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No. Just because a behavior is legal doesn’t make it moral or something anyone should condone. For those who might balk at the idea of legal prostitution, consider how we draw the distinction on abortion. It’s easy for us to see how something can be legal and not moral. (Obviously this becomes disanalogous when we understand why abortion should not be legal either; see Chapter 14.)

Libertarianism draws a much sharper line between legality and morality—and not because we seek a more licentious society, as some have claimed. Many Christians believe the role of government is to legislate morality—that is, to prescribe moral rules for society over and above rights violations. Romans 13:4 is often used to hit home the idea that the role of government is to promote what is morally good and punish that which is morally wrong. Christian libertarians would certainly agree that all rights violations are morally wrong, but that’s where we stop. Why?

Those behaviors that are morally wrong but are not rights violations in themselves, like prostitution, drug addiction, or suicide, are indicative of social ills or health problems that can be addressed by the free market (and the gospel). Prostitution, which is often connected to human trafficking (which is a rights violation), usually occurs when women are in desperate situations. And often when they seek to escape prostitution, they wind up punished and exploited by the criminal justice system.

Alternatively, women who choose prostitution voluntarily cannot seek justice for rape, often because the authorities believe they deserved to be raped. Is that justice? We don’t think so. So while Christian libertarians wouldn’t endorse prostitution, we do believe that legalizing it will help women who want out to escape it, and women who want to stay in to at least get justice when rights violations occur.

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The right to self-defense belongs to every moral agent created in God’s image. That right does not vanish because some misuse it; rather, justice demands that only those who violate others’ rights lose liberty through due process. A violent offender serving a sentence, or someone who is threatening or committing aggression, may be justly restrained. But outside those narrow circumstances, moral law grants no authority to preemptively disarm peaceful people.

The right to self-defense and property ownership includes the freedom to possess the means necessary for that defense. On principle, no firearm or “weapon of war” is unlawful or immoral for an individual to own. The objections to this view stem from misconceptions about legitimate use of violence, or from ignorance of the functionality of different weapons. The term “assault weapon,” for example, is a meaningless propaganda phrase (viz “assault”) designed to blur distinctions between civilian and military firearms. An AR-15 is simply a popular semi-automatic rifle—mechanically identical in function to countless hunting and sporting arms owned by millions of peaceful citizens. Any so-called “assault weapons ban” would inevitably amount to the mass confiscation of ordinary semi-automatic firearms. This is because laws have to define a thing by what it does, not what it looks like, thereby criminalizing responsible ownership without reducing crime.

The truth is even automatic weapons bans accomplish little because state-sponsored weapons sales, black markets, and illegal modifications make them easy to bypass. In truth, there is little evidence that gun control measures reduce overall violent crime rates in the states and countries that pass them. True public safety arises not from coercive disarmament, but from a society where individuals retain the moral and practical means to defend themselves and others from aggression.

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The ownership of weapons is a particular kind of property right that is also derived from the right to self-defense. The right of self-defense flows from the biblical command to protect innocent life. Scripture affirms that life is a sacred gift from God, and that to stand by while violence destroys it is itself a moral failure. Proverbs 24:11 urges us to “rescue those being taken away to death,” and Exodus 22:2 allows for defense of one’s household from violent intrusion. The consistent moral principle is that force may be used to stop aggression—not to take vengeance or assert dominance, but to preserve life made in God’s image.

Christians abhor aggression, but recognize that firearms are tools which, when justly used, can help believers prevent or stop aggression. The modern push for sweeping gun control, while allegedly motivated by compassion, misunderstands both morality and economics. Criminals ignore gun laws, while peaceful citizens bear the cost of compliance—not only the cost imposed by the state, but the cost imposed by crimes that might otherwise be mitigated even by merely bearing a holstered side arm. Additionally, every prohibition must ultimately be enforced by armed agents of the state—meaning that gun control depends on violence to suppress non-violent ownership. Such measures betray the alleged compassion for peaceful people that gun control proponents claim to advocate for.

History shows that gun confiscation has often paved the way for tyranny. The British disarmed the Irish to maintain control, the U.S. government disarmed Africans and Native peoples to subdue them, and regimes like the Soviet Union, Communist China, and the Khmer Rouge confiscated weapons to secure total power. Each instance left populations defenseless against State violence. In contrast, a society that respects the right to self-defense discourages both personal and political aggression. Christians who value peace must also value liberty, recognizing that a well-armed and virtuous people are among the strongest deterrents to tyranny and the surest guardians of human dignity.