Libertarians are beginning to fetishize violence in the name of gun and property rights. At its core, libertarianism is a nonviolent solution to the world’s problems. I have no interest in perverting the ideology to fit the times. An anti-leftist mentality leads people to dehumanize others by collectivizing them. It’s a rejection of individualism. Libertarianism demands empathy and recognizes the dignity of every human being, regardless of political ideology. Don’t become the thing you’ve sworn to destroy.
If you don’t know anything about guns or gun owners, I didn’t either fifteen years ago. I’ve learned in that time that 99.9999% of gun owners don’t act like a seventeen year-old kid with an AR-15. That fact that one had the ability will make every gun owner examine their own situations.
This is good because the “gun debate is over” will end up revisited by the public as more instances of vigilante justice take place. BLM has lost a great deal of its public approval because of violence and death. Canonizing this child is a stunningly tone-deaf stance that breeds resentment amongst those ignorant of gun culture by affirming their worst fears about gun owners.