Where and why would YOU put limits on RKBA?

[freakshow10mm]

So the power of the arm in question is irrelevant? If the fictional "suitcase nuke" becomes a reality, is it sensible for it to be treated as an "arm" instead of as ordnance?

Explosives is touch and go. Traditionally they are ordnance, but with my working definition of small arms, it could be included. Things such as grenades and cocktails, traditionally, are ordnance used in the same manner as arms. The suitcase nuke could be used in the same manner, as it is able to be used and deployed by a single user.

In an attempt to clarify, I would have to say anything nuclear, no matter its deployable size, is and will always be ordnance. Then the topic of grenades arises, since it's small scale ordnance but is, as I said earlier, is traditionally a single person weapon. A grenade has always been a hallmark of a soldier's load and thus is one of those gray "ordnance treated as an arm" situations. I think there are far more valid reasons to have citizenry armed with grenades of different types, frag, gas, HE, etc to protect the country.

I think of the citizenry not as an army, but as support for an army in times of invasion and attacks on our soil. The army is for calculated traditional military operations, the militia (armed free citizen populace) is for traditional domestic security and guerrilla warfare.

When we were attacked on 9/11/01, there should have been citizens armed assisting officers and providing for security.

[Mitch]

So to reiterate the question: should we, as individuals, have the right to keep and bear strategic nuclear arms?

We have the right to keep and bear any arms we can afford. So if you have a spared five or ten billion dollars hanging around, you should be able to legally acquire nukes.

Remember, philosophically the government is only exercising rights it derives from the people, including and especially the right to use of force in self defense.

[Mitch]

Limits? Pretty simple.

Arms is traditionally defined as those able to be carried by a single person, or borne by his arms. If a person can't pick it up and carry it reasonably, I don't consider it an arm. It's ordnance. Also the accessories and munitions associated with such arm are treated as arms.

Traditionally defined by whom?

Arms as understood by the drafters of the Second Amendment are those required by the citizenry to defend themselves from a tyrannical government.

If you think the citizenry can defend themselves from a tyrannical government using only weapons that can be carried by a single individual, then I guess your definition fits.

[Bugei]

Limits? Pretty simple.

Arms is traditionally defined as those able to be carried by a single person, or borne by his arms. If a person can't pick it up and carry it reasonably, I don't consider it an arm. It's ordnance. Also the accessories and munitions associated with such arm are treated as arms.

I've stated it before. "Any weapon. Any time. Anywhere." If the Founding Fathers had wanted limits, they would have put them in the Second Amendment.

But I have to say that your "and bear" argument does seem to support the idea that the weapons the Second Amendment is talking about must be man-portable. If you're going to "bear" the thing, you have to be able to pick it up.

Don't see how you could overthrow a tyrannical government without bigger stuff, though. Gonna need some kind of SAMs for the aircraft, some kind of anti-tank weapon for the armor. Wouldn't want to do combat in an urban environment without grenades, either. Luckily, all those are man-portable these days. Be interesting to drop by Wild Sports (no, I don't really shop there) and see the new 2010-model Javelins on the shelves.

[CharlieK]

I think we should outlaw ACTIONS only. If I own a nuke and don't hurt anyone with it, why should anyone care? Just as importantly, if you ban me from having a nuke, do you really think that will have impact on my getting one if I'm a bad person meaning to do harm? Of course not; no more than telling someone they can't have a gun.

There should be no limits on what we can possess, only on what we DO.

[rolo]

Wait. To overthrow the government, we need artillery, tanks, and tac-nukes? If we can organize to such a degree that the rank and file salt of the earth is willing to stand up to violently oppose our government, why can't we organize around reforming our government through the ballot box?

Isn't the preferred order of revolution, soap box, ballot box, ammo box?

On the topic of RKBA, I'm with the poster who suggests that WMD's are something that requires stricter control. If I can't maintain it with a simple toolbox and a can of CLP, I don't want the responsibility. If I have to grow a weapon, wear a protective suit to survive the deployment of a weapon, or be underground to set off the weapon...

I also disagree with the need for "bigger stuff" to oppose a tyrannical government. Do you honestly think that our Military would support a tyrannical government? One of the few things in this world that I have faith in, is our men in uniform.

[wash]

I would like a few W48's and an M109A6 Paladin to go with them.

Any more than that would just be overkill.

[Mitch]

I also disagree with the need for "bigger stuff" to oppose a tyrannical government. Do you honestly think that our Military would support a tyrannical government? One of the few things in this world that I have faith in, is our men in uniform.

Google "bonus marchers."

[Hopi]

Limits? Pretty simple.

Arms is traditionally defined as those able to be carried by a single person, or borne by his arms. If a person can't pick it up and carry it reasonably, I don't consider it an arm. It's ordnance. Also the accessories and munitions associated with such arm are treated as arms.

With that out of the way...

There are two types of people that should not be legally armed. If you are in a correctional facility serving a sentence or fleeing justice, you have no RKBA. If you are outside a department of correction facility and are not a fugitive from justice, you are a free person and should have the RKBA.

No permits, no licenses, no background checks, no FFLs needed for interstate commerce, no waiting period, no records, no taxes-rights should be tax free. This applies to fully automatic weapons, short barreled weapons, suppressors, etc.

No carry zones? Simple. The sterile areas of correctional facilities (ie if a prisoner has access to the area, no weapons) and private property. Government property should be legal to carry a firearm. The taxpayers paid for it, that means the public owns it and it's public property.

Basically revert gun laws back to the way they were before 1934 and leave them the hell alone.

In agreement with all of the above.

[wash]

I'm OK with driving my arms.

[Hopi]

Google "bonus marchers."

and Kent State and Waco to name a couple...

[kcbrown]

I think it's clear the founders had no idea that technology would result in weapons anything like what we had today. You have to remember that at the time, the most powerful weapons they had that didn't require something like a ship to carry them were cannon that could take out at most a few people, probably about the equivalent of a modern hand grenade or something. Certainly nothing like the high explosives we have today.

I don't think it ever crossed their minds that a single weapon could possibly be powerful enough to take out an entire city.

From the standpoint of the context of the time, the RKBA without restrictions makes perfect sense. But in today's context, where even a small tactical nuclear device is sufficiently powerful to kill tens of thousands?

How do we reconcile the need for the people to be able to overthrow a tyrannical government with the need to protect life? There is no liberty without life, after all, but life isn't much without liberty, either. You have to have both.


And the argument that economics will take care of the problem of access to heavy weaponry assumes, probably incorrectly, that those who are capable of affording such weaponry are also sufficiently responsible to handle them. It also assumes, perhaps incorrectly, that such powerful weaponry will always remain hideously expensive. Certainly it's in the interests of governments to make sure that remains the case, but that alone isn't necessarily enough to keep it that way and, in any case, one could easily argue that such efforts on the part of governments are themselves infringements of 2A.


So in the end, I suspect this is a much harder problem than it was when the founders wrote the Constitution.

[Mitch]

So in the end, I suspect this is a much harder problem than it was when the founders wrote the Constitution.

Of course it is, almost everything is, now.

But nothing has changed so much yet to alter my radical stance.

[rolo]

Google "bonus marchers."

I was aware of the Bonus Army before posting my opinion and the circumstances were certainly unique. In truth, I think the circumstances were so unique as to be inapplicable as an example of what the military would do in the face of popular uprising against a tyrannical government.

Edit: I also think Kent State and Waco aren't representative of what a popular uprising would look like either.

[dansgold]

You should be able to own any weapon in common use by members of any law enforcement or military organization in the world.

This includes all pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, SMGs, RPG and 'Bazzookas', shoulder-fired missles, etc.

The ownership of tanks, field artillery and military aircraft should be widely "allowed", with minimal restrictions ... about as much trouble as buying a shotgun in California.

Nukes and biologicals are just completely off-the-chart.