Ayn Rand On Gun Control
"In Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden carries a handgun: "He carried a gun in his pocket, as advised by the policemen of the radio car that patrolled the roads; they had warned him that no road was safe after dark, these days." Passing over the irony that Rand has the police in a highly collectivist state advising a private individual to carry a gun, there is nothing in this passage to suggest support for gun control. It could be interpreted to suggest the opposite, since Rand has one of her heros carrying a privately owned gun, and even contemplating (later in the passage) its use against the police. (In subsequent passages of the novel, other of Rand's heros, including Dagny Taggart and Francisco D'Anconia, use guns."
The question is whether the purchase and sale of firearms should be regulated by the government and Ayn Rand said that it is not important. She said that she saw no reason not to require such registrations. She said that in the context of a (NON-FICTION) discussion of the philosophic issues in current events.
Ayn Rand believed that a woman has a right to terminate her pregnancy. However, in _We the Living_ an example of a careless abortion and its aftermath show the degradation of life and living standards. Also, of course, in WTL, women in college pursue engineering as careers. That was an important element in communist ideology: breaking down the bourgeois family with its enslavement of women. In _Atlas Shrugged_, our heroine is exactly that kind of independent woman. But in that, Rand was not advocating Bolshevism or the destruction of the bourgeois family.
In _The Fountainhead_ Howard Roark and Mike Donnigan meet in a speakeasy. It is easy to expect that like millions of Americans, Rand herself probably violated the Eighteenth Amendment until the passage of the 21st. It remains, however, that any criminal enterprise entails consequences: criminal gangs resort to murder; lack of respect for the law spills over into other spheres of life. Ayn Rand never advocated drug-running, bookmaking, or prostitution as careers for young people to pursue. She only had two characters meet in a speakeasy.
In _Atlas Shrugged_, Ragnar Danneskjo"ld robs government cargo ships and sells the merchandise for gold, which he distributes to various capitalists - presumably after paying his crew and taking his entrepreneurial reward. If you goto http://www.USA.gov, and enter "warehouse" in the search field, you can find a long list of rich targets. Hopefully no one reading this actually thinks that Ayn Rand recommended anything like that kind of criminal activity. Whatever Ayn Rand advocated as social policy or social action, she explained in her non-fiction.
We know that people look into the Bible for answers to daily problems. At best the Bible is a (questionable) history of the Jewish people (and one of their sects). Other people read the Quran - which mentions Jesus 25 times, calling him the Son of God and which calls Mary "the Virgin" and "the Mother of God." During the Renaissance, a popular trend of bibliomancy was applied to Dante's Trilogy. When seeking guidance in their daily lives, people would open Dante at random and read a passage. The _I Ching_ is another book of interpretable wisdom based on the random tossing of yarrow stalks or coins. Atlas Shrugged is not a holy book in which you will find the answers to life's problems.
Even the speeches that elucidate philosophical principles behind the actions of the characters are only that. Books and movies have such moments in which antagonists confront each other and say what they mean. (A Saturday Night Live skit has Blofeld, Goldfinger, and Dr. No on a talk show, giving advice to would-be evil masterminds. "When you capture James Bond, just kill him! Don't go rambling off into a monologue!") The speech is a literary device. In the works of Ayn Rand, the speeches are great sources of succinct statements that are easy for productive, rational, realistic people to endorse. But, please, do not toss three gold coins, add up their dates, and find a range of words to guide your daily actions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWtPPWi6O...
Usually the category gives an indicator if there's a link...in this case it just said philosophy and I ASSumed it didn't have a link. How many Hail Mary's do I have to say?
I'm sure the policeman thought it smart for Rearden to carry a gun. When I read AS I never had the inkling that Rand was anti gun whatsoever. I still don't think she was...it doesn't add up with having a right to meet force with force.