Yeah, I hear what you’re saying, and I see a lot of Libertarian-doubters have similar issues with the philosophy. You can point to a specific situation and say “Libertarianism doesn’t work here. Libertarianism must be trash.” But really I’ve been seeing the same thing with other competing philosophies right? Like “Our world is a mess. This is what Capitalism does? Capitalism is trash.” And then right wing people say “look at the communism in Venezuela. Is this what the Left wants? Communism is trash” And the Libertariand are all “its not TRUE Libertarianism” It’s not TRUE capitalism It’s not TRUE communism Etc. But really it’s just a lot of arguing over small matters that necessarily arise between people who hold different philosophies. There are some people who legitimately believe that governments are better equipped to decide what people need and better equipped to provide those needs to individuals. Others believe that the individual knows best and is in a better position to provide. Because of this one simple outlook on life there are necessarily thousands of differences in opinions about daily life choices, controls, limitations etc simply because of a higher disagreement. Yes, people find the non-aggression principle to be useless, but we Libertarians find war-making and unprovoked aggression to be less beneficial than peace, mutual cooperation, and the resulting division of labor.
Yeah the main problem about gun control issues is the fact that guns exist. As soon as guns started to exist it’s just been one huge problem 🤣. These types of problems are always cropping up, but it’s just rehashing the dame old arguments over and over and over again. Can’t it be boiled down to something like “humans choose¹ to use tool² for the purpose of hurting³ others. What do we do?” #2-We can’t erase guns from ever existing, so that’s the annoying part because this “problem” could easily be solved if you just unexist the tool that is being used. #1 could be solved by removing human choice or free will. After all, any tool could be used to hurt someone the problem is the free will. #3-if person A shoots at person B, can B fire back? Remove guns from the equation. If A instigates violence against B and person B fights back the who is hurting whom? If 2 people are fistfighting who is right, who is wrong?
All these issues are dealt with so neatly if you start with the foundations of a philosophy. Libertarianism slowly builds a foundation of natural truths and builds layer upon layer to answer these complex questions. Certainly Libertarianism says that violent aggression against persons or property is not acceptable right? And Libertarianism cannot bend the rules when it comes to personal liberty. People are free to act and to own tools -even (and especially) if those tools could be used to inflict harm. It boggles my mind to think the popular culture believes mankind should only be free to do good, or be kind, or say uplifting things, or help others. But not freedom to do bad, to be mean, to say hurtful things, to harm others. Freedom is the ability to choose, right guys? Right?? … guys…?