Does 2nd Amendment Apply to EVERY Weapon?

[divemedic]

Again, if you want to know what weapons were owned by private citizens when the COTUS was written, look to history. Merchants bought cannons, and placed them upon their ships:

Initially carronades were used aboard commercial craft. Glasgow merchants purchased carronades for their merchantmen. In November 1778, owners of the privateer Spitfire armed the ship with 18 carronades. The ship was in several successful actions over the next few months, which proved the best publicity that Carron could get. Soon Carron was flooded with commercial orders for carronades.

So we at least know that it was legal for citizens to buy and possess cannons in the Colonies, as well as in Britain. (Yes, I know carronades were made in Britain. That is because the forges in the Colonies did not have sufficient capability to make the modern guns of the era. Most cannons found in the colonies were made in either Britain or France, but this was for technical, rather than legal, reasons.)

 

[Carl N. Brown]

A strict reading of Miller 1939 would mean the guns covered would be guns useful by the militia or military: in the spirit of a "Civilian Marksmanship Program" or "National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice" approach assuring that the "unorganized militia" is familiar with current service weapons for volunteer or conscript duty in wartime.

The Heller decision is more in line with Tennessee state supreme court rulings and state attorney general opinions on the Tennessee constitution RKBA: the right includes all common legal use of firearms, subject only to regulations limited to crime control provided the regulation do not restrict the common legal use of guns.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

The above post #176 brings to mind the old "this is my rifle, this is my gun" mantra. Guns--artillery--were not commonly produced in the Colonies; but rifles and muskets were produced in the Colonies. Maybe old Michael Bellesiles of "Arming America" notoriety needed a drill sergeant to teach him the distinction between his rifle and his gun. The colonies did not produce cannons or military quantities of gun powder, but there is lotsa evidence that civilian small arms and gun powder were produced in the colonies.

 

[AKElroy]

Here's the reality: Everybody who has the money for such weapons and the desire to own them is pretty much automatically someone you don't want having them.

And yet, our founders would likely argue that they are in exactly the wrong hands NOW, in that they exist without the deterant of the people. This entire discussion is a fully acedemic exercize; there is no solution. We have surrendered this power, and will not be getting it back beyond the small victories like Heller affording "the right" to invest a fortune to jump through 5 years of legal hurdles to obtain a SINGLE firearm.

Some localities are a little better, but the ground is firmly established in current law that the RKBA is a privelage that must be distributed in limited fashion by the state.

That is the way it is. The war against statism was lost, my fellow citizens.

 

[RDak]

AKElroy, you bring up a good point. For example, unbelievably, there were four liberal SCOTUS justices who held that private firearms ownership can be prohibited by the government.

However, Heller, and probably McDonald, will change that "attitude" in a very basic way. And, in time, (i.e., after we are dead and gone), people will have grown up with the right to own a firearm without outright prohibitions at the whim of government.

So, there is hope that what you point out will change over time. (And change in a very substantial, beneficial way IMHO.)

You are correct though, it took Heller YEARS of litigation and massive amounts of money to buy just ONE firearm. (And, as stated, four liberal justices would have ruled against Heller even buying one firearm.)

How much leeway the SCOTUS gives the government in enacting other prohibitions, regulations, etc., remains to be seen IMHO, but we are getting close to knowing that.

I don't have an answer to the original poster's question but I believe we will have the SCOTUS providing a framework to allow those questions to eventually be answered.

Time will tell.

 

[FuzzyBunny]

Well, I replied earlier but it led me to take a look at the mindset of the folks who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights also the preamble to the BOR.

In short
Your first question
"Does the 2nd Amendment apply to EVERY weapon"

Yes of couse.

Your second question
"If it does not, where does it draw the line?"

There is no line drawn by the writers and signers.


Longer version.
These men were fighting to form a Republic. They we fighting the British Empire to breakway from that rule. The first battle was over "arms" as explained here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_lexington
The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.[8][9] They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay,

more..same wiki link

About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord.

Without writing a 5,000 word paper on the subject. It is my opinion when they added the second amendment to the BOR in December 15, 1791 this action was on the mind and lips of those attending. It was added to insure the individual or people kept control of the government. All this was written by the states as directions and limits on the fedgov. All in an attempt to give the people a legal means to destroy tyranny if it takes root in the federal government. This of course if the ballot box and free speech fails.

It reminds me of the story which I have no ref for.
A woman ask Ben Franklin what kind of government did you give us.
His reply was something like. "We gave you a republic madam, if you can keep it".

Wish I knew who wrote that bit about Ben Franklin and if it is true or not.

 

[Art Eatman]

This thread is getting long, and somewhat circular.

Lemme offer a thinking point and then I'll close it. After consideration, feel free to re-start with maybe a different slant.

At the time of the writing of the Second Amendment, all we had were muzzle-loading weapons of two basic types: Individual, as in rifles, pistols and shotguns; and crew-served cannons.

Okay: Fast forward to today's world of weaponry and guess at the views of folks like Jefferson, et al, as to whether or not they'd consider individual ownership of Abrams tanks or chain guns as appropriate.

Would they draw a line? If so, where might it logically be? I don't know.

It won't be easy, but leave the politics out and figure on rational law, okay?