This is the wrap-up from the questions brought up here, here, here, and here (among other places).
The popular conviction that I am wrong about the issue brings one question to my mind:
Do you have any rights-- any at all-- once you set foot off your own real-estate? Yes or no.
Do you only have rights when on your own real estate? What if you don't own any real estate? Do you then have no rights? That seems to be the implication.
If you do have portable rights which travel with you, what are they?
And, if so, how do you keep these rights while you "lose" others? What makes the ones you keep "special" and permanent while the others are disposable?
Is there really any such thing as an "inalienable right", or do rights only exist when you are on your own property? If that's really the case, then it is what it is, but we should stop pretending rights actually exist-- which raises other related questions.
Remember-- the difference between a right and a privilege is that you need permission to exercise a privilege; rights are yours to exercise without anyone's permission.
So, again, do you have any rights beyond your property lines-- beyond the physical boundaries of the real estate you own?
Might you only have the right to not be murdered while traveling, but no other rights? Or do you even have that right? Do you only exist at the whim of others when not on your own property?
Because, frankly, what is being promoted by all those who think I'm wrong here feels exactly like the Mad Max world anti-libertarians always claim will result from libertarian ideas-- where you are at the mercy of warlords who claim the territory and you have no "rights" unless they allow you to. Could they have been correct all along, after all?
How would this not justify every statist anti-liberty policy, rule, or "law" on the planet as long as the majority believes governments own the entire country? And since you never actually "own" real-estate, but are forced to pay a yearly ransom ("property tax") to keep government from taking it from you, how could you even have rights at home? You obviously don't actually own it. You already know government doesn't believe you have rights on your own property-- thus door-bashing 3 A.M. enforcement of anti-gun "laws" and anti-drug "laws" which they believe apply to you in your own home.
The only reason this comes up seems to be that people, even libertarians, are uncomfortable treating the right to own and to carry weapons as a right, They want to leave wiggle-room to turn it into a privilege so as not to scare or offend people, and in order to do so, they have to go into the mental landscape outlined above. Even though they don't seem to realize where they are going.
Change my mind by addressing the points above.
And we've finally come to the end (as far as I'm concerned) of this particular path. On to other things I hope we can agree on.
P.S.-- I really do appreciate the discussion we've been having around this. Even if almost everyone disagrees with me.
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Reminder: I could really use some help.
