I’d say that before guns were invented there was already a natural right to own guns (otherwise no one could legitimately have invented the first one), just as a sugar cube is soluble in water long before it ever encounters water.

But in any case, the right to bear arms is at least the natural right to use whatever kinds of defensive weapons exist. (The “right to bear arms” makes no limitation to guns.) Which weapons in fact exist depends on historical circumstances, but it doesn’t depend on civil legislation. So, yes, the right to own guns is a natural right. (Otherwise one could argue that there’s no natural right of self-defense either, since one can’t engage in self-defense in a world where nobody is currently attacking anybody.)

In any case, what good would a natural right to self-defense be if the right to use any and all particular defensive weapons defended on the government’s say-so? “You have a natural right to food, but the government can legitimately deny you the right to eat fruits, and the right to eat meat, and the right to eat vegetables, and the right to eat fish, and the right to eat grains, and …”

I don’t understand the rest of your comment. If a law is unjust, it shouldn’t be enforced, and no one is under any moral obligation to obey it. Do you agree or disagree with that?

Like any other kind of human action, enforcing a law in a particular instance is something that’s either justified or unjustified. If enforcing some particular law in some particular way is a violation of rights, it’s unjustified; i.e. resisting or evading attempts at such enforcement is justified.

(just being born here doesn’t make you a citizen but that’s another discussion)

As long as you’re going to make rhetorical appeals to “The law of the land”, you could at least acknowledge the 14th Amendment…

How could there be a natural right to acquire land if natural rights had nothing to say about how to do so?

Suppose I’m in a state of nature; no government has been established. I want to acquire a legitimate claim to some land. May I do so? “Absolutely!” says the law of nature. Okay, says I, what do I need to do to acquire such a legitimate claim? “No clue,” says the law of nature. If that’s right, it begins to look a bit like Kafka’s Law.

If there’s a natural right to acquire land, there must be a means of doing so that’s authorised by natural rights. Why isn’t homesteading, in a broadly Lockean sense, the means of acquiring initially unowned land? And why isn’t mutually consensual exchange the means of acquiring owned land?

I don’t deny that the precise contours of what counts as homesteading and what precisely it gets you, etc., may have to be precisified by convention. But it’s a long way from saying that to saying that some group of people calling themselves a government can simply stipulate that some patch of land, either unowned or currently unowned by someone who isn’t them, falls under their “authority” in such a way that foreigners’ natural rights to acquire it are completely nullified.

A natural right whose exercise can legitimately be completely forbidden to you by someone’s arbitrary say-so is no right at all.

A lengthy trial would (and often is) totally fine, especially if the accused is not in prison (given the assumption they are committing no new crimes, are not a danger to anyone, etc.)

That second part should have read, “Someone who is an American citizen does, in fact, have the right to own land in America.”

Also, I am aware the phrase “unalienable rights” ([sic] inalienable from earlier) is in the Declaration of Independence. The idea, however, is not unique to that document.

But if I may try to expand on your comment:

The right to own any kind property is a natural right. However, their is no natural right concerning how to acquire said property. So while I may have a right to own the land, there may be standing rules (democratic rules, tribal rules, house rules, etc.) as to how to get that land. I would be subject to the law of the land in obtaining the property, and may be unable to do so depending on circumstances (like, for instance, not having any money).

1. An individual does not have the right to own land in a State in which they are not a citizen.

2. Someone who is not an American citizen does, in fact, have the right to own land in America.

At first I thought the way to solve the contradiction was to take you to be referring to natural rights in the first sentence and civil rights in the second. But then you immediately go on to say:

3. Right to property is one of those inalienable rights mentioned in the Federalist papers

It sounds like you’re offering (3) as a reason for believing (2), which would imply that (2) is talking about natural rights after all. So I’m not sure what you mean. (Incidentally there is no reference to “inalienable rights” [or "unalienable rights" either] in either the Federalist Papers or the Constitution.)

In any case, if there is a natural right to own land — a right that precedes the formation of governments — then it is an unrestricted right to acquire land anywhere, and I do not see how an American government to whose authority a Mexican, say, has never consented could take away the Mexican’s natural right to acquire land in America. Even if I thought Americans had consented to the u.s. government (which I don’t), Mexicans certainly haven’t.

The right to bear arms and the right to self-defense are two totally different rights and it’s unfair to clump them together. In a world where guns were never invented (or in a time before they were invented), we would still have the right to self-defense — because self-defense is a natural right and owning a gun is a civil right.

Secondly, (and Godwin’s Law aside), everyone (Jew or otherwise) in Germany illegally during WWII was, in fact, breaking the law. And everyone (Jew or otherwise) who broke any law would be subject to German law. In other words, no guilty criminal was innocent.

Now, did the punishment fit the crime? No. Were natural rights infringed? Yes. But is the enforcing of a law a wholly different issue than the distinction between natural and civil rights? Absolutely.