An excellent essay from anarcho-libertarian Eric S. Raymond about "What Bearing Weapons Teaches About the Good Life." Eric makes a convincing argument that even pacifists and the like show own firearms to help them understand the violence of the state and remind them of their own moral capability as a sovereign capable of the dignity of free man.

I have always taken it as a good thing that libertarians are detested by both the left and the right. To me it is proof positive that we libertarians are in the right. After all, both the left and the right are fundamentally the same – authoritarian statists who wish to use the force of government to make society in their own images and to compel others to live in ways that they approve of.