Reply #16: A Tank And a Battleship, Sir, Are By Definition Armed, And Constitute Armaments

[The Magistrate]

There are certainly armored vehicles which are not considered arms, such as recovery and command vehicles, and some classes of personnel and cargo carriers. On occasion obsolete battleships have been stripped of armament, and put to other uses outside any class of weaponry, such as the old H.M.S. Centurion, a Great war dreadnought that was used for years as a radio-controlled target for training airmen in attacking ships. It is doubtless possible to acquire a sort of 'denatured' tank, without working armament, such as used to decorate various town squares and courthouse lawns after World War Two, just as it is possible to acquire machine-guns which have been rendered inoperable.