People who think that certain weapons should be banned often say: “You don’t need automatic weapons. You don’t need an AK-47. What for? No one needs that!”

A friend of mine told me that he wants to ban all fur farms. I understand because I am not a fan of fur farms either. But his argument for banning them – aside from animals’ wellbeing – is… “No one needs fur! It’s just a stupid luxury! What is it good for?!”

And last thing – people are often against ownership of exotic animals. They often say “You don’t need a pet fox! No, you don’t need a pet possum!” and so on.

And many many many more examples how the phrase you don’t need X is used. Seems to be really popular, huh?

Well, I used to say that too, until I realized there is this thing in austrial economy called Subjective theory of value which explains why the inner benefit is incomparable. Mises actually wrote a very huge book about it called Human Action.

So obviously, if someone is willing to put his time, effort and money into obtaining an AK-47 or a fur coat or pet fox, he does need it, indeed. We don’t know his desires and how important it is for him. We don’t know his life-story.

The subjective theory of value is not just some economical knowledge from books, actually, the subjective value theory helped me a lot in my personal life. It seems to be pretty obvious that many things are subjective, why someone wants an Android phone and someone else prefers iPhone, or why someone would spend all his free time on the beach, while someone else would love to ski in the mountains.

When I was a kid I remember seeing some guy on TV whose hobby was collecting helmets from WWII. My first thought was: “Why does he do something so boring and useless?” but today I understand. I understand why he spends his money and time on it. It’s his passion and it’s very important for him.

Personally I don’t like weapons and I don’t own any. If they were banned all around the world right now, it wouldn’t hurt me at all, so I could agree with all gun bans; however, there is this thing that doesn’t let me agree with such law. What is it called… let me think… Hmm… got it! It’s called fucking empathy.

That’s why I disagree with bans on things that have nothing to do with me and I am willing to fight against such bans. I would expect this from every single libertarian as well.

Anyway what does it even mean “You don’t need an AK-47”? Of course, you don’t need it to survive, that’s obvious. But guess what, you don’t need pretty much anything to keep yourself alive. Your TV? Your computer? You can go to live in a monastery. You could be among monks, having just a small chamber with a chair, eating only bread and drinking water. What did you say? You don’t want to give up your videogames and social media? Huh? Why on earth do you expect others to give up their AK-47, pet possums and luxury fur coats? Do it first or shut up.