between urban and rural areas in the same state. Looking at county-by-county data tells a much more powerful story.
1. Violent crime is an overwhelmingly urban problem.
2. Almost all of it is gang related.
3. It happens wherever there are large, Democrat-controlled cities, regardless of state gun laws.
4. Sparsely populated rural areas, with high rates of gun ownership, few police officers per capita and slow police response times, have very low violent crime rates, regardless of state gun laws.
False and Rubbish.
1.Utah, Wyoming, Vermont and other “pro-gun” states have higher per capita murder and suicide rates versus states with strict gun control laws.
2.Most guns in anti-gun states have been smuggled from lax law states.
3.Pro-gun states are known to intentionally fudge their crime stats to make it seem like crime is at an all time low despite the facts and evidence that it is not.
4. Rural Areas have higher capita murders and rates of suicides versus urban areas which have lack of firearm ownership, improved healthcare facilities, strong police presence and lower crime.
Talk how many guns would be “just right” ? And please try to avoid sarcasm and emotionally driven illogical feels.
This is serious.
If you truly want to be serious, then you need to start getting your data from more reliable sources. Start with the FBI and the CDC, do your own analysis. I have.
But I don’t think you want to be serious. I think you want to be a troll.
Anti-gun states, and countries even, are known to fudge stats so they look good. In concert with the media, they have their agitprop down pat. Think about how CNN got caught in a lie a few years ago, with the “one school shooting a day” myth. They padded the stats to include people from like 12-21, and also shootings off campus – for example, two teenage gangbangers who haven’t seen the inside of a school in years, get involved in a shooting incident miles from campus. But they are of “school age” so it’s a school shooting according to CNN.
You have this mistaken assumption that gun control works. Here’s a clue – it doesn’t. Other factors, regardless of “gun status” skew states’ crime rates up and downward…
• Economics. The old, rusting areas of the North are high in crime due to desperation and decades of repression. The abundance of gun control doesn’t do much to stem the tide of violence.
• Racism. See above – old racial tensions, again, having eff-all to do with guns, drives the violence.
• Education. Educated people don’t have time to be running around shooting each other. There’s plenty of educated areas in the South and Texas where crime is very low.
Address the issues of economic conditions, education, and racism, and the violence issue will fade, even more dramatically than it already has.
Well if you want to be taken seriously, then you should probably read More Guns Less Crime by John R. Lott Jr. The stastical analysis that is done within this book is excellent and it is as scientifically/statistically valid as any I have seen. And the data clearly disagrees with your claims.
Yes, the DATA disagrees with you. This might come as a shock to you, because that kind of objective, repeatable data and analysis is often hidden in books.
Explain Chicago to me. And then after that explain Jamaica to me. You should really spend some time looking at the evolution of the guns laws and the murder rate in Jamaica over the last 40 years.
By the way, why do you only care about violent crime that involves guns, shouldn’t you be worried about ALL violent crime?
It happens in ALL large cities, regardless of which party runs them.
Help me with the data.
Please name all of the large cities that have been controlled by Republicans for fifty or more consecutive years.
Give me the list, I’ll be happy to do the research.
Why 50 or more years? Is there something magical about that number?
Indianapolis was controlled partly or wholly by Republicans for close to 40 years, if I remember correctly. Plenty of time to prove you right, in my opinion. Except they didn’t.
Conveniently left off the list, even though they’re in that same dataset, Puerto Rico, with a rate nearly twice as high as Louisiana, and D.C., with a rate nearly half again as high as Louisiana. Both gun control havens. That dataset, by the way, is here: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-5
Other tables have breakdowns at other levels of analysis, such as by MSA, county, etc.
Here’s the top of the table, with the actual rates:
PUERTO RICO – 19.2
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA – 15.9
LOUISIANA – 10.3
MISSISSIPPI – 8.6
MISSOURI – 6.6
SOUTH CAROLINA – 6.4
MARYLAND – 6.1
NEVADA – 6.0
DELAWARE – 5.8
FLORIDA – 5.8
ALABAMA – 5.7
GEORGIA – 5.7
TENNESSEE – 5.7
ALASKA – 5.6
ARKANSAS – 5.6
MICHIGAN – 5.4
You can look at the numbers for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
“Best in the nation” gun laws California? Middle of the pack, exactly tied with Texas, at 4.4.
Lowest ten:
UTAH – 2.3
IDAHO – 2.0
MASSACHUSETTS – 2.0
OREGON – 2.0
IOWA – 1.9
HAWAII – 1.8
MAINE – 1.6
MINNESOTA – 1.6
VERMONT – 1.6
NEW HAMPSHIRE – 0.9
There are a couple highly restrictive states in there, namely Massachusetts and Hawaii, but mostly it’s a collection of states that regulate guns very lightly.
Also, 2015 data is out: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-5
Quick glance: homicides are up in California and down in Utah. In Washington state, a full year after passing UBCs, the homicide rate is up 16%. Thanks Bloomberg.
Thank you, Carlos.
I once took the statewide crime data and threw it on a scatter graph in various orders, for example:
* Rankings by gunsandammo.com best/worst states for gun rights, best/worst states for concealed carry, etc.
* Rankings (basically in reverse) done by one of the gun control groups.
* Categorized by Constitutional carry, shall issue, may issue, no issue.
No matter how I tried to slice and dice the numbers, I couldn’t create a graph that visually showed an advantage or disadvantage to gun rights using statewide data. Of course you could cherry pick from it, or do a regression analysis to come up with some sort of weak correlation.
Fact is, our safest states include Hawaii and Vermont. Our most dangerous states include Louisiana and Maryland. There are too many other forces at work that affect violent human behavior for a layman to draw clear conclusions about gun rights at a glance.
Yeah, I was feeling flippant by the end of all of this, but yes, that’s the key insight: gun policy and violent crimes are fundamentally unrelated. Given that, I think the laws should be oriented towards greater freedom. Since both Hawaii and Vermont are both safe, then let’s be like Vermont and have both safety and freedom.
A group of friends of mine just read this, thought it was lunacy, and then bought a crate of ammo just because of what you said. They think that you are really scary. Over 330 million guns in the US and “more often than not, when a firearm is used in our society, it’s for a bad purpose?” Absolute lunacy. More often than not 99.9999999999999% of bullets fired are hurting no one and at most out of those 330 million guns maybe 7000 (likely less) are used in homicides. Meanwhile the lowest figure of 50,000 defensive guns uses are employed every year. No telling how many lives are saved by guns, furthermore, who gives a shit? We don’t take object A from “Bob” because of something “Frank” did with something similar to object A. That’s not conducive to a free nation, but to a fascist nation. We have and historically punished people for the actions they perform, not their ownership of things. You are spouting nothing more, than hoplophobic anti-gun nonsense, simply because you don’t like guns. Let’s not blame people for their actions right? Lets blame guns. And you call us facist. Hilarious.
That’s a lie. Blatant lie. AR15’s have been banned in California, Massachusetts and several other states. Those firearms are being taken from people “progressively.” Just as the liberal democratic party is the progressively party. Progress to them is banning guns. No provisions were provided to people in those states to pass their firearms down to their children. You guys are simply taking everyone’s guns in small incremental progressive steps by means of limiting people’s future purchases and limiting their ability to transfer those firearms alive or dead. Furthermore, everyone knows your ridiculous laws are ridiculous. Even progressive liberals know it. Your endless and nonsensical laws serve only your planned and intended means to reduce the incentive and motivation of people to purchase and collect firearms.
Ben Shapiro put it best:
“Perhaps the saddest party in the saddest year in major party history is the libertarians. All they had to do was nominate a libertarian.”
+1
This was really the LP’s year to draw a contrast against two unpopular candidates and get some market share in political landscape. Instead they went with a horrible ticket more leftist than both Hillary and Trump. So utterly disappointing.
I have voted Libertarian before, but this year they have not put forward a candidate.
To be fair, Weld saying he supports the 2nd Amendment with his track record is no different than Trump saying he is “pro gun”. I don’t read much into this.
Really? ?? Really????
Since Trump has never held office he has no track record. He does have two sons who have changed his mind on the second amendment. You can believe him or not.
Weld does have a track record. He signed a state AWB years before bill Clinton signed the national AWB. That national AWB has expired. But the state of Massachusetts is stuck with its state ban because of former governor William Weld.
Has an libertarian asked Weld if he thinks the state ban he signed should be repealed????
Has the great representative of libertarianism, Reason Magazine, asked Weld any questions on the current Mass attorney general, Maura Healy and her illegal, anti-freedom, anti-second amendment actions????
The libertarian press is covering for Weld and Johnson just like the MSM is covering for Hillary.
Trump supported the assault weapons ban, and helped fund every Clinton election till now. That is a track record. Money talks. Plus his bullshit about stop and frisk, plus HE STRONGLY SUPPORTS no fly-no buy. I’ll believe he’s changed his mind when he shows it. I’m a skeptic by nature, and I don’t trust Trump any more than Weld with 2nd Amendment issues
Just like Fox and all these other news sites try to put a positive spin on Trumps past.
The alternative, the ONLY alternative, is Clinton, who *PROMISES* to do the things you are afraid Trump *might* do.
The crux of the problem is that “Today’s Libertarian Party” isn’t libertarian.
Controlled opposition
Well crap, I just unsubscribed from the Cato Institute newsletter. They appear to have also been infiltrated by the National Socialists…
Who the heck writes this _ _ _ _?
The [U.S.] “Libertarian Party” was formed on December 11, 1971. It was formed in response to to the 1960’s born movement of “Don’t Trust Anyone Over 30”, and it was an attempt to sell:
LIBERALISM TO YOUTHS
It is all BULLSH_T and so are ALL of it’s candidates.
Another Day, Another Mass Shooting….
https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-north-carolina-college-students-shot-killed-off-223231343.html
You need to check your definition of ‘mass shooting.’
Nice try at agitprop, though. You are trying to make weak ass association with campus shooting, mass shooting or active shooter with an uninvited guest at an off-campus party shooting two individuals.
Weak. Weak. Weak. You know, like your brain.
Another day, another “liberal” trying to “liberate” the hard working people of America of their “liberties.”
Thanks anyways.
Regardless, what’s wrong with mass shootings? If it’s ok to kill babies. Babies mind you … before they pass through a womb. I imagine that same person who would accept that, would also accept mass shootings as something to be acceptable. Right? No reason to prepare or protect from them. They are only human lives right?
These statements made by Johnson and Weld concerning watch lists and gun bans upset me and unfortunately there’s not much criticism of Johnson and Weld in this article that couldn’t be applied to Trump as well, based on his past and recent statements and no actual experience governing. Even now he speaks from a puddle of consciousness and you have no idea what he would actually do.
Vote your conscience but prepare for betrayal. It doesn’t really matter though because he’s not really even trying to win.
Sounds about right to me.
We’re screwed all of the ways this go-around.
I stopped telling people I was libertarian long ago. The writing has been on the wall for a while now the way these statists-lite have been talking and who they’ve been trying to appeal to.
Now I just say I’m a damn anarchist. It accomplishes two great things: 1)the inquirer knows I don’t give a shit about their politics and 2)the inquirer ceases inquiry and leaves me alone.
My motto is I don’t give a shit about you or the things you do so please stop giving a shit about me or the things I do. Now go away.
I’m going to have a family crest made up.
Yea. The libertarian party seems to have been taken over by pot smoking modern hippies ready to get elected and blow their gun control wad.
Libertarians are simply Democrats with extra cheese.
Levy at Cato has been awful on the 2A for years. Back in January of 2013 I heard him on Bill Bennet’s old radio show, he had the exact same spiel about weapons bans and mag capacities- trying to find just the right level to determine when the government should send a man to put you in a cage. He is not a friend of freedom, and his employment casts doubt on Cato in general.
You guys are being completely untrue about the positions: https://youtu.be/pcbjRzuwFHU https://youtu.be/N0QahIUnDmc and https://youtu.be/NTQn3chyp9c
This story is complete shit and illogical. Melissa Joanhart campaigning with Gary has about as much to do with gun control as drew Carey campaigning with Johnson has to do with improv.
It sounds like the Libertarian Party is trying to be the next Political Party that is completely out of touch with its core principles and its constituency.
As long as the Libertarian platform is one that the disaffected Bernie Democrats can vote for, let them flee the DNC in droves and vote Gary instead of Hillary for all I care.
When the 2A voters have no alternative to Trump, that’s one of our best weapons against the possibility of Mrs President Clinton.
When you get a group of dissimilar people together and unite them under an ultimately untenable goal, you will never achieve freedom.
The LP has proven the above.
The State is too big for an actual LP to exist. Once people realize that they’re voting to remove the jobs of their friends and family (21.995 million people, 6.9% of the US population [14.5% of the US workforce]- slightly more than twice the population of Greece), they back down and keep up their statist ways.
I trust myself to be moral in a world with no laws. Do you?
My government employed family and friends can get a real job.
I may trust myself, but I definitely don’t trust others.
Make your positions known. Tell Cato that they need to smarten up. Same for the liberals calling themselves Libertarians.
Read the party’s platform…it’s pretty clear on 2A issues: “We oppose all laws at any level of government restricting, registering, or monitoring the ownership, manufacture, or transfer of firearms or ammunition.”
Weld and Johnson are not the party. Cato is most certainly not the party.
This reads like a hit piece written out of fear that the 1-8% of the electorate who will likely vote for Johnson will cost Trump the election. If that’s the point: just come out and say it. TTAG is better than this.
Glad to see so many people taking notice of the way the Libertarians have self-degraded over the past 40 years. (40 years of failing to get significant numbers of votes, too). It’s best for now to just dismiss the Libertarians -they are too little (again) and too late to have any but negative impact in this election and on the Bill of Rights.
Beyond that, it’s a mistake to think that an 8% drain on votes for Trump and Republicans isn’t significant. Thats because Trump and the Republicans haven’t done that well in their campaigning. AND not enough of the 100 million gun owners are showing up in polls and other areas visible enough to get an idea of if gun owners will take this chance to become a really big factor in American Politics. It’s up to us – the power to defend freedom can be historic IF we just participate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW5gQo43ay4
Yes he did. Both Trump and Clinton (and now the NRA) say that No Fly No Buy is a good place to start. Trump has also publicly and recently stated he is for Stop and Frisk. Trump it not a Republican and he is certainly not a conservative. You don’t get to suspend portions of the Bill of Rights as it suits your political motive or the context of the day. The Kool-Aid here for Trump is pretty thick and it’s honestly very disappointing.
Trump it not a Republican and he is certainly not a conservative.
Read “Cuckservative” and re-assess that statement:
https://www.amazon.com/Cuckservative-How-Conservatives-Betrayed-America-ebook/dp/B018ZHHA52
So, what have conservatives conversed?
Trump not being a “Republican” and not being a “Conservative” is actually a plus.
Cucks sure are funny, though. Gotta give ’em that.
Robert Levy’s comments were taken way out of context. I was shocked to read TTAG’s edited version, having read a lot of the 2A literature coming out of Cato. So I read Levy’s entire piece. On each of the three items–assault weapons, magazine limits, and UBC, Levy basically says, regulations don’t work, the data doesn’t support liberal talking points, but if compromise is the goal, you might try this.
One of those times I wish I could vote comments to the top. This one deserves more attention than the “Nosferatu” and “dumbo ears” comments way above it that add nothing to the discussion.
TTAG authors gives trump a pass on nationalist, authoritarian, fascistic nature and past and current love for all things left, does not understand that other people evolve on policy or that Libertarian In Name Only is a thing… Really?!?
-A Minarchist upset at the inability of Republicans, “Conservatives”, Democrats and most Libertarians to be consistent and understand freedom.
So sad, TTAG has been pro Trump despite his nationalism, racism, and yes, anti-gun statements since day one. Now that Johnson is starting to gain steam both the statist and neo-con (also statists) writers are attacking the Johnson/Weld ticket because they are scared that their precious two party system will come crumbling down.
I would urge everyone to do their own research. Both Weld and Johnson have clearly stated that as President and VP they will support no form of gun control. Much better stance than Clinton’s “Australian style gun control” or Trump’s support of banning people on secret lists from owning/purchasing guns. Not to mention that Trump has a history of banning firearms in his buildings and also has a history of literally donating millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton. A vote for Trump is a vote for Hillary and a vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump. They are both big government progressives and don’t offer the American people any real choice.
JB- Clarissa is not the Delaware campaign chair. She’s the Connecticut campaign chair. It even says so in the article you cite. How dare you mix up small, unimportant states!
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