Attribute to L. Neil Smith's The Libertarian Enterprise

Libertarians across the entire country were dismayed and nauseated last week to hear “their” Vice Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor William F. Weld denounce, in the most mechanically and historically ignorant terms possible, the private , civilian ownership of AR-15 rifles—apparently because they can be loaded with more than five cartridges (the appropriate loading, the moron claims, for military weapons) and address handguns as possibly an even worse “problem”, inspiring even as squishy a publication as Reason.com to assert “William Weld Isn‘t a Softcore Libertarian—He Just Isn‘t a Libertarian At All”.

It is a most ugly and dishonorable thing for the man to hobnail his way up onto the LP soapbox and shamelessly attempt to exploit it for the sake of his long-discredited and utterly obsolete Liberaloid agenda. Surely he could not help having heard, sometime over the past twenty or thirty years, that widespread and increasing individual weapons ownership has caused crime rates to collapse in double digits. One of the most charming things I know of is the way that young women have taken the thirty-shot AR-15 to their hearts as their very own “pet” rifle.

Or, like many another leftist, does Weld consider himself an ombudsman and protector for the “downtrodden” criminal class whose income stream—stolen money—he has shared in the past and aspires to share again?

But as usual, I have digressed. Victim disarmament—the accurate name for “gun control”—isn‘t the only issue that this pseudo-Libertarian candidate advocates at our expense, in wanton disregard—or simple butt-stupid ignorance—of the Zero Aggression Principle, which guides and defines the movement. From his record, he seems to have no tolerance of any kind for individual liberty. The claim that he‘s a liberal Republican at heart and head appears to be just as false as the claim that he‘s a libertarian. In fact, what he appears to be is a Progressive Democrat.

The man‘s shameful record goes back decades.

I had erroneously believed that the blame for this political travesty lay at the feet of LP Presidential candidate Gary Johnson, another statist former Governor (New Mexico) for whom I have little trust or liking. But I was wrong—it happens. I was corrected by my old friend Tom Knapp, who has knowledge of these things. The LP‘s Vice Presidential candidate is elected separately, so the group responsible is—the LP itself!

One thing becomes immediately clear: from its very beginning (I was there), the party has been plagued by a pack of parasites—moderates, gradualists, and “pragmatists”, whining weenies who can‘t abide being “the nail that stands up” and are pathetically willing and eager to increase the size of the libertarian “tent” even (or especially) at the expense of the very ideas that the LP was founded to state publicly and advance. Boldness is not in their lexicon. Their ignorant contempt for the party‘s once-great platform—a document I have seen and heard praised across the political spectrum for its unflinching honesty and clarity of purpose—was obvious from the first idiotic syllable they opened their nasty mouths and extruded.

Now their contempt has reached to the LP‘s founding concept (second only to absolute self-ownership): the Principle of Non-Aggression, for only by abandoning that can they justify having nominated a social-controller and would-be dictator like Weld. Remember, “Gun laws are enforced at gun-point.”

If I felt like speaking to him (which I do not) I would ask Weld how he plans to take my gun away from me without initiating force against me or threatening to do so. It‘s a solid certainty that he would delegate the dangerous task to the thugs he‘s hoping to acquire, as is the habit of his cowardly ilk. Also, exactly how many American gun-owners is he willing to have killed to get his way? There are 100 million of us, about a third of the country‘s population. We are practically a nation unto ourselves, How many countries are there in the world with populations smaller than a hundred million?

According to industry sources (hat-tip to Jan Libourel), we possess 750 million firearms “of modern design, in good working order”. That doesn‘t count antiques and replicas by the millions. After long, miserable decades of Bushes (speaking of antiques), Clintons, and Obamas, Americans have obeyed their last gun law. (This is all that Trump was trying to tell Hillary.) Is Weld an advocate of Cambodian mass-murderer Pol Pot‘s “strategy” of killing off a third of the populace in order to “save” it?

I suppose I‘ll have to consult Tom Knapp again to learn whether there‘s some LP judicial procedure to jettison this embarrassment, William Weld. In any case, the real libertarians of America demand that, if he retains even the tiniest speck of decency, he pull the ripcord himself.

On the other hand, we of L. Neil Smith‘s The Libertarian Enterprise go beyond that to demand that every single individual who voted for this schmuck immediately resign from the LP in disgrace, or we will find out who you are, each and every one of you, and expose you. This will remain a major issue within the party for the rest of my life, and, with any luck, the rest of yours.

N.B.: The question, “How many of us are you willing to kill?” originates with my old friend NRA pistol instructor and libertarian scholar Lenda R. Jackson. I once saw her deal decisively with a really bad guy at the local Unitarian Church, where I first used the power-phrase “victim disarmament”.