Reply #59: If what was in use by private citizens

[one-eyed fat man]

in 1791 is any guide, then it was common for people to own warships. (look up Letters of Marque and discover that the US never signed the treaty in Paris. Congress can STILL commission privateers!) Cassius Clay, the abolitionist, not the boxer, had cannon defending his newspaper office in Lexington, Kentucky. He put them to good use for home defense later in life when the local busy-bodies disapproved of his marriage.

THE RAGE OF THE AGED LION

The first restrictions by the Federal government on arms that could be possessed by a non-government entity came in 1934. At that time, civilians showed up in open competition against the Army and Navy at the Air Races in Cleveland and civilian airplanes were faster and more capable than anything the government possessed.

Flame throwers are not illegal and where they are regulated at all it is as farm equipment.

So unless you firmly believe that "Freedom of the Press" only allows you to a composing stick, and hand-screw press fed a single sheet at a time and that if you want high speed automatic presses you should join the Government Printing Office that only muskets are protected notion fails to convince me that the Founders intended anything but that a free people can arm themselves with individual weapons capable of serving in their defense and when called upon to defend the State as well.

The argument about suitcase nukes is especially dim-witted, as anyone who REALLY, REALLY wants to use one does not give a shit about your views, laws, religion, lack of imagination or anything else. After all, you tell me what moral restraint YOU can impose on someone who would calmly sit down next to you and blow himself up because you haven't submitted to his view of the world?