Why can't I own a Surface-to-Air Missile? Isn't it my 2nd Amendment Right?

[AnArmyVeteran]

Why can't I own a surface to air missile?

The 2nd Amendment crowd says it's their right to bear arms. But according to the Constitution 'arms' isn't defined as any one weapon. When our founding fathers were crafting the Constitution and Bill of Rights the main weapons used were rifles, pistols and canons.

Disregarding the fact that the same line in the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia' why can't citizens own surface-to-air missiles, tanks, rocket powered grenades, land mines, battleships, cruise missiles, submarines or even nuclear weapons? They are all considered 'arms'.

Where is the NRA and why aren't they defending my Constitutional rights to bear whatever 'arms' I want? I kind of feel let down and don't understand why they aren't speaking out for citizen ownership of heavy duty weapons.

One of the main reasons 2nd Amendment proponents use is that they need their 'arms' to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. But in order to successfully compete with a government which owns lots of big weapons, you need to own the same 'arms' the government has. It wouldn't do you much good to have a couple of handguns and a semi-automatic rifle when a tank is coming down your neighborhood street. The same applies if the government's weapons are 300 miles away and it decides to send a cruise missile to strike your house. You could stand in your front yard holding two pistols and fire at the missile as it approached your house, but your puny bullets will just bounce off the incoming missile and you would soon be vaporized.

Having said this, I want to exercise my rights afforded me by the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution to own any arms I choose. My family and I have been talking it over and we decided to get a surface-to-air missile system. The US government won't sell it to us, so we were thinking of getting one from Somalia, a great libertarian country which also must believe in the 2nd Amendment because everyone there seems to be carrying automatic weapons. But they don't get their weapons as a deterrent to a tyrannical government. Somalia doesn't have a functioning government. So they use their guns in Somalia's biggest capitalistic industry, piracy. After getting a surface-to-air missile system our family would like to get a few land mines and maybe a used tank. We have to think about what's best for our family. We believe in 'family values' and our 2nd Amendment rights. We are good right wing Christians who believe threats and violence are always better than diplomacy.

From our cold, dead hands the government will have to take my surface-to-air missile system, tank, and land mines away from us...

[Orrex]

1. What a silly and pointless question.

My 2nd-Amendment-guaranteed tactical nuke would totally kick your SAM's ass.

[AnArmyVeteran]

2. Why did you put me on ignore? Or is it your tag line? I thought it was a thought provoking question.

[FreakinDJ]

11. Because

[The Straight Story]

3. Same reason you can't yell fire in a movie theater. Common sense. (nt)

[The Magistrate]

6. Yet At the Time, Sir

Every weapon available to a formed army of regular service was available to the general populace for ownership, and in fact was owned by private persons. It was clearly the intent of the men who wrote this amendment that the populace own arms suitable for immediate military use.

[MattBaggins]

10. What about cannons?

There were cannons at the time of the founding of the Nation. Were there any known examples during the early years of our country; in which individuals had privately owned cannons?

[slackmaster]

12. Cannons are not regulated. You can buy or build one now.

:hi:

[The Magistrate]

19. You Can Build A Muzzle-Loader, Sir, True Enough

Getting the tax stamp for more modern items, though, would be a very interesting exercise, as would finding a company willing to sell to you new..

The main check on this sort of thing, obviously, is expense. A modern six-inch howitzer runs over a million dollars, without consideration of training, ammunition, transport and maintenance. Surplus and obsolescent items cost less, of course, but are less efficient by a wide margin.

[The Magistrate]

17. It Was Too Common, Sir, To Be Remarked On With Specific Examples

Most merchant vessels trading in dangerous waters maintained a few cannon on board.

[slackmaster]

4. Silly question. Of course you can own a surface-to-air missile.

Disregarding the fact that the same line in the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia'...

No, it says it's the right of the people.

...why can't citizens own surface-to-air missiles, tanks, rocket powered grenades, land mines, battleships, cruise missiles, submarines or even nuclear weapons?

With the probable exception of nuclear weapons, a citizen actually can own any of those things. Most of those items are strictly regulated.

Tanks and ships of all kinds are NOT regulated. Anyone who has the money and can find one for sale can buy one. Or you can build your own.

They are all considered 'arms'.

No. A tank is a vehicle. Battleships and submarines are vessels.

Dumbassery runs strong on DU today.

K&U

:dunce:

[The Magistrate]

8. In The Eighteenth And Early Nineteenth Century, Sir

Private ownership of warships was common. That is, after all, what a letter of marque privateer is; a privately owned ship of war.

Items such as tanks or battleships are indeed armaments, properly spoken of as arms, though they are not sidearms or small arms.

[slackmaster]

9. No, a tank is just a vehicle. A battleship is just a vessel.

Unless you want to specify that the tank or ship is equipped with armaments, which are regulated but available.

[The Magistrate]

16. A Tank And a Battleship, Sir, Are By Definition Armed, And Constitute Armaments

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.

[Mother Smuckers]

21. You pose an interesting linguistic conundrum. If "by definition"

what proper name should be applied to an "armless" tank? A Tanque? And of the ship...shall we dub them Battlessships? Perhaps "Runawayships" would suit better. There are many different marine vessels in Suisin Bay in California with no armament yet the Navy still calls them by the same appellation given to those armed "to the teeth" so to speak.

[The Magistrate]

23. Those Vessels, Sir, Are Stored With An Eye Towards Re-Arming

It may never occur, of course, but that is the plan, and will be till they go to the breakers. Weapons surplus to immediate need are often stored in a non-functioning condition.

[Mother Smuckers]

28. Of course, but if we are to accept your strict definition, a 'battleship' without arms

(or more properly 'armament') should be called something else. If I may be so bold as to point out, that was YOUR contention, not my own, Sir.

[The Magistrate]

30. Wear It In Good Health, Sir, For All the Good It Will Do You

No effort of mine could have made the line you press look more ridiculous than you have.

[Mother Smuckers]

38. Wal, yew shore tole me, Sir. Ihm just an ole nukledragger with no smarts.

Wunna thees days I'll larn not to argew with jeeniusses.

[AtheistCrusader]

77. The supreme court has held that meaning to what we today would call 'small arms'

or non-crew-served weapons. Your point about warships is correct, however, it wasn't necessarily protected under the 2nd.

Also, you CAN own warships, and tanks, and fighters planes, etc, but the permits to do so are burdensome.

Edit: to be clear (Since I have now reviewed the tangent this part of the thread took) I mean a fully armed tank, not a non-firing armored and demilled vehicle.

But that stuff is going to be very old, because the miltiary simply will not milsurp that sort of material anymore (without cutting it into pieces, and destroying it), and there are onerous importation laws for acquiring these things from other countries.

[AnArmyVeteran]

25. No 'dumbassery' here. It's a valid question & obvious ridicule of radical the 2nd Amend proponents.

Even though you should have realized the intent of what I wrote you avoided it and instead conveniently avoided the questions I asked. A tank IS a weapon. So IS battleship. Have you seen a military tank without weapons on them? They are considered armaments, or 'arms', 'weapons'... Maybe you were thinking of ornaments instead??? What world did you see a battleship being used in combat that didn't have arms (canons, depth charges, missiles)? And why would it be called a 'battle'ship if it didn't have any means to go to battle? Was the ship's crew going to talk trash with their enemies or use slingshots (whoops that's an armament too!). Hummm...

And I specifically mentioned 'well regulated militia' in my post, but you must have (conveniently) overlooked it too...

You also failed to answer the obvious, that citizens are allowed to have 'some' arms, but not others. And you failed to address the fact that the most rabid 2nd Amendment crowd says they need their arms to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. And I stated a couple of examples of how foolhardy their reasoning is when faced with the full force of the US military when armed with only riles and hand guns. But you said nothing, probably because of you intent to ridicule rather than to reason.

Perhaps I caught you off guard, you didn't understand the relatively easy concept I proposed, or you were just trying to poke fun without addressing any of the issues I presented. Or maybe you just wanted to post your picture of a toy rocket. Who knows, but you either avoided or didn't understand the intent of anything I wrote. I'll try to make my future posts easier, but I thought because I wasn't on a right wing site that people would understand simple and obvious statements. I'll try to dumb down my questions or completely avoid complicated, hypothetical scenarios...

All the best to you in reading comprehension classes in the future :)

BTW: Here is the 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It has long been disputed about whether the founders meant that the people must be part of a well regulated militia to bear arms. It is not a very well written amendment because it lacks absolute, non-conflicting decrees. What I wrote in my OP is absolutely correct... But you have a right to go off on tangents if you choose. That right is guaranteed in the 1st Amendment...

[slackmaster]

64. Your OP lost me at "...the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia""

It doesn't say that, as you noted in the reply to which I am now responding.

It has long been disputed about whether the founders meant that the people must be part of a well regulated militia to bear arms.

No it hasn't. The people already had the right to keep and bear arms before the Constitution was written. That is clear from the debates in the Federalist Papers as well as from the working of the Bill of Rights itself.

It is not a very well written amendment because it lacks absolute, non-conflicting decrees.

There is no conflict in it at all. The prefatory clause regarding the well-regulated militia simply provides an explanation of why the authors thought it was important to protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

If it said "The Moon, being made of the finest Green Cheese, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" it would still have the same operative effect - Government is prohibited from infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

The prefatory clause need not be true today, and it doesn't matter whether or not it was ever true or precisely what it meant. The Second Amendment is the law of the land until it is repealed.

[EvilMonk]

45. But what about...

...the prohibitively priced Tax Stamp necessary for purchase?

The regulating Issuer of that Stamp is the very same government against whose tyranny the weapon may be used by Constitutional Law by any Citizen. That is a conflict of interest. The government doesn't trust us, plain and simple.

True, the cost of buying a tank, battleship, or large bore weapon are inherently prohibitive, but without the restrictions, small arm automatic weapons would be largely affordable. Having an Uzi submachine pistol, or a full auto AK-47 in the house would be common.

I guess I'm just saying that I haven't always been happy with who gets the "Good Stuff", let alone how they do business.

[slackmaster]

65. Due process

The right to keep and bear machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, etc. has been restricted through due process.

[bullimiami]

5. this is the real question for gun rights people.

why do they accept limits on what weapons?

why cant they own a tank, missiles, armed helicopters or nuclear weapons?
who exactly are they going to defend themselves from with their guns? the government? i dont think so.
they arent even allowed to own the same arms that blackwater can own. (well xe now).

where exactly is their "freedom to bear arms"?

they talk real big but the freedom they accept it the "freedom to bear arms that the government says they can have"

[slackmaster]

7. We accept due process of law

Nobody here is advocating an appeal of the National Firearms Act.

...they arent even allowed to own the same arms that blackwater can own. (well xe now).

Yes we are, under federal law. State laws vary.

You should read up on the subject before attempting to comment on it. You obviously have no idea what you are writing about.

[live love laugh]

14. The only question is what gun manufacturers can sell. They are the backers of 2nd amendment rights

...meanwhile people are dying at record rates due to gun violence.

Thanks George W. Bush :sarcasm:

[slackmaster]

15. Your claim is not supported by facts

...meanwhile people are dyin at record rates due to gun violence.

[Mother Smuckers]

18. Oh? Where, exactly? Not in the USA.

Perhaps you are thinking of Iraq or Afghanistan.

[pipoman]

20. Here, I'll fix that for ya..

"meanwhile people are dying at record low rates due to gun violence."

However I don't think the historically low rates have anything to do with GWB.

[Euromutt]

50. "People are dying at record rates due to gun violence"? What nonsense is that?

The US (intentional) homicide and violent crime rates are the lowest they've been since the early 1960s. But even the worst American homicide rates of the 20th century pale by comparison to European homicide rates of the 14th century. At the height of the "Crack Wars" of the 1980s, the U.S. homicide rate was around 10/100,000. Between 1300 and 1350, the homicide rate in London varied between 36 and 52/100,000. In Germany during that period, murder rates varied from 20 to 100/100,000. And this was before man-portable firearms even existed in Europe! (Those weren't introduced until the latter half of the century, and even then, they were so-called "hand cannon" or "gonnes", basically a small muzzle-loading, match-fired cannon on a pole.)

[SteveM]

68. Misconceptions/corrections ...

"They (gun manufacturers) are the backers of 2nd Amendment rights"

Actually, the great majority of the American people back 2nd Amendment rights. Need cites?

"...meanwhile people are dying at record rates due to gun violence."

This is readily disproved by DOJ data, of course. Need cites?

"Thanks George W. Bush."

Since the assertion "people are dying at record rates due to gun violence" is disproved, then perhaps you should be thanking George W. Bush for that. I choose not to, however, for other reasons. But perhaps that is the reason you used the "sarcasm" tag: you knew in advance your arguments were false.

[AnArmyVeteran]

27. Congratulations, you are one of the few who actually 'got' the intent of my post...

But you put more than a millisecond of time thinking before you wrote. Some others did not. Again, congratulations!

[pipoman]

41. No, your

belief that most of the posters in this thread didn't get the erroneous intent of your post is simply your inability to understand the complete lack of originality of your flawed concept. I notice that you aren't responding to the calls on your overt intellectual dishonesty..

[SteveM]

70. Yep. I noted the lack of response as well. Smells like tag-team to me. nt

[aikoaiko]

33. I understand the 2nd Amendment as providing arms to the individuals militiamen (person)

and not crew served arms. Its true that there may be some fuzziness in those categories.

[DissedByBush]

46. Arms are what the individual infantry soldiers of the day carry

That does not include nukes..

Back in the day cannons were not usually owned by individuals. Mainly, such things were owned by the government and supplied to units, or owned by companies like the privateers.

It would include automatic weapons though.

[SteveM]

67. The context of the Second Amendment was that "arms" were small...

While "arms" can mean everything from a .22 to a nuclear-equipped b-52, the Second's context -- especially regarding "...and bear arms" suggests (among other reasons) that the "arm" was designed to be carried and fired from one or both hands; hence, their suitability for militia service. Such weapons as ships, tanks, big guns, airplanes can indeed by owned, they are subject to more strict regulation as these were not contemplated as weapons to be born by individuals who constituted "the people."

I do think that the regulations on sub-machine guns and true assault rifles can be questioned, since these meet the "definition" of arms contemplated in the Second. Intellectually, those who advocate that the Second should include these arms are, imo, on firmer ground than those 2A-defenders who are comfortable with current restrictions, but society and law is not perfect.

Please note that many uprisings against more-powerfully equipped governments/invaders have been successful. Cuba, Algeria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam are a few off the top.

Michael Dorn (who played Warf in "Star Trek: The Next Generation") owns and flies a Korean-era Sabre fighter.

[Jakes Progress]

13. Okay. Just as long as you're not Muslim.

Or black.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[krispos42]

24. It's quite simple

Public safety.


Surface-to-air missiles have explosive warheads. Since you cannot account for where the shrapnel will fly, detonating one makes it a public-safety issue.


You can of course launch all the surface-to-air rockets you want, provided they don't have explosive warheads. (See: model rocketry).


Fully-automatic weapons and things that explode cannot have their effects precisely aimed. Common guns require you to account for every single trigger pull. Bombs and full-auto doesn't.

[X_Digger]

26. I can own landmines, grenades, machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, tanks, fighter jets..

With the appropriate tax stamp.

Congress knew in 1934 that they didn't have the power to prohibit citizens from owning such things, so they put the restrictions in a tax law.

Specifically regarding SAMs, though, not sure what classification the BATFE would call them. For the items listed in the title, I have to undergo a federal background check, get the permission of my local LEO (or set up a trust to make the purchase), live in a state that allows ownership, and wait about six months.

[The Magistrate]

29. That List, Sir, Sounds Like a :Pretty Drastic Restriction Of Your Rights

It amounts to registration, since by the tax stamp they know you possess the items; you must have permission from the police, and then you must wait a whopping six months, with all this subject to further restriction by state law. If this sort of thing applied to the purchase of a revolver, the shrieks would resound to Heaven.

[X_Digger]

31. Sure.. but the OP's *ahem*cough* attempt *cough*..

.. to paint all second amendment supporters as some kind of hypocrites because they accept some level of restriction, but not others is disingenuous.

You have a right to vote. But if you show up naked at the poll without ID, you won't vote. Does that make voting rights supporters hypocrites?

Most of the RKBA supporters I know are not of the anarchist bent that the OP would have them be, were they true to his/her "ideal". Most prefer the line right where it is, regarding what kinds of weapons should be easily accessible in the marketplace, versus additional scrutiny.

Personally, the only thing in the 1934 NFA that I would change is the registration of supressors. I chalk that up to the movies and television, though- they don't actually 'silence' the report from a firearm. They're sold over the counter in many European countries, including the UK. They're considered a safety device for the shooter there (and a way to be kind to one's neighbors.)

[The Magistrate]

44. In Most Jurisdictions, Sir, Being Naked In Public Is A Crime, Whatever Else One Is Attempting

You will have to come up with a better line if you wish to rebut my point, which is that a good deal of 'restriction' on the right to keep and bear arms is accepted, as a matter of fact, regardless of the fact that that acceptance pretty well undercuts entirely the clear intent of the authors of the Second Amendment, which was to see the populace in possession of arms indistinguishable from those of a formed army, so that in a crisis they could serve as an army, against either a foreign invader or a domestic tyrant.

[X_Digger]

51. Pick many nits, lately?

Fine, I'll amend my previous statement.. show up sans ID and try to vote.

What makes you think that the founding fathers wanted an unrestrained right to any and all arms?

There were regulatory measures in place before and after the second amendment was ratified.

They wanted the populace to be able to counter an over-reaching army. That doesn't mean equality.

In modern warfare, guerrilla tactics can effectively drain resources without having equivalence. Especially on our own territory where there'll be little difference in appearance, skin color, or language, and no demarcations on a map to say 'across this line is the enemy'.

[The Magistrate]

52. So You Acknowledge, Sir, Your Analogy Fails

What you are claiming now is that the intent of the Second Amendment was to provide a guerrilla force to resist the armed forces of the government as irregulars. But the actual conditions and practice at the time make this unlikely. Militia was intended to be the principal armed force of the United States in case of foreign war or frontier emergency, the chief reliance of the government in emergency. It was thus necessarily envisioned as a force that could stand up toe to toe with regulars, and match them in equipment, if not in training.

The greatest problem with the line you are pressing, Sir, is that you do not press it boldly enough. The fact is that the Second Amendment was intended to foster a populace that could rally to the colors and with the arms in its private possession, overmaster a regular armed force. That is so far from the case today as to make a mockery of the whole document....

[X_Digger]

54. No, just that times have changed.

You're the one falling in line with the wrongheaded concept that the founders wanted man for man / weapon for weapon equivalence.

Militia was intended to be the principal armed force of the United States in case of foreign war or frontier emergency

Excuse me? Care to back that up? Militias weren't even the main force in the Revolutionary war.

I think you need to pick up a good reference on the revolutionary war and educate yourself.

A counter to federal power, yes. In the founder's time, that would have meant enough armed men to stymie federal troops, as Washington's Kentucky riflemen did during the revolutionary war. Washington was quite aware of how effective a small number of locals could be. Obviously, the term 'guerilla warfare' is modern, but the concept is quite old.

[The Magistrate]

55. Times Have Indeed Changed, Sir, To the Point the Amendment is A Curiosity, Viewed Coldly

In fact, the decisive force in the Revolutionary War was the French navy, which was responsible for Gen. Cornwallis' isolation at Yorktown. It is certainly true that Continental forces did not begin to win battles with any consistency until they had been trained in the tactics of the period; loading and firing in unison, maneuvering in line and column, and all the rest of it. Those were, in fact, the best and most effective ways to employ the standard weapons of that day.

Militia was expected to drill, and to act when called to the colors as regular troops, though it was understood they might not be quite so effective at it; two rounds a minute instead of three, and a bit ragged on the volleys, but still something in the same class.

The severe restrictions on the number of men in the standing forces of the United States at its inception speak for themselves, regarding what force was intended to be the predominant military arm, standing Federal forces or state militias.

[X_Digger]

57. It's a good thing, then, that the right protected by the second amendment isn't limited to militias.

The concept of a militia may have mostly passed, but the ability of a small number of armed individuals to stymie a much larger force hasn't- which is at the heart of the founders' intention- to counter federal power.

You might view it coldly, but I (and a majority of Americans) do not.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108394/Americans-Agreement-Supreme-Court-Gun-Rights.aspx

[The Magistrate]

58. You Want To Settle Meaning And Intent By Contemporary Polling, Sir?

It is quite clear from the text of the Second Amendment that the bearing of arms by the people is a means to an end, namely an effective militia. This does not mean the bearing of arms is not considered a personal right, but a rational for exercise of the right is explicitly given, and the purpose of the article made thus abundantly clear. In the present state of the military art, the conception of a militia embodied in the enactment is a dead letter.

[X_Digger]

59. Your obsequiousness grows tiring

Who, then, is it for whom it has 'grown cold'?

Yes, one rationale for the right to be protected is to ensure that the citizenry can represent a counter to federal force.

That is the end- the militia was only a means to that end.

[The Magistrate]

60. The Idea Behind It, Sir, Is As Obsolete As A Crucible Steelworks

The populace of the United States today is utterly incapable of acting as an effective armed counter to Federal armed forces. It is, as a matter of practical fact, forbidden possession of the arms and materials that would lend some possibility of success to such an endeavor.

[SteveM]

69. The "militia clause" as has been used by controllers is "obsolete"...

Even Laurence Tribe, the popularizer of the the "militia clause," had conceded by 1999 that the Second Amendment recognizes an individual right. In fact, most constitutional scholars, historians and con law scholars hold the "individual rights" view. There is nothing in the phrasing of the Second which makes individual RKBA dependent upon membership in a militia. The Second Amendment does in fact say "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. The "well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" references, to most scholars, the individual states of the union (they wanted, after all, a militia), while the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" is a RESTRICTION upon the federal government.

When you turn to the states, you will find that most robustly guarantee the individual right to keep and bear arms. The only question (now pending) is whether or not the RKBA will be defended by the federal government from state/local restriction through incorporation in the 14th Amendment, or by a more narrow (to some people's minds) "due process" protection. In short, the Second Amendment BARS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT from infringing on the RKBA, even as it recognizes the necessity of the STATES to have a well-regulated militia.

Times do indeed change: the history of the 14th Amendment is rife with the intent of defending newly-freed slaves who were having their rights denied by roving gangs, KKK, and, yes, state militia. The aim of these hooligans? To disarm blacks. Gun control is nothing unless it has the example of Jim Crow-era laws designed to disarm blacks.

"The populace of the United States today is utterly incapable of acting as an effective armed counter to Federal armed forces."
This is nothing more than re-stating "U.S. exceptionalism" in the face of numerous examples to the contrary around the world.

[The Magistrate]

73. Where Do You Find Me In Disagreement With the View The Right Is Individual, Sir?

That a rationale for acceding to the right was given by the Framers is just as true: it is, after all, something exceptional for a government to contrive a situation in which the populace may be able to successfully rebel, and the giving of a reason for the extraordinary act is to be expected. That the rationale given is in present political and social circumstances a dead letter is obvious to anyone who seriously considers the question, without allowing the exercise to be blurred by a sentimental and romantic attachment to violence.

[SteveM]

75. Are you in "disagreement with the view the right is individual?"...

The subject was the "dead letter" description of the "militia clause." I merely pointed out that the states were expected to organize militia, and the federal government was not "infringe" the "right of the people to keep and bear arms..."

We are left with only your opinion on "dead letter" notions of the Constitution "..in present political and social circumstances..."
I don't really rely on your temporal considerations. The rest of your stuff about "sentimental and romantic attachment to violence" is a curiously charged notion, but foreign to me, except in literature and the cinema. Perhaps you can explain this notion; who is involved, how many, and how their "blurred" exercise is relevant.

In any case, it would appear that an individual does indeed have the right to keep and bear arms. I can only assume you agree.

[The Magistrate]

76. The Text Is Clear Regarding An Individual's Right, Sir

But the idea that the populace of the United States is maintained by the Second Amendment, under present law, in a condition that would enable it to serve as a militray force in its own right, or as an effective counter-weight to the regular standing armed forces of the country, is nonesense. People who imagine it to be the case are living in a world of fantasy, which is generally a poor ground for decisions on social policy.

[Euromutt]

62. Well, language *is* a tool that is shaped by its users

If enough people agree that a particular word or phrase (e.g. "the right of the people") means X and not something else, then it effectively comes to mean whatever X is (in this specific instance, that "the people" refers to individual citizens). Language is quite democratic in that way, for better or for worse. It's one instance where the argumentum ad populum is not fallacious.

[TPaine7]

72. Argumentum ad populum is still fallacious in interpreting documents

written before the relevant changes in the language.

The fact that the term "well regulated" has a different connotation today than it did in the late 1700s does not change the meaning of the Second Amendment, for instance.

"The people" means individual persons considered individually because that's what it meant in the days of the framers, because that's what it meant the first time the Supreme Court addressed it. "The people" as used in the Bill of Rights has not evolved at all.

[AtheistCrusader]

78. Machine guns have been so-taxed and registered since 1934.

It's a pain in the ass, but it is done. (and the registry closed in 1986 via a 'voice' vote, which I think should be challenged in court)

[oneshooter]

32. Don't forget the MONEY!!!

They are available, but at a price, a BIG price. WW2 vintage, operational,unarmed, Sherman tanks run around $285,000
Each. To arm one with only MG's would be another $30-40 thousand each. Plus the $200 tax stamp per weapon and a VERY anal background check by the BATFE and the OK from the local sheriff.

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=165786991

http://www.armyjeeps.net/armor1.htm

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[proteus_lives]

34. Dull and pointless.

How come the antis never have logic or valid points?

They must buy canards in bulk at Wal-Mart.

[Igel]

35. This is an intriguing line:

"But in order to successfully compete with a government which owns lots of big weapons, you need to own the same 'arms' the government has."

Do you actually believe that? Or have Afghanistan and Iraq taught you nothing?

Moreover, I don't think the 2nd Amendment extremists are any more wrong than the 1st Amendment extremists. You and I accept restrictions on our 1st Amendment rights--we may not agree with each one, but by and large we probably agree with the general tenor of the restrictions. Same for most 2nd Amendment supports and arms.

Of course, we also have to account for language change. "Regulated" has changed its meaning, of course. As has "arms" and "militia".

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[X_Digger]

37. No, they don't.

No more than voting rights advocates want you to be able to vote without showing that you are qualified to vote in that district.

[pipoman]

40. Well

Do you believe in abortion rights? Then you must agree that it should be OK to abort a fetus while the mother is in full term labor, no?

If you believe in free speech then you must oppose laws which infringe on your right to threaten the life of the President, no?

If you believe in religious rights, then you must oppose the laws prohibiting human sacrifice as part of religious ritual, no?

Are you getting the level of intellectual dishonesty both you and the OP are engaging in here?

[Travis Coates]

42. Have the tea parties taught you nothing?

If they are actually advocating that we can all own NUKES, then their idiots.

If you're going to call someone an idiot make sure the sentence in which you do so has no mispellings ( I'll let you figure out where they are)

Trying to get the damn quote tag to work

[pipoman]

43. -snick-

I thought the same thing...you made the point better than I would have..

[Travis Coates]

48. guess I'm just a morAN NNTO

[paulsby]

39. blatant falsehood 3rd paragraph

"Disregarding the fact that the same line in the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia'"

no, it doesn't. it says it's the right of "the people"

it does NOT say it's the right of the "well regulated militia"

[TPaine7]

47. Not to mention that the OP presupposes that its author is capable of

bearing tanks, military submarines, and battleships.

I get the feeling that he COULD take on the US military singlehandedly; he would just have to use excellent tactics and surprise, and never be far enough from his enemies to allow the use of nukes. He sounds rather like the Hulk's big, mean brother--I'm not sure even the angry green one can bear a BATTLESHIP.

[Katya Mullethov]

49. You cant "bear" a 90mm either

But if you have the desire ,and the coin ,you can own one .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvncpT4EVzQ.
Got coin ?

[PavePusher]

53. I think you should be able to own anything you can afford.

If you do not store or use it safely between wars, your neighbors may come to reason with you.

[rusty_rebar]

56. agree

The second amendment is not about guns, it is about self defense. Everyone on the planet has a right to defend themselves by whatever means are necessary.

[Euromutt]

61. Certain types of weapons systems can be subject to international arms limitation treaties

Stuff like MBFR and CFE restricts the number of things like armored fighting vehicles (especially main battle tanks), artillery, combat aircraft (fixed and rotary wing), and missiles, while warships have been subject to such treaties as the Washington and London Naval Treaties. It doesn't seem unreasonable that the citizens should be subject to the same arms limitations as their government, especially when they can theoretically be called to armed duty in the service of the state.

The above goes even more so for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

In a more literal sense, everything larger than a light machine gun is not, strictly speaking, man-portable and can therefore be said to not fall under "the right to keep and bear arms." I speak from experience when I say that it takes more gear to keep a Stinger launcher operational (reloads, batteries, battery chargers, power supply for battery chargers) than one man can carry.

And as I'm somebody else in this thread already pointed out, automatic weapons and explosives are inherently too indiscriminate to be any good for personal defense without risk of collateral damage, which means that government has a legitimate interest in regulating their possession and use.

[GreenStormCloud]

63. The modern intent of the 2nd has changed from the original.

At the time of the ratification of the BoR, the intention was that each male have a rifle or musket and go to militia drills. They didn't trust a large standing army. The regular army was to be an elite cadre of professionals that would provide the leadership for the militia if it was called up. That way the people would be able to easily replace the government by revolution. Thomas Jefferson actually thought that a revolution would be needed every twenty years.

A secondary reason was for each person to be able to defend themselves against violent attack, either from Indians or from outlaws. Indian attack on the frontier is no longer a threat, but the outlaw threat has grown considerable since those days.

The modern purpose of the 2nd is for an individual to be able to defend themselves against violent attack from an outlaw. My own wife has done this once, saving herself from almost certain murder.

Heavy armament, such as you propose, is not needed for defense against a mugger. A .45 pistol will do better than a shoulder-fired SAM.

[onehandle]

66. Just get one. If they try to take it away, there will be dozens of guys on your lawn waving signs...

...weeping about a slippery slope.

[SteveM]

71. Back on the ranch, herding has begun. The herding of cats. nt

[Statistical]

74. Its called strict scrutiny. Then again you weren't really looking for an answer were you?

[gorfle]

79. SAMs are indiscriminate weapons.

Why can't I own a surface to air missile?

In order to answer this oft-asked question, we must first understand what the second amendment was intended to do.

The second amendment was an attempt to enable a decentralized infantry military system, thus eliminating the need for the central federal government to possess a standing army (of infantry). At a minimum, the decentralized military was to be able to counter the power of the federal troops. As in all things, our founders attempted to build a military system of checks and balances, so that power could not be concentrated and abused.

The militias, made up of the armed citizens of the States, were to serve the role of infantry forces. As such, when the second amendment speaks of "arms", they are speaking of the usual arms appropriate for an infantryman to bear. These are usually discriminating weapons, which the user employs to target specific, individual things or people.

It is true that there are now items available to the modern infantryman that violate this principle. For example, hand grenades, mines, and man-portable missiles. But it is generally understood, and accepted by even firearms proponents, that the right to keep and bear arms applies to contemporary infantry weapons, excluding explosives or other indiscriminate weapons.

The reason why this is accepted is because used collectively, small arms are sufficient for the people to use to resist oppression and secure other, more deadly weapons for that task. Yet abused individually, they are not easily capable of wreaking mass casualties. Explosives and missiles, on the other hand, when abused individually, would be capable of wreaking massive casualties and destruction.

The 2nd Amendment crowd says it's their right to bear arms. But according to the Constitution 'arms' isn't defined as any one weapon. When our founding fathers were crafting the Constitution and Bill of Rights the main weapons used were rifles, pistols and canons.

The founders were probably purposefully vague in their definition of "arms", just as they were with defining "the press" - they knew that technology would evolve. They also knew that then, as now, that cannons are firstly very expensive and not likely to be owned by many individuals and secondly that they are crew-served weapons that would require several men to act in concert to abuse.

That said, cannons were privately owned in the founders' day, and they can still be owned today without any hassle at all. They are still, as in the founders' day, prohibitively expensive and highly unlikely to be misused.


Disregarding the fact that the same line in the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia' why can't citizens own surface-to-air missiles, tanks, rocket powered grenades, land mines, battleships, cruise missiles, submarines or even nuclear weapons? They are all considered 'arms'.

First of all, the second amendment most certainly does not say that it is the right of a well regulated militia to keep and bear arms. It says it is the right of the people to keep and bear arms:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Secondly, I have already provided the reasoning (see above) as to why explosives and other indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction are not considered protected by the second amendment. The same goes for crew-served weaponry.

Where is the NRA and why aren't they defending my Constitutional rights to bear whatever 'arms' I want? I kind of feel let down and don't understand why they aren't speaking out for citizen ownership of heavy duty weapons.

The NRA understands, as do most firearm owners, that the second amendment is about "small arms".

One of the main reasons 2nd Amendment proponents use is that they need their 'arms' to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. But in order to successfully compete with a government which owns lots of big weapons, you need to own the same 'arms' the government has. It wouldn't do you much good to have a couple of handguns and a semi-automatic rifle when a tank is coming down your neighborhood street. The same applies if the government's weapons are 300 miles away and it decides to send a cruise missile to strike your house. You could stand in your front yard holding two pistols and fire at the missile as it approached your house, but your puny bullets will just bounce off the incoming missile and you would soon be vaporized.

While it is true that any successful military endeavor requires weapons beyond small arms, this does not mean that small arms are useless. And, in fact, all military forces carry small arms.

The insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, make much use of improvised explosive devices, but they also carry small arms.

It is to be hoped that in a time of crisis that the small arms would provide at least the means for securing other weapons of resistance. But in any case, no matter how effective small arms may be in resisting oppression, having something to resist with is better than nothing.

Having said this, I want to exercise my rights afforded me by the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution to own any arms I choose. My family and I have been talking it over and we decided to get a surface-to-air missile system. The US government won't sell it to us, so we were thinking of getting one from Somalia, a great libertarian country which also must believe in the 2nd Amendment because everyone there seems to be carrying automatic weapons. But they don't get their weapons as a deterrent to a tyrannical government. Somalia doesn't have a functioning government. So they use their guns in Somalia's biggest capitalistic industry, piracy. After getting a surface-to-air missile system our family would like to get a few land mines and maybe a used tank. We have to think about what's best for our family. We believe in 'family values' and our 2nd Amendment rights. We are good right wing Christians who believe threats and violence are always better than diplomacy.

You may be interested to know that you actually can buy the items you are talking about, provided you pay the appropriate taxes, fill out the appropriate forms, and undergo the proper background checks.

And if you did live in Somalia, where chaos reigns, would you want to be one of the armed or unarmed people living there?

[Francis Marion]

80. Hard to debate original intent apart from individual firearms

"...Disregarding the fact that the same line in the Constitution says it's the right of a 'well regulated militia'..."

That's not right, and the distinction is critically important:

"...the right of the people to keep an bear arms shall not be infringed."

The right of the people, by the people, and for the people, not the right of the militia.

Militia compose a subset of the people, and that's why they get to have guns too.

The Founders wanted us to have, and know how to use, military standard firearms. Colonial militia and minutemen brought their own muskets and in some cases, community issued muskets (for those too poor to furnish their own.) to training sessions so that they would be 'well-regulated,' which is an 18th century way of saying 'militarily proficient.' The British Regulars ('the Redcoats') were so called because of their high standards of training, discipline, performance. We modern people impose a meaning of control or limitation when we read 'regulated' in an 18th century context, but the Founders chose that word carefully to ensure that Americans had ready access to military standard individual weapons- and the well-skilled use of the same.

If the original spirit of the Second Amendment was updated into modern American english, it would go something like,
"A proficient, well-trained militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

If the Second Amendment was rewritten into modern usage as politicians abuse it, and as too many Americans misunderstand it, it would read,
A well-regulated ministry of the interior being necessary to the security of the establishment, the right of the MOI to bear arms to keep the people in check shall not be infinged."

Democratic republic contrasted with a People's Republic.