A fundamental principle of liberty

When two people (say, party A and party B) voluntary conduct a business transaction and no third party is harmed, those two people ought to be left alone in their business dealings with each other. Parties C, D, E, and F to Z should have absolutely no say in what parties A and B voluntarily decide to do with their own labor, services, or resources. In other words, it is none of anyone else’s business what parties A and B might agree to do, so long as no fraud, coercion or third party harm is involved in the business transaction.

This is a fundamental principle of liberty: parties ought to be left completely free to conduct their own private business so long as no legitimate individual rights are violated in the process. Unfortunately, many of us do not strictly adhere to this fundamental principle of liberty.

Many of us would much rather arbitrarily and irrationally inject ourselves into the private affairs of two or more willing parties in a harmless commercial transaction. Take the recent “shooting resorts” proposal, for example.

In the case of the shooting resorts proposal, we have a simple case of party A (the shooting resorts investors) wishing to offer party B (interested tourists and locals alike, consumers) the opportunity to fire high-powered pistols and rifles within the safe confines of a well regulated shooting environment. Now how is a third party directly harmed by this proposed business venture?

Will the development of these so-called shooting resorts automatically lead to unprecedented crime and mass murders? Is this a logical and tenable assertion? Hardly. It basically amounts to good, old fashioned fear mongering. The notion is preposterous.

After all, we are not even talking about liberalizing gun laws so that all citizens have free and unfettered access to all sorts of firearms. On the contrary, we are merely talking about liberalizing existing gun regulations to include this limited commercial application–for shooting resorts only.

If party A charges party B for the opportunity to safely shoot a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle within the safe confines of a well regulated shooting environment, how is this any of our damn business? How is it that we each have a God-given, inalienable human right to arbitrarily interfere in the private commercial affairs of parties A and B. It is simply none of our bloody business. We are in restraint of trade. We are against liberty. And this is morally wrong.

Strictly a personal view. Charles Reyes Jr. is a regular columnist of Saipan Tribune. Mr. Reyes may be reached at charlesraves@hotmail.com