Nuclear weapons do not serve a legitimate militia-related use. In the context of the militia clause, the intent was for a single person to become an immediate asset in a situation requiring a collective armed response. WMDs are crew-served, and therefore above your paygrade as a volunteer -- and any that are not crew-served are as much of a hazard to the people you are ostensibly trying to protect in said situation.

It is not illegal for a civilian to own an F-16 or a tank. And lots of people own UAVs -- it is a very engaging hobby. Even some members here at .NET have some, and regularly post about their UAVs in the Lounge.

Whether you like it or not, the 2nd Amendment recognizes the right of the people to keep and bear arms, specifically (among other things) for the purposes of a militia. It is completely devoid of any logic to argue that the right of the people to keep and bear arms should exclude arms that are suitable for a militia.

It is highly unlikely, even laughable, that in this century, the people would be able to topple the United States government. But it remains a historical fact that the authors of the 2nd Amendment had that very scenario in mind when they wrote it.

And while the chances of us deposing the government are infinitesimal, there are circumstances where people might have to defend themselves against individual government agents or agencies. Waco is an example, but by no means the only scenario. Did you know it in certain circumstances, is legally defensible to shoot a cop in self defense?

And then there are the circumstances where the government just isn't there to protect you. Every school shooting is an example of this. Another example is the Korean shop owners during the Rodney King riots on Los Angeles. Police were nowhere to be found, but the mobs did not burn or loot the Korean shops because the Koreans assembled a militia.





This is why they were protecting themselves.



This is how helpful the cops were. (It's also how helpful they are for most school shootings.)


Note: It's not the cops' fault that they can't be everywhere. I'm not knocking cops. I'm pointing out how foolish it is to rely solely on them to prevent something bad from happening before it happens.

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If I was in a militia fighting the government, a nuke would a huge asset. Hell, have you seen the show last resort? That guy has enormous leverage just by having a handful (why do you think Iran is breaking their ass and suffering heavily via sanctions to get some). Any militia would give there left nut for one and anyone who says differently is kidding themselves.

I didn't say people can't have arms. I didn't say I'm not comfortable with the second amendment. I'm probably the most armed person on this forum. 20mm vulcan cannon with 512 rounds, 2,000 pound precision guided tritonal bombs and AMRAAM missiles are pretty serious stuff.

However, it is illegal to own an F-16 and especially the armament. How about an F-22, still legal? Additionally, it's illegal to own a Bradley Fighting vehicle, Abrams tank, Stinger missiles, Patriot SAM systems (I could go on forever). Yes sir, there are limits we put on the civilian population when it comes to military technology. So to claim rights to an assault rifle because someone thinks they are going to fight the government is, like you said, laughable.

The problem with "tracking" guns, as you describe it, is that it's the first step toward confiscation. Before you label me as paranoid, please note that this has already happened in this country. Owners of "assault weapons" in California were required to register them with the state. Not long after that, "assault weapons" were banned, and owners had to turn them in or get them out of the state.

Guns are already trackable, anyway. Gun shops are required to keep records of the guns they sell. Any time a gun is used in a crime, they can trace the serial number back to the sale of origin, and work forward from there.

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How does good parenting skills cope with a child with mental health issues? You can talk about and teach personal responsibility till you are blue in the face, but that lessen would have never saved those children, or anybody else at the wrong end of a gun held by a person who has snapped.

And when the gun is sold for cash over craigslist and there are no legal repercussions for the original owner when it's used in a crime...how is that "tracking" system working?

First of all, apparently you didn't read this the first time, so I will repeat myself. Nuclear weapons do not serve a legitimate militia-related use. In the context of the militia clause, the intent was for a single person to become an immediate asset in a situation requiring a collective armed response. WMDs are crew-served, and therefore above your paygrade as a volunteer -- and any that are not crew-served are as much of a hazard to the people you are ostensibly trying to protect in said situation.

I didn't say fighting the government was laughable. I said the chances of toppling the government are infinitesimal, and therefore laughable.

Fighting the government is not laughable. Are you old enough to remember Waco? The government, in the form of the BATF under Clinton and Reno, attacked the compound of David Koresh with a convoy of armed personnel and vehicles. The people inside the compound fought back, and most of them survived the initial attack.

The government's actions in this case were inexcusable. If they wanted to arrest Koresh, they could easily have done it during one of his weekly trips into town. Instead, the BATF (which was apparently coming up for a budget review and wanted to justify a large budget) chose to grandstand and flex its muscles at the expense of the 60-some-odd people who lived in the compound.


I never said it was legal for civilians to own any/all of the latest in military hardware. And yes, if a military plane or tank is going to be owned by a civilian in this country, it will have to be demilitarized first. But your argument is specious. Presenting an all-or-nothing approach to the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and attempting to say we have no justification for drawing a distinction anywhere along the continuum of arms by essentially eliminating the legal/moral difference between an AR-15 and a "20mm vulcan cannon with 512 rounds, 2,000 pound precision guided tritonal bombs and AMRAAM missiles," is intellectually dishonest.

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Try selling a gun on craigslist. Or ebay.

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Actually nukes are not crew-served in all cases. What you are discussing is an ICBM. A suit-case size dirty bomb would have give any militia serious leverage. Additionally, have you ever heard of tactical nukes? Hell, the F-16 can carry them and you could throw one in the bed of a truck. We even had the W33 nuclear artillery shell back in the day.

I'm not here to argue the merits of WACO or how the ATAF should have comported themselves in this situation. Yes, the second amendment was written for allowing an armed civilian population. However, please provide me a limit to arms. The arguments have been made that the civilians have to "have access to weapons in grade to battle the government" and thus assault rifles are okay. Well, if I was fighting the government, all the weapons systems I wrote above would be VERY helpful.

I also wrote about my being armed with my weapons as an example of me being the most armed person on this forum (which I am) and did not roll into my argument. Just saying that I can be armed to the teeth and still believe in limiting weapons access.

A perfect example of media bullshit.

F-16s are crew served. Artillery is crew served. WMDs don't apply. I already explained what I believe the limits to be, but since you seem to be intentionally obtuse, allow me to break this down into potato-head language.

What civilians have a right to, in the context of the intention of 2nd Amendment, is roughly the equivalent of what guns the basic infantryman would carry.

Now that I have spelled it out, why don't you tell us what you think the limit is or should be. And justify it within the context of the 2nd Amendment.

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Basic infantrymen carries a SAW machine gun, grenades, M203 grenade launcher, det chord, drives around in MRAPs with roof mounted cannon chain guns. Are you kidding me, the average infantry has firepower that FAR exceeds an assault rifle.

Tactical nukes don't require an artillery piece or f-16 to be set off. Have read any anti-terrorism documents? Dirty bombs are one of, if not the largest threat to the US by terrorists. These are not crew weapons and a militia in a civil war would do anything for them in my opinion.

Also where is the interpretation that it was only speaking of infantry forces?

Are you trying to sound stupid? How on God's green polluted earth do you draw the conclusion that the 2nd Amendment has anything to do in any way with a terrorist weapon? Why don't you focus on the entirety of what I said instead of locking in on the term "Crew served"? (BTW, I'm not aware of any MRAP that a single infantryman can both drive and shoot.)

Again, why don't you present your own goddamned opinion instead of making a caricature of other people's? And then clarify exactly how your opinion meshes with the 2nd Amendment.

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This is exactly it. And we do it because not only is it not politically correct to refer to Rosie (or anyone else) as fat, or even big boned, it's become horrible to even insinuate it. We've become so bent on making sure every special little cupcake is 100% cool in his or her or its own way, that we've created an environment where there is no room for the abnormal. And that's going to continue to haunt us until we figure out that it's not about Rosie's fork, but her eating habits and exercise.

There are far too many ways to take large numbers of people out and cause mass panic and destruction, and which can be found in common stores all over the country. In the Newtown case, this idiot would have been just as effective with machetes, or a vehicle at the crosswalk, and caused an equal amount of panic. People are going to find ways to do this until we address the problems instead of the methods.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

For anybody that cares, here is what the Supreme Court has to say about the militia clause.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER

Held:

1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.

(a) The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause. The operative clause’s text and history demonstrate that it connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms. Pp. 2–22.

(b) The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.


(f) None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542 , nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252 , refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174 , does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54.

2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose... Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons.




So STFU about nukes.

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This is going to be long so bear with me. It is the obligation of the individual who lawfully owns a fire arm to ensure they are not used in crimes. The guns used in this most recent shooting were registered to the shooters mother. Were they in a gun safe? Did he have access to the safe? If yes to both, why?

What happened on Friday was HORRIFIC, but if you look at the number of guns legally owned in this country vs. the number of actual shooting homicides the numbers are statistically less then .01 percent. What that means is the a incredibly small minority of guns are actually used in homicides. Those children are not just numbers, but you can't just ignore the numbers either.

According to Wikipedia and other sources I Googled (feel free to Google them yourself to verify) there were around 13,000 to 18000 gun related homicides in the U.S. per year. There are 200,000,000+ registered guns in the U.S. If you do the math with the highest estimated number of gun deaths you get .009 percent. So, .009 percent of all legally owned guns in the U.S. are used in homicides every year. The number are out there for you to verify. I see no reason to turn the 2nd Amendment, part of our sacred Bill of Rights, on it's head.

The math speaks for itself, relative or not. Relatively speaking more folks die per year from second hand smoke than from gun homicide. So relatively speaking we should probably ban smoking. I am not advocating that, but that is where relative arguments lead me.

I am not a gun advocate, I don't love guns, I don't even own that many guns and non that would fall under the arbitrary title of "assault weapon". What I do advocate is the intended meaning of the 2nd amendment. It was not included in the Bill of Rights so that people would be able to hunt. If you didn't hunt in 1789 you were likely not going to eat. There would be no need to include a "you needs guns to hunt" amendment in the Bill of Rights. What I glean from reading the Federalist Papers, articles from newspapers of the era and individual writings of our founding fathers is that the 2nd Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to protect the people from tyrannical government and from other individual who would take away personal liberty.

I am simply advocating common sense. Are homicides committed using guns? Sure, no one is denying that. As I said around 13,000 to 18,000 people die in gun related homicides each year in the U.S. Is that terrible? Of course, but you just cannot ignore that fact that an overwhelming majority of firearms in this nation are never and will never be used to kill or even be fired at another human being. I said it above and I will say it again, by a large margin more people die each year in this country from second hand smoke than from firearms. Is dying by a bullet you don't see coming more heinous than dying from smoke you are not even aware you are breathing?





Which of those weapons is more deadly? They both fire the same round, can hold the same capacity magazine and fire at the same semi automatic rate. The problem is, the bottom one "looks scarier".

Evidence suggests that "assault rifle" laws are not even that effective. From the Wiki:



The reason that the original "assault weapon" ban was not renewed is because the U.S. Department of Justice found no statistically compelling evidence that it was effective at preventing gun violence. Their words, not mine.

Over the last few days I have been told that because I advocate for the 2nd Amendments I must not value human life. I value all human life, especially that of innocent children. I also value the philosophy of individual liberty. I can do both, I feel to suggest otherwise is folly.

"common use for lawful purposes"

That would mean this slightly conservative Supreme Court has just tried to make a precedence for the eventual battle for the legalization of Assault Rifles.

Glad you mentioned Presser vs. Illinois for your Korean arguments.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

The reason they ban assault rifles is not because assault rifles are the deadliest weapons, it's because it's a gradual step to the removal of all weapons. Symbolic more than a solution.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Great post!


Nobody knows hate speech quite like the "tolerance" crowd.


Not me. Once someone opens fire on innocents, the shooter ceases being human, and becomes the moral equivalent of something between a poisonous spider and dog crap.

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The honesty in this post is astounding. Kudos!

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Now that's just stupid. The Koreans were not associating together as a military company or organization, drilling, parading. None of that is implied in the term "keep and bear arms." They were defending themselves, and they were doing it collectively -- or to put it another way, they were "acting in concert for the common defense."

If, however, you are putting forward the idea that the 2nd Amendment's phrasing "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" applies only to members of a militia, then that's even stupider. In DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al. v. HELLER, the Supreme Court held that the 2nd Amendment applies to individual rights, not collective rights.


Regarding "assault rifles", you might find this interesting:

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