The Constitution and weapons

Not trying steer your thread off course but.....

As of now, the only thing we have is "evidence". If there was "proof" it probably would have been found by now; if its been (or will be) found the issue would thereby be solved. All we can do is discuss what we "think" based off of evidence, not "proof".

What you have presented is very interesting. I think that they meant basically any and all arms available to beat the enemy. I think that because some evidence Ive seen and what I perceive the feeling of the country might have been at the time. However, its not the same today as it was then. There have been Amendments to the Constitution over time as society has evolved. In fact, the first 10 Constitutional Amendments ARE the Bill of Rights. If we didn't have those 10 Amendments, we'd have no Bill of Rights. Point is, things change.

I'm interested what you find in the books you ordered.

However...

The original amendments (The Bill Of Rights) were rights considered given to all free men by their creator, not a government. The original Constitution didn't enumerate these rights because the founders felt it wasn't necessary to list them in the document, because they were granted by God.

The main reason they were enumerated as the Bill Of Rights was to get states to ratify the Constitution, especially Virginia, who didn't want to ratify it without those rights listed. The founders wanted to have Washington as our first President, he could not be elected to that position if Virginia didn't sign off on the constitution.

I frankly doubt they envisioned cannons as a weapon to be owned by individuals, as the cost of a rifle at that time was quite a bit compared to the yearly earning of a common man. Perhaps collectively as a village owning such a piece of hardware. And frankly, even as a second amendment advocate, I'd fear some of the gun owning public having access to rockets, high explosives, etc. I'm sure we all know of gun owners who are a bit scary even having regular firearms.

It's true that privateers given letters of marque were not owned by the government but by individuals, or perhaps groups of investors in some instances. Government did not supply them with armament either. They owned their own weapons, including cannon, and supplied their own crews.

There's no doubt that letters of marque were utilized in the past, and that private men of war existed and were armed with every piece of weaponry imaginable. The notion that certain kinds of weapons can be prohibited is quite recent. If a private citizen wanted to own a black powder cannon immediately after the Revolutionary War for their own protection, I'm sure that they'd be allowed to if they could afford it, even if they couldn't "bear" it. What is so different now that they shouldn't? Same goes for a bazooka; same goes for a tank; same goes for a howitzer.

Weapons of mass destruction are a little more touchy, but there is a case to be made about allowing people to own them, too. Perhaps not ICBMs, that'd be too far-fetched, but if Washington State (through the state guard), or King County, or even a wealthy individual or community, wants and can afford a small tactical nuclear warhead to use for protection, should they really be denied? I can see it both ways.

Here's some food for thought:


CONCERN: "It would be prohibitively expensive anyway, so why bother? Who needs a tank for protection?"

RESPONSE: You might not be able to afford certain weapons individually, but, if the need arises, you should be able to pool some money with, say, 300 of your comrades or neighbors, and buy/build one, rent a place to keep it, practice with it, and use it to protect your community. Nothing wrong with that. The fact that few (if any) people will choose to do it doesn't mean it should be illegal.


CONCERN: "But I wouldn't trust just anybody to possess such weapons without the necessary knowledge in how to properly maintain and use them, they might endanger the community."

RESPONSE: What if we could take care of these concerns? It should be ok for me to own an ICBM with a nuclear warhead if I have passed the necessary courses/exams, have not had my WMD license taken away for irresponsible behavior, have purchased one from a reputable manufacturer with a good safety record, and have it checked out regularly (you know, emissions and stuff, just like regular cars are nowadays).


CONCERN: "But it will be dangerous to people who live nearby! And when could you possibly use them, anyway?"

RESPONSE: You can't have a blanket prohibition on something just because it *might* cause trouble. If I have a huge tract of land (say, Nevada) and want to experiment with underground nuclear explosions, and can do so safely, what's the big deal? I mean, I wouldn't be the first one... Assuming, of course, that there is no local law that prevents me from doing that (like the one which stated that detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits carries a $500 fine), and that I'm prepared to pay any damages that arise from this (or have good insurance).


CONCERN: "An ICBM is a bit extreme. If not maintained properly, it could cause huge damages. Even if somebody could afford to purchase and maintain one, they might not be able to compensate survivors for the miles of uninhabitable land should a mishap happen".

RESPONSE: Liability can be settled; that's what insurance is for. There might be a law requiring owners of ICBMs to have up-to-date liability insurance with some minimum coverage (depending on the yield of the warhead, of course). Ok, maybe premiums on ICBMs would be prohibitive for the common folk, but small tactical nukes should be doable, I think. And, of course, your premiums go up if they catch you doing something stupid with them. And you lose your license for brandishing


Obviously, there are many aspects of the problem that could be discussed. But to outright dismiss such ownership as "unreasonable" and "impossible", as many people tend to do, looks extreme, too. Surely there can be some compromise.

Not trying steer your thread off course but.....

As of now, the only thing we have is "evidence". If there was "proof" it probably would have been found by now; if its been(or will be) found the issue would thereby be solved. All we can do is discuss what we "think" based off of evidence, not "proof".

What you have presented is very interesting. I think that they meant basically any and all arms availible to beat the enemy. I think that because some evidence Ive seen and what I perceive the feeling of the country might have been at the time. However, its not the same today as it was then. There have been Admendments to the Constitution over time as society has evolved. In fact, the first 10 Constitutional Admendments ARE the Bill of Rights. If we didnnt have those 10 Admendments, we'd have no Bill of Rights. Point is, things change.

I'm interested what you find in the books you ordered.

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I would be curious what proof would consist of.............. we have no "proof" that any of the founding fathers were even alive, merely evidence!

It was commonly accepted that private men of means could and would have arms (cannon, war ships, etc) during the period discussed. As for the BoR and the other Ammendments, the Original BoR (and most of the Ammendments for that matter) was put in place to more strictly constrain the Gov, not citizens.

I have neither the means, nor the desire to own a tank, but if we want to stay with the INTENT of the FF all we need do is listen to their own words, perhaps that would be evidence enough.

My guess is they wont be piling in here to make factual arguments.......

As fare as I'm concerned, there should be no restriction on nukes. Why bother with any nuke already costs a fortune. Plenty of nations want nukes, but no-one will sell to them and they have to make their own. If you have $100 million to blow on buying (or even building) your own nuke, go for it. It'd be something like the current situation with full-auto, only with prices 1000x higher Chemical/biological weapons should be totally banned, since they just kill people in various unpleasant ways and lack any cool boom when deployed. There should be some restrictions on explosives, mostly about storage and where you can set them of.

This makes for a stimulating intellectual exercise.

Understand, however, that if we're to claim that we have a God given right to possess and bear any and all weapons, that same God gives these rights to all man. Is that really what we want, without any restriction?

One of the fantasies of the FF's was that we would, unlike European Nations, be able to provide for the common defense with militia forces composed of armed yeomen rather than with a standing army. At worst, they believed, we would simply have a tiny cadre that would take in all the eager militia volunteers should the nation be threatened. Unfortunately we had already shown during the AWI that militia could not stand up to a professional army. Even in their finest moment, at the battle of Cowpens, the militia volleyed and the retreated behind the regulars who took up the brunt of the fighting. The inability of the militia to stand against a professional army was shown repeatedly during the war of 1812 and lead to the vastly different army structure that would later fight the Mexican-American war & the ACW.

This is important to understand because this militia dream coupled with the fact that there was little difference between military and personal firearms in that time means that the FF did in fact believe we should have any and sufficient arms to arm the militia as well as use them for lawful purposes in the mean time.

Now we live in a world where a militia standing against a modern professional army is even more of an epic fail than it was in 1812. Please note, that a militia, as the FF conceived of it, was not a guerrilla movement or an insurgency. A militia was expected to fight on the conventional battlefield like professional soldiers; all they actually did was run away or die.

A guerrilla movement or insurgency, such as those being waged against US troops at present is a very different scenario. I do not intend to discuss the theory and practice of such except to say that I expect FF would have considered them criminals and that they should be treated as such.

The legacy of this is that we were expected to be able to own nearly anything and be able to use them in our defense. The reality of militia combat, however, put paid to the reasoning behind it a long time ago. The NFA of 1934 (as amended in 1938) was a recognition that, for the most part, the only real uses of certain types of weapons in a modern society were criminal uses. This law, or something similar to it, is needed to regulate these types of weapons. Little, if anything since that time, however, has had any purpose that has helped the common good and should be repealed.

William

TCB in TN said:

I would be curious what proof would consist of.............. we have no "proof" that any of the founding fathers were even alive, merely evidence!

It was commonly accepted that private men of means could and would have arms (cannon, war ships, etc) during the period discussed. As for the BoR and the other Amendments, the Original BoR (and most of the Amendments for that matter) was put in place to more strictly constrain the Gov, not citizens.

I have neither the means, nor the desire to own a tank, but if we want to stay with the INTENT of the FF all we need do is listen to their own words, perhaps that would be evidence enough.

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Fair enough. I'm not a lawyer so I probably cant explain it best. In my mind, pictures, cloths, documents authored by, bones or other physical things, etc are what I consider to be enough direct evidence to prove they were alive (for example). In my mind, the marques are indirect evidence as they seem to not spell it out. The marques, if I understand correctly, basically say you cant prosecute those people that have them and in some round about vague way, I can see how they other side can interpret that to be almost like a permit process. But I don't know.

What I do believe is that at the time they meant any and all weapons to defend their rights against the enemy. The issue I have is that they couldn't have fathomed the technology we have now.

I find it hard to believe that the FF's would find comfort in one person having the ability to basically ruin the whole worlds day since they were trying to start a democracy and get away from essentially a monarchy. In my mind, thats counterintuitive.


Divemedic, I don't disagree with anything you're saying and do find it interesting. I'll respectfully stay out because I don't have the evidence/proof your looking for. Post up what you find in those books.

What I do believe is that at the time they meant any and all weapons to defend thier rights against the enemy. The issue I have is that they couldnt have fathomed the technology we have now.

I find it hard to believe that the FF's would find comfort in one person having the ability to basically ruin the whole worlds day since they were trying to start a democracy and get away from essentially a monarcy. In my mind, thats counterintuitive.

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I disagree with one major point here. The FF may not have known what kind of weapons WOULD develop, but they certainly were aware of the likelihood that they would develop quickly into more advanced and dangerous ones. They lived in an era in which gun, mine, and cannon had become common, that was a HUGE advancement from the old bow/arrow, sword and dagger days. I have no problem with the US (and other gov.) restricting Nukes, and biological/chemical weapons from the average citizen. BUT the stated purpose from the 2A, was to ensure the right of citizens to defend themselves from a gov out of control! That is NOT possible w/o weapons that are equal or at least CLOSE to those of the standing army!

Again I don't have to guess about the framer's intent, I can read their thoughts straight from their own writings. I would suggest that the only failing the framers had was NOT anything they included in the Constitution but rather that they didn't put more explicit instructions (assuming that those who followed could be trusted to use some common sense).

The Bill of Rights was intended to protect the citizens from abuses of government. The 2A was intended to protect the right of citizens to bear arms for defense of self, home, and property. It is not expected that the individual citizen would possess a mortar or a cannon and I have to believe that even when such weaponry was not prohibited by law very, very few if any citizens felt the need or desire to own one.

Mortars and cannon are weapons of war, not self-defense. The militia of the Revolutionary War were light infantry. It could be argued that they were, in fact, marksmanship units. Such groups do not employ heavy artillery. When the militia was called for duty it was expected that the men present themselves bearing shoulder arms, of the type used by light infantry. There are passages in early documents referring to the expectations that the militiamen would report with "rifle and shot." No mention is made of artillery.

I fully defend the right of citizens to own and carry firearms. Any firearm of the type designed to be used by an individual. Shoulder-stocked pistols, fully-automatic guns, SBRs, none of these cause me any concern and I feel they should be legal to own for lawful purposes. But when you start talking about explosives, flame throwers, and crew-served weapons I have to withdraw my support. I don't really think the 2A was intended to protect the right of individuals to own what are clearly military weapons.

You have to draw the line somewhere. For me, this is it.

TCB in TN

Actually, I agree with what you said.

The 2A imposes no explicit restrictions on which arms one may keep or bear. However, I have read that there were already restrictions in common law (case law) at the time of the framing. If this is true, then the framers EITHER (a) accepted that the right to keep and bear arms was not an absolute right OR (b) intended to abolish all common law restrictions by issue of the 2A. If they intended to abolish common law restrictions, I would have thought they would have said so clearly. Therefore, I think (a) applies and the framers accepted that the right was not absolute but limited by common law. Since common law evolves, the restrictions can also evolve. Arguments for exactly what restrictions are appropriate in a given place and time are always going to be less than totally convincing and different people are going to have different opinions. The only guidance I can see in the 2A itself is that the restrictions should not be such as to preclude a "well regulated Militia". "Well regulated" can have various meanings but in the context of a militia composed of individuals keeping and bearing their own arms, I would see it as meaning "well armed". This still leads lots of scope for arguing about how well armed individuals need to be because that would depend what role one sees for a militia composed of individual civilians nowadays.

SaxonPig said:

I don't really think the 2A was intended to protect the right of individuals to own what are clearly military weapons.

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Because of the reference to a "well regulated militia" and "security of a free state", I think that is exactly the right the 2A was intended to protect.

flame throwers

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Flamethrowers are legal in quite a number of places. AFAIK, there are no federal laws governing them.

OH GOD RUN THE EVIL FLAMETHROWERS ARE IN CIVILIAN HANDS THEY CAN'T POSSIBLY HAVE ANY USE FOR NON-MILITARY PERSONNEL

The 2A was intended to protect the right of citizens to bear arms for defense of self, home, and property.

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Any evidence other than an opinion for that one?

In response to your original sentiment that the mass weapons were owned and then a letter of marque issued, you're completely correct. In response to your sentiment that field caliber weaponry was something civilians owned, you're again correct. Even into the 1840s merchant ships carried 2 - 6 pound truck guns aboard to protect their cargo. There was nothing legally preventing a merchant Captain from buying a gun he could afford.

I work in history and my field of expertise is maritime shipping from about 1790 - 1860. In the 1820s a Captain by the name of Sturgis, who later co-owned the Bryant & Sturgis shipping company out of Boston, was prohibited by the company he worked for to bring his cannons aboard. He did so anyway and actually fought off four Chinese pirate vessels before he made safe harbor and they were intercepted by the Chinese authority. His boss had to eat his words and thank Sturgis for taking the armament, otherwise the ship would have been lost, which meant a sizable investment.

It's examples like these that make me depressed that our merchant marine fleet is not allowed to carry personal firearms or deck guns in which to protect themselves. It's not as easy to hire some starving 15 year old Somali kid to take a ship when the ships start firing back.

Of course arms includes things like battleships, nuclear missiles, tanks, and jet fighters. But you cannot bear such arms, and the 2a says bear. You also cannot keep most of those in your home, and it says keep. You also don't have the ability to upkeep such weapons on your own, another definition of keep.

As for the above 'evidence' ships go into international water where they require protection against hostile nations and pirates, so they require arms to defend themselves (more in those days than today, obviously) this has nothing to do with the 2A, which does not apply to international waters.

Not every ship leaves the coast, and not every coastal schooner of the day was unarmed.

edited. no proof linked

Of course arms includes things like battleships, nuclear missiles, tanks, and jet fighters. But you cannot bear such arms, and the 2a says bear. You also cannot keep most of those in your home, and it says keep. You also don't have the ability to upkeep such weapons on your own, another definition of keep.

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Yup, sure does say "keep". As in "Keep and Bear Arms." not "Keep and Bear Arms in your home." According to you, no one is allowed to CC, OC, or go to a range.

There was another debate about the use of the word "Bear", whether it meant "hold" or "use". I think "use" is more likely, looking at the context of the whole Amendment, and the Amendment's purpose.

And no, I don't have the tools in my garage to upkeep an Abrams...nor do I have the tools to re-blue my rifle, or perform other gunsmithing tasks. So do you do all your own gunsmithing? If not...well, you can not exercise your Second Amendment rights! That is exactly what you are saying, and, I must admit, it is a flawed thought process.

duns said:

The 2A imposes no explicit restrictions on which arms one may keep or bear. However, I have read that there were already restrictions in common law (case law) at the time of the framing. If this is true, then the framers EITHER (a) accepted that the right to keep and bear arms was not an absolute right OR (b) intended to abolish all common law restrictions by issue of the 2A. If they intended to abolish common law restrictions, I would have thought they would have said so clearly. Therefore, I think (a) applies and the framers accepted that the right was not absolute but limited by common law. Since common law evolves, the restrictions can also evolve. Arguments for exactly what restrictions are appropriate in a given place and time are always going to be less than totally convincing and different people are going to have different opinions. The only guidance I can see in the 2A itself is that the restrictions should not be such as to preclude a "well regulated Militia". "Well regulated" can have various meanings but in the context of a militia composed of individuals keeping and bearing their own arms, I would see it as meaning "well armed". This still leads lots of scope for arguing about how well armed individuals need to be because that would depend what role one sees for a militia composed of individual civilians nowadays.

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"Well Regulated" indicates the checking of a standing army by the armed militia(We The People), not the imposition of gun control upon the militia by a central government!