By Ken Hanson Esq.
Exclusive to Buckeye Firearms Association www.buckeyefirearms.org. Do not reprint without permission.
By now, everyone is aware of the National Rifle Association’s call to boycott ConocoPhillips. This has, unfortunately, caused a crisis of conscience among gun owners, who tend to zealously support private property rights. Do we muster to the boycott banner, or do we sit this one out? What is a libertarian (I use the word “libertarian” in this article as shorthand for someone who zealously supports private property rights, not to frame this as an argument of a political party or ideology) to do?

On one side of the brain, we concern ourselves with the right of private property owners to do as they please with their property. If property owners want to exclude firearms from their property, that is their absolute right, correct? We certainly do not want the government telling us what to do on our own property. What could be more basic than that? This argument is a refrain we see time and again on various forums when gun owners are discussing the type of law that Oklahoma passed, or the type of law that allows a CHL to come into a business armed despite the business owner’s desires to the contrary.