This still misses the point that in the paradigm the Founding Fathers had for the country, the arms of the people were the arms of the government.
Really? Then how come the vast majority of arms used to fight the revolution were controlled by the government and not privately owned during the Revolution? How come after the war military arms were stored by State Militias and not stored in private homes. Your "paradigm" is more ideal than reality.
You really need to take a look at that Wikipedia link I posted on Shay's Rebellion. It will give you at least a small hint of the difference between the political ideals espoused by the Founding Fathers and the political reality they were aware of and knew they would have to operate in before the writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The idea that "the arms of the people were the arms of the government" was a political reality is nonsense. Sure there was fear that the existence of a standing army could potentially overthrow the republic but there was also fear that some of "the people" would attempt the same. It was not just a case of the Founding Fathers thinking armed citizen militias would prevent the Federal Government becoming a tyranny they were expecting and relying on those same militias to defend the Federal Government from internal rebellion against its legitimate exercise of power. That was soon discovered to be a perilous reliance. Long before the 2nd Amendment was written let alone part of a ratified U.S. Constitution the leaders of the federal government knew the realities of unrestrained private ownership of military weapons. I forgot to mention earlier that the "arms of the people" were also stored in facilities controlled by the Federal Government, such a Springfield Armory. It is a myth that "the people" had control of all the arms. Springfield Armory was a target of the Shay's Rebellion and its haphazardly organized defense further emphasized the need for a stronger federally controlled military force and concern about private citizen misuse of military weapons. An interesting fact about Shay's Rebellion is that it is the motivation behind Thomas Jefferson's famous quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." That was very easy for him to say since he was thousands of miles away in France, his property in Virginia was not under any threat from the rebels, and he had no idea of the difficulties or had any responsibility in operating the United States government at that time. Jefferson was a brilliant man but he was also a bit of an unrealistic, idealistic flake, who was quick to espouse the virtues of individual liberty for the people without much thought of the difficulties at that time involved in preventing the collapse of the United States into vulnerable anarchy.
The point is that parity is virtually a given under that paradigm. I don't know where you got the idea that people are arguing that people should be able to own/control weapons that are "overwhelmingly more powerful" than that owned by the government. I don't see that anyone arguing that point and when someone responds to an argument no one is positing that is the definition of a strawman.The bottom line is that the Founding Fathers clearly tolerated the private ownership of weapons in the same general class as the ones controlled by the nation they proposed.
I reject your paradigm as far too simplistic to be accurate. I don't know where you are getting this "same general class" parity idea in regard to major warships.
There has been much debate about how to interpret the wording of the 2nd Amendment since in the last 100 years. Some say they know exactly what the delegates to the Constitutional Convention meant to convey with the wording of the 2nd Amendment and some other amendments. I suspect what was intended to be conveyed were concepts that could be subjected to later interpretation and this was deliberately done to prevent more specific details causing argument that hinder ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In regard to the specifics of bearing arms being guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment it was most likely assumed it would be to existing current practice. At that time current practice did not have civilians owning major warships of the type that would be classified as the largest rates of ship of the line.
The rest is interesting information, if it's intended to inform, or obfuscation if it's intended to direct attention away from the bottom line.This is exactly the kind of thing that attempts to direct attention away from the bottom line. I don't see anyone disagreeing that there were larger warships in the world at the time of the Revolutionary war, but the "largest government operated warships" operated by the American government were, by your own admission, in the same general class to the privately owned/operated war ships which fought on the side of the colonies.I don't see the point of trying to prove such a thing. It's only necessary to demonstrate that, as you have admitted, the Founding Fathers did permit private ownership of ships in the same general class as the ones the American government operated in the Revolutionary war. That seems to be more than adequate to establish the general principle of what they believed was reasonable in terms of private weapons ownership.The ideas about what is reasonable weapons ownership has certainly evolved and it began evolving as soon as the Founding Fathers stopped being rebels and began being a government. It's continued evolving since then. However, in the beginning, it's pretty clear what their intentions were. And though they may have later considered their initial views to be overly idealistic, that doesn't change what those views were at the beginning.
If I have admitted, which I don't think I have, that "the Founding Fathers did permit private ownership of ships in the same general class as he ones the American government operated in the Revolutionary war" I have made an error in communicating. The reality is the government operated some ships similar to privately owned privateer ships not that privateers operated ships similar to warships the government operated. The government controlled, financed, and operated the largest warships in American they did not show any interest in allowing private operation of these ships.
From the very beginning of the Revolution the Founding Fathers had concerns about controlling the use of manpower and weaponry for fighting the war. They were not so blinded by idealism to not realize government controls and limitations were necessary to ensure manpower and weaponry were used in the most beneficial manner to wage the war. These men were not foolish enough to allow private citizens to control a warship more powerful than anything owned by the government or of such power that it could pose a dangerous threat to the government. John, I can circle the dance floor as long as you can on this issue. Since the situation never occurred, and there is no documentation specific to what actions the government would have taken if it did, it boils down to the bottom line of our conflicting opinion of how governments really operate as opposed to their ideals for operating.
