My Property Rights

A recent exchange on War on Guns has once again made me realize that my idea of my own property rights differs from the idea many other people seem to hold.

I believe that property rights are almost sacred, but they do have a limit: They end where the property ends. That is not really a limit, it is just a recognition that there can be no overlap.

Once again for the sake of clarity I will state that this is just my own idea of property rights. This is how you will be treated if you come onto my property.

I have an absolute right to forbid access to my property. Once I decide to allow people to come onto my property, there are limits to what I can do to my visitors. They do not become my property once they step across my "border".

If I own a business where I invite the general public (in other words "all individuals who are not currently engaged in aggression"), or if I invite a person into my home, I recognize that I have no right to demand to control what objects are inside their clothing or what thoughts are inside their minds. They do not become part of my property when they accept my invitation to come onto my property. My property rights extend to the surface of their clothing or their exposed skin and no farther.

I am "adult enough" to know where my property ends and theirs begins. I can not demand that they carry a gun for self-defense even though it would increase the level of safety on my property if they did. I can't search them for "drugs". I can not demand that they believe the same way I do about state aggression and liberty. As long as it isn't leaking beyond the confines of their "envelope of personal property" I can't demand that they not carry plutonium or anthrax. If they begin leaking radiation, spores, racial epithets, aggression, or bullets I can take whatever steps I deem necessary, since those things, having left the visitor's personal property, are now a part of my property.

It would be a much more polite world if others would recognize their limits. Slavery is such a messy business.


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