Tennessee landlords can disarm their tenants

October 29, 4:17 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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A free download poster from the Ohio Coalition
Against Gun Violence. Just one question: Will a
poster stop a bullet? Answer: Yes, if it's duct
taped to your Kevlar vest. (Source:
ohioceasefire.org)

 In a very tiny article in The Tennessean that could have easily been missed (but not by the folks at Rational Review) since it runs only five sentences long, the attorney general of Tennessee "ruled" that landlords can ban guns from their rental properties.

Even if the renters have concealed carry permits.

But they must include the ban in the lease or post signs on the property.

Many gun rights advocates will be outraged, of course, because they harbor the belief that they somehow have a "right" to pack heat everywhere they go, whether private property owners like it or not, and that big coercive government should force their preferences on everyone else.

So let's posit a libertarian society in which no attorney general "rules" anyone and nobody has any right to "permit" or "deny" the peaceful actions of others, and where property rights are sacrosanct on the quite logical premise that without property rights no other rights are possible.

Keep in mind that "property rights" doesn't mean just "real estate" because it properly refers all property, such as your patch of ground, your house and car on it, the contents of your house, the clothing on your body, the 9mm Glock strapped to your body and, as every good libertarian should know, your very body itself.

So what's the problem?

Any person with an ounce of interest in his or her own safety would never live in a place that's posted with "No guns allowed" signs.

It's the same as posting "killing zone" signs.

Besides, in a free society other landlords with homes or apartments for rent in the area can put up their own signs:

APT FOR RENT
FIRST MONTH FREE
NO PETS ALLOWED
GUNS WELCOME

This whole hassle over gun rights and gun bans and gun free zones and concealed carry and open carry and children being expelled from public schools because their scribbles might possibly look sort of like a gun to a hysterical teacher and adults prevented from boarding commercial aircraft because of some suspicious gunlike artwork on a tee shirt occurs precisely because we do not live in a libertarian society.

Which brings up an equally important point. Libertarians, being the tolerant and non-coercive folks that they are, would never dream of preventing a renter from moving into a posted "easy mark" habitat if that's what they really want to do.

In a free society, gun lovers and gun haters have equal rights.