How much firepower should citizens be able to have?

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ubermensch

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Am I the only one who thinks that ordinary citizens should be able purchase whatever military equipment they want?

If a person has $200 million burning a hole in their pocket, let them buy an ICBM silo. Or a battleship, fighter jets, tanks, machine guns, etc.

If you sincerely trust and respect individual freedom, shouldn't you support this?

The alternative is to believe that people can only be trusted up to a point--then you are just arguing with gun-grabbers about where that threshold is.
 
Arms=small arms, M16s, M240Gs, M249s, pistols, knives, bayonets, AMR up to 25mm, inter alia.

"Guns of every kind, swords, bayonets, horseman's pistols, etc." Hill v. State, 53 Ga. 473, 474 (1874).

Clubs, knives, swords, bayonets, pistols, shotguns (of any length), rifles (full auto or not), carbines (inlcuding full auto), machine pistols and machine guns. State v. Kerner, 107 S.E. 222, 224 (N.C. 1921) (small arms not include submarines or aircraft, but does include firearms).
 
The intent of the Second Amendment was that citizens could keep and bear weapons equal to or only a bit inferior to those of the regular army. The original DCM programs sold both obsolent and current military rifles.

Up to the end of the 19th century, there were private artillery companies (some of which served in the Civil War). Today, even if laws were changed, the sheer cost would prevent people from buying even the least expensive artillery piece, tank or combat aircraft.

Realistically, even if the 2A is confirmed by the Supreme Court as an individual right, I can't see the NRA or anyone else really campaigning for private ownership of ICBMs with nuclear warheads. (On the other hand, I have gotten pretty ticked off at San Francisco, lately, so maybe...)

Jim
 
if i parked a nuke in the driveway, my wife would kill me.

what would the neighbors think? that would be just as bad has having a giant flourescent pink above-ground jello-filled pool on my front lawn.

i'll be dropping clams on phase plasma rifles in the 40 watt range before i pick up a bulky fusion device from my local nuke-mart.
 
On a philosophical and theoretical level, if the government is "We the People" then that government cannot possess authoirity beyond that which resides in "the People". If it is immoral for an individual to own a nuclear weapon, then it is immoral for the government to own one.

Even though you cannot put the genie back in the bottle and "uninvent" nuclear weapons, and even though the Founding Fathers could not envision their existence, it is clear that they intended that the people have the rights, that government be limited to only those areas clearly defined in the Constitution, and that "the People" should retain the upper hand with regards to armament so as to throw off any tyrannical government that might perversely arise.

As a result, we are best talking about the limitations that we place on government, and not the limitations that they might choose to place on us. It is too bad that the War between the States severely dulled our understanding of the nature of rights and the concept of limited government.
 
Simply put, enough to keep their and other governments in check.

Time and again the militia concept has proven to be an effective deterent against invasion. I'm not talking about the beergut militia composed of some weirdos playing GI Joe, but a real militia in the Constitutional sense. It worked in early America, it worked in ancient Greece, it works in Finland, it works for the Swiss. We could probably continue building this list and discussing battles etc but I think you get the picture.

I don't think it's enough to simply have guns for personal defense and to resist domestic tyranny. One of the main reasons the Founding Fathers prohibitted a peacetime standing army was to pre-empt military adventurism on the part of corrupt politicians. Hard to get Americans entangled in wars they don't want if you don't have an army. The Navy was required to secure territorial waters, protect shipping and fend off invasion. Failing that the militia would be called out to tie up invaders on the ground while the greater defense was organized. This works good because you can have an overwhelming number of militiamen at a very cheap cost and they will already be everywhere. They will also have their weapons, ammo and equipment with them and won't have to wait for trucks carrying ammo to come rolling in.

Looking at the historical and modern examples heavy weapons like artillery and tanks are most often kept in localized armories. This makes sense for large and complex weapon systems that require a team to maintain and operate but we should also bear in mind that there are US citizens right now who personally own artillery and not all of it is blackpowder. For that matter there are private citizens who own tanks and armored vehicles.

I don't have a problem with any of that. If you can afford the extremely high costs of an Abrams tank and its munitions, chances are you're a stable and productive citizen. If you do go nuts then your buddy down the road with an RPG-29 is going to put an end to your shennanigans. If you can afford a battleship, go for it. Privateers can be a boon to their nation. I don't have a problem with any of this.

When we start talking about weapons that threaten existence on a grand scale, like NBC type of stuff I believe it is reasonable to have these under the control of the professional Navy or secured at an armory in such a way that only a few trusted individuals would be able to deploy them.

There is nothing in the NFA that should be regulated the way it is. I trust the basic goodness of my fellow citizens more than I trust any government. You have to, because if your fellow citizens don't net good your entire society collapses anyway.
 
When we start talking about weapons that threaten existence on a grand scale, like NBC type of stuff I believe it is reasonable to have these under the control of the professional Navy or secured at an armory in such a way that only a few trusted individuals would be able to deploy them.
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"Professional Navy" are citizens too. Why can't a group of normal citizens who are capable of maintaining/paying for a nuclear silo qualify?
 
My opinion (and I suspect it won't be very popular here)...

We are always going to have a certain percentage of the population which will be 'bad apples'. We're always going to have a percentage which will protect society, even at great personal expense. The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle. So to me, it's simply an equation. We limit firepower at the point where it gives the bad apples the ability to cause more damage than the good people provide security. Since bad apples are sometimes in government, that means the good people need enough firepower to resist a bad government. However, a nuclear bomb in the hands of the bad people is very bad, and in the hands of the good people isn't especially good (which of us, if the US turned into a fascist dictatorship, would drive a nuke to DC? Don't answer that out loud please.)

So nuclear bombs I'd say no. Bomber jets I'd say no. Submarine hunting helicopters yes. Sniper rifles of any caliber yes. Aircraft carriers yes (but there'd still be limits on what aircraft you can own). If Joe Terrorist can afford to buy a B-52 bomber and enough ordinance to level half of Chicago doesn't mean he should be able to. If he can afford a jet fighter that can take out a bomber is a different question.

So I guess I draw the line when the weapon can't discriminate between the target and civilian casualties. That's why I'm actually on the line about fully automatic weapons (but comfortable with burst fire). Once you get weapons that can kill hundreds or thousands of people at once, you're helping the bad guys, who are willing to or want to kill civvies, more than you're helping the good guys, who want only to kill the bad guy.
 
If private companies can run a nuclear power plant (albeit, with heavy regulation) shouldn't they be able to properly care for a nuke?
 
If private companies can run a nuclear power plant (albeit, with heavy regulation) shouldn't they be able to properly care for a nuke?

ubermensch
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Join Date: 05-15-07
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No, because you are a troll.
 
There was a book a long time ago called "dad's nuke"

I'd have to say that I want to start controlling things at about the point where one person's "bad day" could result in depopulation of the planet. I forget the movie but the quote was something along the lines of "I'm not worried about the guy that wants three nuclear bombs, I'm worried about the guy that just wants one".
 
Surat, what is a troll?

edit: a troll is someone who intentionally posts derogatory or otherwise inflammatory messages about sensitive topics in an established online community such as an online discussion forum to bait users into responding


I thought that question was fair.
 
If the intent of 2A is to allow what is required for effective self-defense from predation by criminals, our own government and/or foreign invaders, and the militia is agreed to be an infantry type of unit, then a reasonable limit might be any thing to any caliber man-portable and semiauto. Hi-cap mags. Body armor. .50 BMG might be considered the outer limit. I will confess I don't favor automatic belt-fed weapons being commonly available.

I think the most likely near-term threat we will face will be jihadis or criminal mobs with automatic weapons and some explosives. A nuke would not make a lot of sense in that scenario, or an Abrams. A coordinated group of semi-skilled people putting down a decent level of sustained aimed fire can raise significant problems for a rabble or a few jihadi heroes really wanting to see those virgins.
 
Although this is beating the Proverbial dead horse....

I think that we would have to look at what the term “arms” meant in the 1770’s - 1780’s to determine what the founders meant for us to have legally (bad term, but can’t think of the correct one). But, seeing how I have left my copy of ye olde Websters at home today, maybe some one else can give us a clear and concise definition of arms circa 1780.

But if we look into the “spirit” of the amendment, I think that we will walk away with something altogether different. Think. What was the B52 or the Abrams M1 Tank of the founders day. It was the Man of War… the Naval Gunship. Now, ocean going merchant vessels often had cannons of their own, although not as many, but this was never an issue in ye olde America. There for, if you believe in the old adage that silence is consent, that meant that the founders had no problems with citizens of their day having what could roughly be equated to a B52. If you don’t like the comparison, that’s fine, but it was the most destructive man made thing of their time.

Discus.
 
Glad to see you can work Google. . . Now here's a bit of common sense.

2a rights are not about what hardware a private citizen can use but the rights to defend oneself against tyranny and oppression by ones own government. Self Defense fit in there somewhere too. A government is not going to nuke it's own people. Besides making a heck of a mess, it's hard to tax glass and ashes.

If you sincerely trust and respect individual freedom, shouldn't you support this?
Click to expand...

If that's not inflamatory and sensitive on this board . . then what is?
 
The only problem I see with private ownership of nukes is that it in no way is an effective defensive tool, nor a means by which one could overthrow the government while still leaving a livable world behind.

Now tanks and such, well philosophically I don’t have a problem with that. Practically speaking however, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
 
The only problem I see with private ownership of nukes is that it in no way is an effective defensive tool, nor a means by which one could overthrow the government while still leaving a livable world behind.
Click to expand...

The whole reason the US keeps so many nuclear weapons is a defense against other nuclear nations. Under the "mutual destruction theory" a nuclear weapon is the only defense (right now) against another nuclear weapon. If the government were to turn tyrant, what defense would you have against a nuclear device?
 
Surat, if extending a belief to (what the author perceives as) its logical conclusion is inflammatory and insensitive, then we need to grow thicker skin.
 
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