[ExI] The future of the Second Ammendment

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sun, Dec 30, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 4:10 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The whole issue makes me so angry that I just can't write any more on
>> it tonight.  I don't care as much about the guns themselves as I do
>> the general attitude towards revoking rights under the guise of public
>> safety.
>
>
> I'm with you Mike. Revoking rights under the guise of public safety is a
> fool's bargain.

### Despite my all-out libertarianism I am not comfortable thinking
about these issues in terms of rights. I am too much of a
consequentialist, and I treat the mental anguish we feel when our
rights are trampled as a consequence, similar to the pain of a stubbed
toe, therefore open to trade-offs against other consequences.

The problem with revoking rights nowadays is that it mostly occurs by
government fiat - and therefore inefficiently. If a small land owner
tells his farmhands that they have to give up the guns they used on
his farm because he changed his mind about the security issues and
trade-offs surrounding them, that's OK, because the results of this
trade-off weigh all costs, including the farmhands' disappointment -
if they are pissed off, they can quit cheaply, and use guns on other
people's land. But, if the large, monopolistic land owner makes that
decision, there is no easy way for the injured feelings about rights
to make themselves a part of the trade-off. A vote discards probably
well over 99% of information about the electorate's desires, quitting
is very expensive, it's a mess.

So I would say, letting a government dictate what is right or wrong is
a fool's bargain, whether we are talking about owning a gun or
flushing a toilet.

Rafal