Yes, I believe in the right to own guns, for ones own protection and hunting, collecting, etc.  Its in the Constitution and should stay there. I do believe there should be some restrictions on what weapons; I really don't think anyone NEEDS to own machine guns, etc.  I also think convicted criminals and sex offenders should be banned from owning, as they are to an extent now.  Also believe in waiting periods, preferrably long enough to do extensive background checks.  And the system for doing those checks needs to be better cross state lines.  It can be easy for a criminal to cross states and buy where he is not in the system.

As a parent, no I don't want guns in my home, and have had serious talks with my father and FIL about keeping them 1. locked, 2. unloaded with ammo stored elsewhere, also locked, and 3.  with trigger locks on.

And frankly, safety courses should be mandatory for all those wishing to own, regardless of age.  I had to take hunter safety as a kid, but an adult does not.  

I agree with you SnowQueen but when it comes down to it, I'm almost positive I wouldn't be able to shoot an intruder or even the evil groundhogs who get into our garden from time to time.  (Yes, they're evil!  Twice now, even though we have a fenced in garden the evil groundhogs found a way in and ate every single green and yellow beans that I'd been eagerly awaiting for). 

I'd like to be able to carry a concealed weapon for protection in the outside  world since I've had a few horrible assaults while out there but once again, I'm still pretty durn positive I wouldn't be able to point a gun at a living anything and take a life, or possibly disable them for life. 

I sincerely believe that that realm for killing just isn't in me anymore.

Peace, love and understanding.

Yeah.  Me, too.  People give their consent to be shot when then break into your house.  It's totally vegan.

Individual fools with guns have killed relatively few people throughout history, while out-of-control governments have killed hundreds of millions directly and billions indirectly in the 20th century alone!  Having an armed populace makes tyranny much more difficult and less cost-effective for the state.  Absolute power corrupt absolutely!

It is also important to understand that the Natural Right to self-defense is an immutable economic concept, not a law that originates with the U.S. Constitution and can be repealed as such.  You cannot repeal Natural Rights any more than you can legislate away the laws of mathematics!

Adult individuals own themselves and are responsible for the consequences of their actions (that's what my philosophy of capitalism is all about).  You do something good and you keep the profit; you do something bad and you answer for the cost.  If you kill someone, even if it's an unintended consequence of irresponsible behavior involving a firearm, then I believe that you should lose all your assets, be imprisoned for a very long time, strongly incentivized to work while in prison, and required to pay restitution to your victim(s) or to their heir(s).  I believe that this will be far more effective at deterring crime than the free fleabag motel service that the government calls prisons, and even more effective than the economically barbaric use of the death penalty.

That said, all of my previous points remain.

I would also like to add that gun regulation on the basis of property rights (ex. gun bans in malls, neighborhood associations, etc) is perfectly valid, and that natural market forces will inevitably encourage the current generation of crude projectile-launching guns to be superseded with weapons that are safer and less lethal, and thus will be cheaper to maintain and insure.

Any person that cannot be trusted (via government intervention) to own a gun cannot be trusted to be a self-owning adult, and should instead be a dependent in a family, a prison, or a mental institution until the competence of self-ownership can be reaffirmed. 

Gun safety is an important skills that needs to be taught thoroughly, and teaching it at a proper age (I'd say around 15) has many benefits.  Like learning about sex, drugs, and alcohol, individuals who learn about guns from people who care about their best interest are more likely to get the best learning experience as opposed to learning about them on the streets.  It is very important to teach children the difference between aggression and legitimate self-defense, and how to defend themselves property while avoiding unnecessary injury to their assailants (who, if nothing else, would be able to pay more restitution if brought to justice alive).

Okay, AL, I'm very familiar with your political beliefs but I still feel like you're using the OP's post to wax lyrical about a "better" form of society.

If I am welcome on this forum, then I will use this opportunity to express my point of view.

Your proposals aren't realistic based on the society in which you live - or indeed which anyone currently lives.

I'm a philosopher, not a politician - I don't believe in fixing a society that thinks 2 + 2 adds up to 10 by first convincing them it adds up to 9, and then, if successful, maybe 8.5, etc.  To me it's always 4.

Plus I have a problem with your assertion that "Adult individuals own themselves and are responsible for the consequences of their actions".  I can see that badly reinterpreted as "I own myself and therefore I'm allowed to own and use guns in whatever way I like". A lot of people don't really feel the weight of potential consequences before they harm somebody else.

No human society will ever be perfect, but keeping individuals responsible for their actions is nonetheless beneficial to the alternatives.  The vast majority of healthy human adults want to live, and recognize that they benefit from being a part of the human civilization, which according to my philosophy simply requires that they follow the Non-Aggression Principle.  Criminals who initiate aggression against others can be quickly eliminated and/or forced to answer for their crimes.  It is by far the institutionalized criminal enterprises that have caused the greatest devastations in human history, and that is only allowed to happen because of the wide-spread delusion about the "divine right" of governments (ex. democracy - "we can violate your rights because the majority approves").  Take nuclear weapons, for example, can you imagine what the externalities costs would be to trying to build a nuclear missile in a government-free society?  It just wouldn't be possible without everyone else in the world teaming up to sue you for endangerment!

Alex, you seem to be jumping all over the place for the sake of your argument and at the end of it all, not making a whole lot of sense.

The philosophy that I promote will be new and strange to most people on this forum, but that does not make it nonsensical in of itself.  My time isn't infinite, so I don't present a series of dissertations defining my philosophy on every forum I go.  It is your intellectual responsibility to at least briefly familiarize yourself with libertarianism / Anarcho-Capitalism, and I do try to include many helpful links along the way.

You say you don't believe in fixing a broken society and then say no society will ever be perfect. 

I do believe in a rational analysis of what universal rulesets a society should ideally accept for its own benefit (aka the "social contract", or the term that I prefer is Natural Law).  I do not claim that an Anarcho-Capitalist society will be a utopia that is free of crime, fraud, stupidity, and other problems, but it would be a definite improvement on what we have today.  A perfectly free society isn't a society where people don't have problems - it is a society where people have no one to blame for their problems except themselves and the circumstances they were born into.  Furthermore, I don't believe in "fixing" a society by changing it top-down, I believe in setting up alternative societies on a voluntary basis and demonstrating their superiority (or the violence inherent in the other governments if they try to destroy us).  That is what libertarian movements like the Seasteading Institute and the Free State Project are all about.

That said, let's please get back to what this thread was originally about - the Natural Right to self-defense, which will include the Right to bear arms.

Yes, I am guilty of being tactless, and if no one here supports "gun control" then my rants have been unfounded.