Let's stir the pot....what is the limit for gun rights (typology of gun)???

[saturno_v]

I'll explain myself better....

Some time ago I entered this gun shop and there it was exposed an enormous Barrett M82 50 cal BMG semi-auto rifle.

I asked innocently to the shop owner, what is the realistic purpose for this?? and he said proudly..."remember is in our constitutional rights, if the government has it, we can have it.."

I find this answer flimsy at best...

So if the government can have ballistic missiles means that I shoud l be allowed to have a ballistic missile?? OR a Stealth Fighter jet?? or a 105 mm Howitzer??? Or a nuclear submarine?? You get the point..

Do not get me wrong I do love guns (otherwise i would not be a member of THR) but, realistically, where do we draw the line??? What do you think is the limit in the ownership of a weapon system by a civilian???

Opinions and ideas?? let's brainstorm!!!

 

[TCB in TN]

Please use the search funtion. This has been covered several times recently, even more often not so recently, and even MORE often before that.

 

[matt87]

If you have to justify a 'need', it turns from a 'right' to a 'priviledge'. Why to you 'need' to own personal property when you can just use state-provided and owned clothes/tractors/etc.?

A .50BMG rifle is very good for long-range target shooting, and for hunting large game with the appropriate loads. Self-loading designs can help reduce felt recoil.

Besides, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or target shooting, it is about defence -- defence from a tyranical government. That is where the 'if the government can have it' argument comes from, and that principle is where, IMO, it wins.

(Shucks, this from a man behind enemy lines... )

 

[Anteater1717]

When you can't afford it?

 

[saturno_v]

So you think that if you can afford it you should be able to get an F-22 Raptor with all the goodies??

 

[grumpycoconut]

My Nissan pick em up doesn't have the torque to pull the 155mm howitzer I've been eyeing and my backyard isn't big enough for a meaningfull trebuchet. I guess I'll have to be satisfied with a 75mm Pack Howitzer and an Onager.

 

[Gingerbreadman]

So you think that if you can afford it you should be able to get an F-22 Raptor with all the goodies??

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

 

[RP88]

anything too large to carry in your hands or is extremely volatile (such as large-scale explosives), that can cause inherent and extensive amounts of damage not only to life and limb but to a general community area (i.e. mounted machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, chemical or biological weapons, etc.) is what I'd consider a little on the 'unreasonable' side.

...but a good license and certification system could beg to differ with me.

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

So you think that if you can afford it you should be able to get an F-22 Raptor with all the goodies??

Why not? How many people are going to be able to afford it anyway? It isn't like the gang banger down the street is going to be able to afford it. If someone DOES do something stupid with it we'll throw them in jail, just like we would to anyone doing anything stupid with a normal plane, which as we saw on 9/11 is a pretty effective guided missile by itself.

I'd draw the line at biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, and maybe a bomb with a conventional payload over, say, 2lbs. Of course, larger goodies could be had with the proper licenses, and in any case one would have to dispose of them in a safe manner or be thrown in jail/ get the crap fined out of them.

 

[Zak Smith]

TCB in TN has the best advice (to use the search function)-- this has really been hashed out several times before. I guarantee that you won't get the full range of arguments for/against simply because many have already hashed it out, whether they agreed or disagreed.

 

[drphil]

If it can be used on a civilian (by the gov) inside the US then civilians should be allowed to own it.

 

[saturno_v]

What about a nuke then.....some crazy billionaire get one and let's say angry at a board of directors that ousted him from his company fire it on a city....oops..we put him in jail but in the meantime few millions of people died...
Come on let's be realistic...

 

[Travis Lee]

If I had a nuke what would you DO about it?

Argue for your lack of rights and you have none.

 

[IronSightRot671]

No limit for gun rights..

 

[IronSightRot671]

 

[R127]

I like this question. It has an obvious answer because we have historical precedent to draw from.

The defense of our nation was provided for in the constitution. Peacetime standing armies are ILLEGAL because they drain a lot of resources and if you give the government troops it will find something to use them on. For similar reasons there are severe limits on the ammount of time a professional army may be raised during wartime, this was supposed to help keep us out of pointless foreign wars that were all the rage among the European powers at the time. The constitution did provide for a professional defensive navy to keep invaders out. That makes a lot of sense. Ships were the strategic weapons of their day and a broadside from a manowar would still do a lot of dammage to a port city today never mind commercial vessels or the fact that an enemy warship can unload the supplies, weapons and troops needed for a real invasion. Ships were also very expensive, packed with cutting edge technology and required large crews to operate.

On the other hand there are only two land invasion routes into the USA, through Mexico or Canada. We have indeed had wars with Mexico and Canada and the militia acquitted itself quite well. Every man at the founding of our country was liable for militia duty. As such it was up to him to keep such weapons, provisions and training as was appropriate for a rifleman and he drilled with the other militiamen in his community as well as performing the various security duties as required. Aproximately 1 in 4 were handpicked from the militia to serve as elite minutemen, a rapid reaction and shock force. There were other elite militia formations as well, Rogers Rangers is one famous one still influencing the American military today. They had heavy weapons, too. Artillery is not quite the same as a ship but it is still a very powerful, expensive, large crew-served weapon. As such artillery was community owned and stored with other such things in community held and maintained arsenals.

It is important to also note that privately owned ships were very often fitted out with cannon and for a long time you could not get insurance for your ship if you didn't have a certain number of cannon as a minimum armament for reasons that made plain sense to 18th and 19th century insurance adjusters and I'm sure that also make sense to modern armed citizens. There were such things as letters of marque and reprisal that the government could use to commision ships and companies to take action on behalf of the government against enumerated enemies. This also makes sense as it is a continuation of the militia concept into the sea and bolsters national defense as a whole while also protecting individual commerce and trade lanes in general.

To my knowledge there was only one form of weapon of mass destruction in early American history. It was biological, such as smallpox, and seems to have been exclusively used by governments to commit genocide.

So since we have clear historical precedent to go by we can see that individual Americans are entitled to any and all weaponry, equipment and training available to contemporary riflemen and special forces and communities are entitled to hold in common artillery which by extension would include armored vehicles such as IFV's and tanks, also anti-aircraft weapons. Not suprisingly there are still countries who use the militia system, often to very good effect such as the Swiss or Finns, and they operate along these same general lines.

Weapons of mass destruction are the exclusive realm of insane governments and they will always be used by such entities to commit horrible crimes against God and humanity. Due to their indiscriminate nature they have no place among the honorable arms of free men.

 

[Geacko]

I've been thinking about putting something like that on the roll bar in my blazer... unfortunately i'm but a poor college student.

 

[RancidSumo]

I would draw the line at nukes and chemical/biological weapons. Anything less then that, we whould be allowed to have.

 

[average_shooter]

So you think that if you can afford it you should be able to get an F-22 Raptor with all the goodies??

Speaking of flimsy arguments...

Aircraft that are considered to be too "old" or are surplus are sent to an allied nation or the boneyard. And sometimes people with lots of money come along and offer to take them off the governments hands. There are "military" aircraft in civilian hands in perfectly flyable condition.

IIRC, there was someone who had an old MIG who would give rides for the right price. Others have F-4 Phantoms or F-16s. Just like all the old WW2 aircraft you see at airshows are privately owned by civilians, not the government. And the private citizens invest a lot of time and money caring for the machines and the history. The .gov would rather let all that stuff rust in a junk yard.

 

[frogomatic]

I think it ought to be the other way around, the citizens should be putting restrictions on what the gov't can get it's hands on. A quick look over the course of history shows that governments account for more heinous acts and muders than any other, maybe more than all others combined.

 

[ccd]

I am pretty sure that the founder of Oracle owned a Fulcrum or Flanker at one time. I don't remember whether he was allowed to fly inside the US with it or not.

 

[GlowinPontiac]

no nukes or chem/bio weapons should be sold to the public along with large high explosive shells. small HE shells should be fine with the proper liscense and storage areas. (such as the ones needed to manufacture fireworks)

if you want a 20mm vulcan in your trucks bed thats fine, if you own enough land to safely shoot a 155mm howitzer then go right ahead. just be safe about it.

 

[RP88]

I'd still be skeptical about that. All it would take is an accidental fire...

 

[saturno_v]

X Average Shooter


You forgot an IMPORTANT little detail....military aircraft sold to the public (even John Travolta own an F-4 Phantom, Larry Ellison, the patron of Oracle own a Mig 21) MUST be stripped of ANY weapons and sensitive electronic equipment as per FAA regulations....they just become very fast civilian aircraft...

 

[Mauserguy]

Alright, so that 50 BMG rifle that you saw is mean looking, but is it really all that mean? Let's think this through.

First, it won't shoot down an jetliner like the Brady Bunch claim. That's a stupid and ill-informed notion.

Secondly, it probably can't shoot accurately at a longer range than a conventional rifle since one's line of sight may be constrained, atmospheric conditions limit sighting distances, and wind deflection mess up accuracy. Oh, sure it is a big cartridge, but that doesn't mean that you can hit a target ten miles away. The 50 cal guns are often said to be less accurate than good 308 rifles.

Third, the rifles hit only one point. If you actually want to snipe at innocent people, what advantage does a single 50 caliber round have over a standard hunting round. I would suspect that smaller rounds, generating less recoil, could be fired more rapidly than the large rifle. Area fire, such as from machine guns, may be more evil, but a point weapon really doesn't need to be all that large.

Lastly, penetration is a factor. The military employs 50 BMG rifles, from what I have read, primarily in an anti-material capacity. Basically, they are good at shooting the engines out of parked trucks. Frankly, I don't think that attacking parked trucks is a big problem.

All and all, I think that the question is not, "why should a civilian be allowed to own such a powerful weapon," but rather it should be, "why would a civilian want to own such a heavy, useless and expensive gun."
Mauserguy