Of all the things that Randites have not settled is the gun rights issue. Miss Rand was of mixed opinion saying in the late 1970's that she had not settled the matter in her own mind. on the one hand was the matter of property rights and on the other was that the primary purpose of guns was to kill people and that may rule them out as proper objects of private ownership. I am told by persons on the yohoo groups Atlantis II and RandReader that Peikoff supported gun bans because they could be used to resist the lawful acts of government, however some of the members of these groups called the Ayn Rand Institute "socialisticl" and one of these lists actually had an ongoing debate about the validity of Philosophical Determinism (and the crap that came out of that side of the debate stank so bad that I head to leave in order to keep my lunch down), so their robustness as sources is speculative; to say the least. On the other hand. The leader of one of the Gun Rights organizations of the 1980's, Alan Gottlieb, was and may be, an Objectivist. So take your pick as to what the "Objectivist position" is on the matter. I tend to support, as the ideal, gun rights with physical and psychological competency conditions, which is what most gun-rights groups advocate. I know some persons who should not be allowed near any weapon at all due to wimpiness. if I had to choose between unlimited gun ownership rights and a total gun ban, I would prefer the former. As was said on the History Channel and as common sense would show, we are safer with universal armament since the good guys outnumber the bad guys by about 99 to 1 and the bad guys know it and if you don't know who's "packin'" you're gonna lay low. Also such a state of affairs would make the requisite knowledge to "keep and bear arms" more widespead. Now, though I have relatively little fascination with firearms, I have a stake and therefore an interest, in "gun rights". Let me quote A. E. van Vogt from The Weapon Shops of Isher "The right to own a weapon is the right to be free". Someday I will do an essay on that topic, but not for now.
But that is not the main topic. The main topic is the spread of Randian Objectivism. You have the Ayn Rand Institute still selling what ought be made available freely. Another problem is that the philosophical system was spread mostly to colleges. Now most intelligent lay persons do not trust what comes out of colleges and for good reasons
Now in order for Randism to flourish it has to become widespread. Is there a model for the spread?
Yes, Christianity. Aside from the fact that it filled a vacuum in Roman culture and was spread by the sword (as was everything in the Ancient, Dark Ages and Medieval world). There was a mechanism. The orignal Christians were imbued with the "spirit" to the point where it became the prime mover and they travelled about the Roman world "tursting the Lord" but knowing full well that they would find haven in the community of believers where they went. The other mechanism was that the equivalent of businessmen provided freely of their resources to aid in the sprad of this.
Now, I am legally blind, as such, I live on a stipend so I have the free time to put to good use (perhaps we can get some good use out of a poor system), it is a bit like being part of the idle rich but without that amount of money nor being able to say "Do you know who I am?"! I would be willing to travel and do what I could if someone would pick up the travel tab. Yet a third mechanism is this: Preachers go to preacher schools and learn the stuff of their religion that most persons have no idea of, they learn Greek, Latin and Church and philosophical history such that they are a joy to speak with. This they boil down into language that plain folk can understand and use. Beyond this, and this is wrong. Christianity and othe religions rely on indoctrinationg children. It is wrong because a child is not experienced nor physically developed enough to deal rationally in such matters but on the other hand, a child does need a moral upbringing so the folks do as they percieve to be the best they can with what they have. For Randism to spread, ths monopoly on child rearing must be broken and done so in a way that is not disruptive of the socal fabric.
of all the parts of this. I find the business end to be the one that is falling into place at this time. I would like to say "Thank you" to Valkyrie Fireamrs for doing their part. For one thing, if you look at my "QUOTATIONS of CHAIRMAN AYN" webtoy, you woll see that I got many of them from Valkyrie.
As such, it is still couched in high-fallutin' talk which means that most persons have to develop a whole new vocabulary to get it and that's asking a lot of someone who has a job, kids and a life. It's fine for guys like me to do that but it has to be translated to peoplespeak. Beyond that, You're lucky if you can find two Randians who agree on what the essentials of Randism are. The self-inflicted impediments to the spread of the philosophical system is attributable to three things.
This will lead to what is called "infant death", especiall the internecine squabbling over what Ayn Rand meant when she said "is". To combat that I have two strategies
Aboove and beyond all of the preceeding. It must have a use: I have to be able to do something with it and something where nothing else will do (and I have to know all of this). That is, it must connect with some experience deep within a person and draw that person out into the "ontic" or real world with a passion that kills. For me, it was the world embodied by Space Patrol. As such, I find the Randian philosophy to be the means to the end of creating that kind of world. Since I want that world passionately, I want the tool to bring that world forth with as much passion. So Randian Objectivism, as I understand it, connects with the real world and my mentality and did so from the moment I understood it enough to make a sound judgement on it at age 22.