Rhetoric question...why should machine guns be okay, but not nukes?

[jlbraun]

@Lucky

I wouldn't exclude WMD's, because that opens the door to further infringment, and limits the lifetime of the document.

I see it as perfectly reasonable to have nuclear weapons as a private citizen, but only if you're, say, an interplanetary trader, privateer, or asteroid miner.

 

[glummer]

I think we must also remember that it’s not just whether you can own X, but also how you use it. Your right to move your fist stops where my nose begins, as the saying goes.
Your right to handle a gun stops when you point it at innocent people.
When your employment of weapon X is a threat to me, your right hits a limit.
The right to self-defense includes the right to defend against a THREAT of violence (as determined by a "reasonable man" standard.) Mere possession of a nuke by a private citizen would generally BE such a threat, and therefore, would justify deadly force (by the authorities, or private citizens) to neutralize the threat.
To own a nuke without being a clear threat to others, you would have to prove, in effect, that you were safe to do so. Which is, basically, what you have to do now, to run a nuclear plant, for instance.

 

[Fosbery]

I have to agree totally with glummer.

 

[hugh damright]

When the King had a standing army here, we did not respond by declaring that every person should have his own standing army ... what we declared was that any military power must be subordinate to the civil power.

I think the idea of an individual right to check/alter/abolish government is completely antithetical to the idea of free government. It is the people, the majority, that have a right to alter or to abolish government. An individual with a personal nuclear weapon is not controlled by the majority, and so he is a threat to free government.

 

[Gordon Fink]

[sigh] Five pages, and most of you still haven’t recognized that it’s not the object but the behavior we have to be concerned about. Rocks, guns, or nukes, it makes no difference.

~G. Fink

 

[jlbraun]

@Gordon Fink

I don't think you're getting it. This isn't about objects, this is about capacity to project force as it relates to political legitimacy. An individual with a machine gun, artillery, or even a tank cannot directly threaten a government. Even if you had a company of tanks, you still wouldn't stand a chance by yourself. A nuke gives you the unilateral power to destroy the lives of millions in an instant. That is cubic MILES of dead bodies.

No machine gun, tank, or artillery has that ability.

In order to threaten a government, you need millions of other people to also bring their guns, tanks, IED's, and artillery and have an honest go at taking the government. If you have a nuke, you alone can decide to destroy the government or hold it hostage - exceeding your political or moral legitimacy to do so. Millions of people rising up and taking over the government is politically legitimate. One person detonating a nuke and taking over is not politically legitimate.

Makes me glad the founders put that "militia" bit in there. Basically, it means that you possess the inalienable right to bear arms of any kind, BUT AS A CITIZEN OF THE USA you can bear them only up to the point that it begins to exceed your political legitimacy as a member of the militia. A nuke clearly exceeds individual political legitimacy - while machine guns, tanks, and even battleships do not.

 

[Igloodude]

I pretty much fall with crazed_ss' original post - the single use of a machine gun, tank, howitzer, etc do not threaten society - lots of individuals yes, but not the fabric of civil order, which in turn prevents the government from assisting me in defending my civil rights.

That's the difference between a 'WMD' and a big gun - what is accomplished with a single use of the weapon.

Edit: and jlbraun puts it extremely well.

 

[ksnecktieman]

Glummer? Am I less of a threat to you if I walk into a room wearing or carrying a gun, than if I live in the area and own a nuke?

I only see two sides to this question. Either you believe gun control laws. Or you do not

Who will decide after the next election what items should be illegal to possess?

If we are going to control, the second amendment should be changed, or abolished.

 

[squarooticus]

In order to threaten a government, you need millions of other people to also bring their guns, tanks, IED's, and artillery and have an honest go at taking the government. If you have a nuke, you alone can decide to destroy the government or hold it hostage - exceeding your political or moral legitimacy to do so. Millions of people rising up and taking over the government is politically legitimate. One person detonating a nuke and taking over is not politically legitimate.

(Edit: disregarding "taking over") I disagree.

Theoretically, if a government strips you of your rights in a way you consider unjust, you should have the power to nullify that judgment unilaterally. E.g., if the government decides you are no longer a fit person and considers you stripped of you of your right to keep and bear arms, or to speak out against the government, or to subject your body to foreign substances, etc., at that point you will need the amount of force required to defend that right and defend yourself against the consequential damage of having defended the original right: an ever-increasing amount of force will inevitably be arrayed against you so the establishment monopoly on force can maintain the legitimacy of that monopoly.

If the amount of force required to defend your rights is sufficient to destroy the entire apparatus of government, then so be it: you are entitled to do whatever it takes to defend your rights against an aggressor, no matter whether that aggressor is the thug next door or the thug elected by a majority of the citizens.

Ideally, you would be able to hire a private security firm to defend you against the unjust actions of government; but this would make government just another force among many, which would result in a complete loss of its ability to tax compulsorily, leading the whole deck of cards to collapse. It wouldn't require anywhere near a majority of the citizens to engage their own state-level force (even if by contract with a private firm) for the state to lose legitimacy.

Legitimacy is the very reason government must maintain a monopoly on force, and why I reject that entire notion.

Cheers,
Kyle

 

[Gordon Fink]

An individual with a machine gun, artillery, or even a tank cannot directly threaten a government.…

Nor can he do so with one or even several nuclear devices. Give me a dozen or so nukes, and then maybe I can start to push Uruguay around. If, in fact, I did such, Uruguay and her friends would be quite justified in putting me back in my place.

Can you see where this is going?

~G. Fink

 

[glummer]

ksnectieman

Glummer? Am I less of a threat to you if I walk into a room wearing or carrying a gun, than if I live in the area and own a nuke?

Hell, yes. By orders of magnitude. There are thousands of people with guns living within a few miles of me. I enter the same room with dozens of them every week at the gun club. And the possible threat is very low.
If that same number of people had suitcase nukes at home, (and the usual number of teenagers in the neighborhood,) the whole state would be a radioactive desert by now.

 

[crunker]

Large arms such as nukes are uncontrolled devices. They are too deadly to be used on earth for anyone's benefit. They're only worth keeping as scare weapons.

2A rights protect small arms, which means anything manportable. This may include some light howitzers and certainly applies to miniguns.

However, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons are not controllable by the user and will wipe out everyone within a gigantic radius. Therefore these are not protected by the Second Amendment.

 

[jlbraun]

@Gordon Fink

No, I don't see where this is going. Help me out.

 

[squarooticus]

2A rights protect small arms... However, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons are not controllable by the user and will wipe out everyone within a gigantic radius. Therefore these are not protected by the Second Amendment.

Is this in theory or in practice? Because you'd be wrong in both cases.

In practice, the 2nd amendment protects nothing. The mere fact that I need a license to carry issued on the basis of some arbitrary criteria not mentioned in the 2nd amendment is a pretty clear indication to me that the 2nd amendment doesn't protect Jack Schidt.

In theory, the 2nd amendment says nothing about the type of arms, but implies (based on my reading of the founders' own words) that citizens should have access to the same level of force as the state, specifically to keep the state from growing too powerful for the good of the people.

So, what you are asserting is, in fact, just your opinion and has nothing to do with either theory or practice. You should preface similar statements in the future with, "I think that..." or "It should be the case that...".

Cheers,
Kyle

 

[Gordon Fink]

No, I don’t see where this is going. Help me out.

In circles.

If I don’t have a right to nuclear arms, then my nation-state doesn’t have that right either. If my nation doesn’t have a right to nuclear arms, then it doesn’t have a right to firearms, Bibles, or other potentially dangerous objects. If it doesn’t have a right to firearms, Bibles, or other dangerous objects, then neither do I.

The scales may be different, but the principles are the same.

~G. Fink

 

[jlbraun]

Gordon,

You're absolutely right, and I have been agreeing with you. One absolutely does have the right to own nuclear arms as a private citizen, and attempt to keep a W55 in one's garage if desired. My comments about one's "political legitimacy" don't imply that one doesn't have the right to own one in any form. What I meant was that while you possess the inalienable right to a nuclear weapon, you owning one is incompatible with your existence under any reasonable social contract in a representative republic composed of beings that take a mere 2000 ft-lbs to wipe from existence and happen to live near each other. Were we instead spread out over interplanetary distances or our bodies thousands of times more resilent, things would be different. One committed to exercising their right to own a nuke should not be surprised when the polity they're a member of boots them out of the back door.

I find no logical inconsistency in the fact that that a body such as the USA can declare machine guns and tanks are suitable for citizens to own, but nukes are not, and make this a precondition from them joining the polity in the first place.

If one can find a polity - or form one - that not only recognizes the human right to own a nuke but is committed to protecting it under a social contract, well, that's different.
I'm in the process of writing a book about the notion of nuclear-armed microstates, I'd be interested in your comments when I finish it.

 

[Fosbery]

How many negligent dischargess and accidental discharges have there been in the US over the past year? Thousands and thousands I'll bet. Very few people were hurt by these I'll wager since the chance of a bullet actually finding you, when not aimed, is pretty small. None the less, people were undoubtedly killed due to NDs and ADs but this is a price we pay for gun ownership and a price worth paying. Convert thouse thousands of NDs and ADs into nuclear explosions. Well, there'd be nobody left in the country and anybody who came looking would find a barren wasteland.

Maybe, in principal we should be able to own nukes but if keeping principal means ever person in the country dieing, I say it's worth giving up. It's just common sense.

 

[ctdonath]

There's a difference between technological evolution/logical progression of existing items and the jump between owning a gun vs owning an item that can convert small amounts of matter into unthinkable amounts energy.

Yes, there's the issue of evolutionary vs. revolutionary technical advancements.
Better analogy:
- Evolutionary: a 1 cubic foot bomb improved from going "boom" to "BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM". The Founding Fathers knew of explosives; nukes are just more powerful/efficient explosives. The scale of change is startling, but the idea is the same.
- Revolutionary: the first bomb. No "boom" to "boom".

As "Click-N-Clack" once put it: the difference between two headlights and one headlight is a lot less than the difference between one headlight and no headlight.

If you want to exercise your right to use weapons that are on par with the most powerful a nation-state can wield, then of what use is a state to you at all? You ARE a state.

Interestingly put.

Random thoughts to no particular conclusion:

Were some US citizens in, say, 1780 "states" because they owned battleships?
The Constitution says "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, ... keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, ...".
The US Militia was intended as the primary source of national defense ... with that militia self-armed.
Nothing in the Constitution indicates limiting what weapons individuals could own, axiomatically because the nation would depend on those individuals bringing those weapons.

Avoid splitting the government from the people into an "us vs. them". The Constitution intended to empower the government as an extention of "us" the people.
The theory of "cannot have weapons matching the power of a state" must consider that the state is an aggregate of individuals, each of whom may have that power ... to wit: if you have sum weaponry of power X, so can other individuals, who then acting together can have sum weaponry of power N*X.
While it is abstractly conceivable that Bill Gates could buy a nuke, so could Warren Buffet and George Soros and ...; the chance of any one US citizen having a weapon so powerful as to match or exceed the sum total firepower of the rest of us combined is vanishingly small.

To continue the foot-pounds theory...
About 16,000,000 Americans go deer hunting each year. At a rough guess, they possess some 3.2 trillion ft-lbs of energy (assuming a conservative 100 rounds of .308 each average) - about equal to the 1kT TNT noted earlier.
Any other thoughts on calculating the total firepower available? (Note the difference between efficient linear-effect energy (bullets) vs. inefficient volume-effect energy (explosives).)

Nuclear Weapons in the hands of random citizens is a threat to liberty.

I think we all agree on that.

All this discussion is more about intellectual analysis of "why".
We should operate upon reasoned principles, not just gut feeling of "X is bad".

oringinal intent of your post, as I read it, is that you are looking for a good sounding argument to use, for a situation where an anti escalates to nukes when you talk machineguns.

Yes. To get back on track, and as I've tried to articulate before:
One may exercise RKBA with any weapon insofar as they can do so safely (that includes exercising lethal force upon someone upon whom lethal force use is warranted).
Machineguns can be used safely (you can choose to apply it only to lethally violent assailants).
Conventional explosives can be used safely (you can thoroughly check the area for unintended would-be casualties).
Nukes, indiscriminately putting everyone within a mile or so at risk of instant death, inherently cannot be used safely (use thereof will most likely kill lots of innocents/noncombatants).

Lucky,
It's not so much hypocricy as people trying to reasonably define lines in a large region which has no clear lines. Most agree that X is ok and Y is not, but finding the division therebetween is not always easy.

 

[hugh damright]

Theoretically, if a government strips you of your rights in a way you consider unjust, you should have the power to nullify that judgment unilaterally. E.g., if the government decides you are no longer a fit person and considers you stripped of you of your right to keep and bear arms, or to speak out against the government, or to subject your body to foreign substances, etc., at that point you will need the amount of force required to defend that right

The way I understand it, in a free State there is an individual right to expatriation. If you feel that your government is unjust, you have a right to move to another State ... but you do not have a right to attack your government for not abiding by your personal will. If the majority thinks that their government is unjust, they have a right to alter or abolish it, but an individual has no such right.

 

[squarooticus]

The way I understand it, in a free State there is an individual right to expatriation. If you feel that your government is unjust, you have a right to move to another State ... but you do not have a right to attack your government for not abiding by your personal will. If the majority thinks that their government is unjust, they have a right to alter or abolish it, but an individual has no such right.

Two responses:

• Try committing an act contrary to legislation you don't agree with. Then, when you get arrested, try asking the government to expatriate you instead of imprisoning you. Let me get my earplugs before they start laughing, though.
  
• Why isn't going back on my property sufficient means of expatriation? It's my property,* not theirs, and I'm perfectly happy to do without their protection (such as it is) if I can contract for an alternate means of security. And if my home abuts the property of someone else who agrees to give me passage, and the property of someone else who agrees to the same, ad nauseam... I might have no problems suriviving, working, or even travelling long distances without ever stepping foot on government-owned land.

Kyle

* Ostensibly. In reality, however, private property rights do not exist in the US anymore: everything belongs to the government (starting at withholding but extending to your entire estate), and is leased to you for the duration of your lifetime or until they decide to take it from you, whichever comes first.

 

[gezzer]

How about because it is a Bomb and not a Firearm? Duh!

Question is typical ANTI-GUN rhetoric We have heard in arguments for years, gets old..

 

[The Deer Hunter]

what would you do with a nuke?


seriously you really couldnt target practice with it seeing as how you only have one but even if you did miss you would hit it.

 

[Firethorn]

firethorn?
By that logic, do you consider the founders first amendment concerns to protect only the quill pen, and the unamplified spoken word?

Sorry for the delay, but no.

I hope that you didn't take my point to mean that I only think that the 'arms' protected by the constitution are muskets/polearms/etc... I meant the individual arms used by a soldier. Today that would be M-16/M-4 type rifles. Even stuff used by other militaries such as the AK-47 and G-36.

Today the normal methods of communication, the spread of speech is email, electronic, automated printing press, television, radio, etc...

It's just that I draw a difference between an 'arm' like a rifle of whatever sort, and a 'munition' like a 2,000 pound bomb or especially a nuke.

If it can be moved and used in a discriminatory* fashion by an individual, citizens should be allowed to own it.

*So no NBC, though I suppose you could fit hand grenades and claymores in there somehow.

 

[JohnKSa]

nukes are just more powerful/efficient explosives.

No, that's not true and I explained why.

Explosives do not cause birth defects, cancer and genetic damage to people and animals for hundreds of miles around depending on the way the wind blows. Explosives do not render miles and miles of land unlivable for decades or longer. Explosives do not damage electronics over a range that far exceeds the blast damage. Explosives do not kill and maim beyond the range of the blast damage.

It's entirely possible that NO ONE has the right to own nuclear weapons or other WMDs, INCLUDING governments, but that's beside the point.

The line between WMDs and conventional weapons is not hard to understand, and it is NOT simply a matter of scale or efficiency. I don't see that it's logical to say that the 2nd protects something that fits into a totally different category from any weapons that existed at the time anymore than it is logical to say that the first amendment would protect the right to implant one's thoughts directly into someone else's brain telepathically (had that technology been invented in the 40s instead of atomics).

 

[Travis Lee]

The problem I have with even this hypothetical debate is that this is EXACTLY the baiting that antis engage in, so as to back you up rhetorically, until you concede that cannons, machine guns, rifles, handguns, finally even a BB gun is an EVIL EVIL THING which has no purpose whatsoever than to "hurt people", and thus you really have NO SUCH RIGHT to keep and bear arms, after all.

I have NEVER heard anybody employ Reductio ad absurdum re: private possesion of nukes, who isn't playing that game.

It's all trickery and bafflegab.

NUTS! I refuse to cede even the most absurd theoretical point. That way I don't have to re-justify my principle on machine guns and scoped rifles tomorrow.

--Travis--