Do Second Amendment “Arms” Include Cannons?

"Tsar bomba should be the limit."

Kind of arbitrary, don't you think?
Just because a large portion of the explosive force occurs
above the atmoshere, (due to the sheer enormity on the blast)
that does not mean that such a device might not be useful to someone...

"... sensor tech for nuke bursts ..."

There is a documentary on TSAR Bomba - and in it seismologists
all over the world were amazed at this huge 'earthquake'
in Russia north of the arctic circle.

Until one of the scientist, after looking at the data, said:

"Guys, that AIN'T no earthquake..."

6 lbs powder
20 lbs lead
.
About right.

YES!

It was and is an individual right to keep and bear arms which are lawful to possess.

There was no ban on concealed weapons when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791.

Those bans did not happen until 40 years later. They were not traditional in England or in the United States, and were primarily aimed at slaves and black people.

They were, of course, difficult to enforce.

You need to stay out of the craters you make.

a typical intact online source:

https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org

in Webster 1880 dictionary, to “bear” also means to “bear a gun at [upon] a target’ i.e. ‘to aim’ [bearing = direction, aim] you have to go back to the original dictionaries coz modern ones censor everything they dont like

”Without formal legal authorization, Americans began to form independent militia, outside the traditional chain of command of the royal governors.”

Perhaps the most important point regarding the American Revolution is that it was completely lawless. Tyrannical governments do what tyrannical governments do. Freedom loving people are then forced to choose between being subjected to that tyranny or becoming outlaws.

The husband of my admin was the subject matter expert on waveform analysis to discern seismic vs nuclear events. The simplest observation is a period of relative quiet followed by a fast rise time spike and a quick decay. Earthquakes tend to have a build up of harmonic tremors or similar punctuated by spikes then less activity then more spikes eventually settling down (unless it is a precursor to bigger events). The nuke will be a huge, discrete event in a fairly short time interval.

I tossed in for consideration the recent "volcanic" eruption near Tonga. It caused detectable barometric impacts up to 7,000 miles away. There are lots of barometric sensors, so those could be part of the data set along with the seismic information. There is also a lightning detection network that could be a proxy for picking up EM pulse coming off a nuke detonation.

I do not agree that these decisions are correct.

The first amendment did protect a persons right to say anything but did not protect them from the consequences. Personal freedom is unlimited, right up to the end of another’s nose but not without accountability, which is correct.

Perhaps we agree on this point.

I will not tread into the Depp/Heard saga.

In my studies of the Founding Father’s and using their thoughts on self-preservation through self-protection, as well as letters of Marque i do not agree that the ussc has any right to allow any regulation of the 2A.

The arguments of lawyers doesn’t change truth, they just attempt to justify their perversion of it and its’ application to others. They never submit themselves to their own regulation. That is true evil, under any veil.

If you believe that the ussc hasn’t made errors everytime they have heard anything related to the 2A....

We will have to agree to disagree.

Thank you for the effort in your response.

105 mm HE rounds are hard to get.

The line of reasoning seems to be, you have a Constitutional right to whatever arms the government says is legal.
If the government says no arms are legal, then I suppose you are just sunk.
Naturally, I don’t buy that argument.

The line of reasoning seems to be, you have a Constitutional right to whatever arms the government says is legal.
If the government says no arms are legal, then I suppose you are just sunk.
Naturally, I don’t buy that argument.

Just as naturally, I did not make that argument, and neither has the court ever reached such a conclusion. You invent an argument that it is all or nothing at all. No court has ever said that, but they have outright rejected that.

The RBKA contains exceptions, precisely as stated in the English Common Law, and as stated in District of Columbia v. Heller. As the Right to Keep and Bear Arms cannot be infringed, a ban of all arms would be a constitutional violation.

The government can regulate classes of weapons; they cannot lawfully take all guns away.

See McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 742, 778, 786-787 (2010)

In sum, it is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary toour system of ordered liberty.
2
Despite all this evidence, municipal respondents contend that Congress, in the years immediately following the Civil War, merely sought to outlaw “discriminatory measures taken against freedmen, which it addressed by adopting a non-discrimination principle” and that even an outright ban on the possession of firearms was regarded as acceptable, “so long as it was not done in a discriminatory manner.” Brief for Municipal Respondents 7. They argue that Members of Congress overwhelmingly viewed §1 of the Fourteenth Amendment “as an antidiscrimination rule,” and they cite statements to the effect that the section would outlaw discriminatory measures. Id., at 64. This argument is implausible
[...]
As evidence that the Fourteenth Amendment has not historically been understood to restrict the authority of the States to regulate firearms, municipal respondents and supporting amici cite a variety of state and local firearms laws that courts have upheld. But what is most striking about their research is the paucity of precedent sustaining bans comparable to those at issue here and in Heller. Municipal respondents cite precisely one case (from the late 20th century) in which such a ban was sustained. See Brief for Municipal Respondents 26–27 (citing Kalodimos v. Morton Grove, 103 Ill. 2d 483, 470 N. E. 2d 266 (1984)); see also Reply Brief for Respondents NRA et al. 23, n. 7 (asserting that no other court has ever upheld a complete ban on the possession of handguns). It is important to keep in mind that Heller, while striking down a law that prohibited the possession of handguns in the home, recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is not “a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 54). We made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” Id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 54–55). We repeat those assurances here. Despite municipal respondents’ doomsday proclamations, incorporation does not imperil every law regulating firearms.
Municipal respondents argue, finally, that the right to keep and bear arms is unique among the rights set out in the first eight Amendments “because the reason for codifying the Second Amendment (to protect the militia) differs from the purpose (primarily, to use firearms to engage in self-defense) that is claimed to make the right implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.” Brief for Municipal Respondents 36–37. Municipal respondents suggest that the Second Amendment right differs from the rights heretofore incorporated because the latter were “valued for [their] own sake.” Id., at 33. But we have never previously suggested that incorporation of a right turns on whether it has intrinsic as opposed to instrumental value, and quite a few of the rights previously held to be incorporated—for example the right to counsel and the right to confront and subpoena witnesses—are clearly instrumental by any measure. Moreover, this contention repackages one of the chief arguments that we rejected in Heller, i.e., that the scope of the Second Amendment right is defined by the immediate threat that led to the inclusion of that right in the Bill of Rights. In Heller, we recognized that the codification of this right was prompted by fear that the Federal Government would disarm and thus disable the militias, but we rejected the suggestion that the right was valued only as a means of preserving the militias. 554 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 26). On the contrary, we stressed that the right was also valued because the possession of firearms was thought to be essential for self-defense. As we put it, self-defense was “the central component of the right itself.” Ibid.

There was no ban on concealed weapons when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791.

What conceivable legal point this tries to make is not apparent. I do not recall any legal ban on gay marriage either. If something is not banned by statute law, does that make it a constitutional right?

Those bans did not happen until 40 years later. They were not traditional in England or in the United States, and were primarily aimed at slaves and black people.

Your sourceless claim shows only that you are either misinformed or uninformed. Bans on concealed carry did not wait for 40 years, and certainly were not aimed at slaves who had no right to keep and bear arms, concealed or otherwise.

Kentucky (1813)

CHAP. LXXXIX
AN ACT to prevent persons in this Commonwealth from wearing concealed Arms, except in certain cases.
Approved, February 3, 1813.
Sec. 1. BE it enacted by the general assembly of the commonwealth of Kentucky, That any person in this commonwealth, who shall hereafter wear a pocket pistol, dirk, large knife, or sword in a cane, concealed as a weapon, unless when travelling on a journey, shall be fined in any sum, not less than one hundred dollars; which may be recovered in any court having jurisdiction of like sums, by action of debt, or on the presentment of a grand jury — and a prosecutor in such presentment shall not be necessary. One half of such fine shall be to the use of the informer, and the other to the use of the commonwealth.
This act shall commence and be in force, from and after the first day of June.

LOUISIANA adopted a similar law in 1813, stating in part:

Sect. 1. Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the state of Louisiana, in general assembly convened, That from and after the passage of this act, any person who shall be found with any concealed weapon, such as a dirk, dagger, knife, pistol or any other deadly weapon concealed in his bosom, coat or in any other place about him that do not appear in full open view, any person so offending, shall on conviction thereof before any justice of the peace, be subject to pay a fine not to exceed fifty dollars nor less than twenty dollars, one half to the use of the state, and the balance to the informer, and should any person be convicted of being guilty of a second offence before any court of competent jurisdiction, shall pay a fine of not less than one hundred dollars to be applied as aforesaid, and be imprisoned for a time not exceeding six months.

INDIANA (1820)

CHAPTER XXIII.
AN ACT to prohibit the wearing of concealed weapons.
Approved, January 14, 1820.
Sec. 1. BE it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, That any person wearing any dirk, pistol, sword in cane, or any other unlawful weapon, concealed, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, for the use of county seminaries: Provided however, that this act shall not be so construed as to affect travellers.

Concealed carrying was a specific exception to the right to keep and bear arms as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries on the Common Law of England. It is this right which was enjoyed by the British colononists, and which they preserved after they declared independence. It was also the common law right which was referenced in the Second Amendment.

The law of the land at the time of the Declaration of Independence was the English Common Law.

Ex parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87, 108-09 (1925), Opinion of the Court by Chief Justice Taft,

The language of the Constitution cannot be interpreted safely except by reference to the common law and to British institutions as they were when the instrument was framed and adopted. The statesmen and lawyers of the Convention who submitted it to the ratification of the Conventions of. the thirteen States, were born and brought up in the atmosphere of the common law, and thought and spoke in its vocabulary. They were familiar with other forms of government, recent and ancient, and indicated in their discussions earnest study and consideration of many of them, but when they came to put their conclusions into the form of fundamental law in a compact draft, they expressed them in terms of the common law, confident that they could be shortly and easily understood.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp

Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765)

5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.

Concealed carry is not a Federal Constitutional right. It is a matter of State discretion. In referring to the Common Law right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment made no attempt to remove the exceptions which were inherent in the common law right.

The original Kentucky law against concealed carry was overturned by the Kentucky Supreme Court in 1822 on the gounds that it violated the Kentucky state constitution. The Kentucky state constitution of 1799 stated at Article X, Section 23,

Sec. 23. That the rights of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.

Kentucky subsequently revised its state constitution to read at Article XIII, Section 25,

Section 25. That the rights of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned; but the general assembly may pass laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed arms.

Heller at 554 U.S. 626,

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e. g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e. g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884).

The U.S. Supreme Court denied cert. in Peruta and thereby allowed the en banc decision of the 9th Circuit to stand. I know of no Federal case that has every considered concealed carry to be a Federal Constitutional right.

Peruta v. San Diego, 824 F.3d 919 (9th Cir. 2016, en banc) (cert. Denied, S. Ct. 16-894, 26 Jun 2017, Thomas, J. Dissenting, joined by Gorsuch, J.

Argued and Submitted En Banc June 16, 2015

SUMMARY at 3-4:

Civil Rights
The en banc court affirmed the district courts’ judgments and held that there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public.
Appellants, who live in San Diego and Yolo Counties, sought to carry concealed firearms in public for self-defense, but alleged they were denied licenses to do so because they did not satisfy the good cause requirements in their counties. Under California law, an applicant for a license must show, among other things, “good cause” to carry a concealed firearm. California law authorizes county sheriffs to establish and publish policies defining good cause. Appellants contend that San Diego and Yolo Counties’ published policies defining good cause violate their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
The en banc court held that the history relevant to both the Second Amendment and its incorporation by the Fourteenth Amendment lead to the same conclusion: The right of a member of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment. Therefore, because the Second Amendment does not protect in any degree the right to carry concealed firearms in public, any prohibition or restriction a state may choose to impose on concealed carry — including a requirement of “good cause,” however defined — is necessarily allowed by the Amendment. The en banc court stated that there may or may not be a Second Amendment right for a member of the general public to carry a firearm openly in public, but the Supreme Court has not answered that question.

OPINION OF THE COURT at 19:

We do not reach the question whether the Second Amendment protects some ability to carry firearms in public, such as open carry. That question was left open by the Supreme Court in Heller, and we have no need to answer it here. Because Plaintiffs challenge only policies governing concealed carry, we reach only the question whether the Second Amendment protects, in any degree, the ability to carry concealed firearms in public. Based on the overwhelming consensus of historical sources, we conclude that the protection of the Second Amendment — whatever the scope of that protection may be — simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public.
The Second Amendment may or may not protect, to some degree, a right of a member of the general public to carry and the scope of such a right, are separate from and independent of the question presented here. We hold only that there is no Second Amendment right for members of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public.

At 23:

In determining whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a concealed weapon in public, we engage in the same historical inquiry as Heller and McDonald. As will be seen, the history relevant to both the Second Amendment and its incorporation by the Fourteenth Amendment lead to the same conclusion: The right of a member of the general public to carry a concealed firearm in public is not, and never has been, protected by the Second Amendment.

At 38-39:

The Supreme Court stated in Heller that “the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.” 554 U.S. at 626 (emphasis added). The Court substantially understated the matter. As just noted, with the exception of Bliss, those pre-Civil War state courts that considered the question all upheld prohibitions against concealed weapons. Four of the six courts upholding prohibitions specifically discussed, and disagreed with, Bliss. See Reid, 1 Ala. at 617–20; Aymette, 21 Tenn. at 160–61; Buzzard, 4 Ark. at 25–26; Nunn, 1 Ga. at 247–48. Moreover, the two-to-one Bliss decision did not last. Bliss was decided in 1822; a state constitutional amendment was adopted in 1849 to overturn Bliss; the legislature then passed a statute in 1854 outlawing concealed weapons.
The Supreme Court wrote in McDonald that a “clear majority of the States in 1868 . . . recognized the right to keep and bear arms as being among the foundational rights necessary to our system of Government.” 561 U.S. at 777 (emphasis added). Based in substantial part on its understanding of the “clear majority” of states, the Court held that the adopters of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to incorporate the right to bear arms preserved by the Second Amendment. As just seen, an overwhelming majority of the states to address the question — indeed, after 1849, all of the states to do so — understood the right to bear arms, under both the Second Amendment and their state constitutions, as not including a right to carry concealed weapons in public.

Agree with it or not, the current state of the law is that concealed carry is not a Federal Constitutional right. A State is free to make it a right within its jurisdiction.

I do not agree that these decisions are correct.
The first amendment did protect a persons right to say anything but did not protect them from the consequences. Personal freedom is unlimited, right up to the end of another’s nose but not without accountability, which is correct.
Perhaps we agree on this point.

You certainly have a right to disagree with court decisions. The government has the authority to enforce them. One ignores them at his or her peril.

For fifty years, I have thought Roe was wrongly decided. It is still the law. Tommorow, or someday soon, it may no longer be the law. Then the states can get back to arguing each other's abortion laws. I never found the federal jurisdiction emanating from a penumbra. Until it is changed, Roe is the law, whether I agree with it or not.

The First Amendment does not protect all speech. There is a fallacy in your logic that a person has a constitutional right to say anything but they are not protected from consequences. This inescapably leads to the conclusion that a person may be prosecuted or held liable for constitutionally protected free speech.

Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not constitutionally protected free speech. A person may be prosecuted for it.

Burning a flag in protest is considered constitutionally protected freedom of expression. A person cannot be prosecuted for it.

If a person can establish that their speech was constitutionally protected, they cannot be prosecuted for it.

Personal freedom is not unlimited. Can you lawfully drive a car on a public road without a license? Can you practice law, medicine or pharmacy without a license? Can you transport your guns across state lines? In a state that has decriminalized possession and use of marijuana, can you get a marijauna license or permit and still lawfully purchase a gun?

I was off by 20 years. But it was a generation from the ratification of the Second Amendment before any states prohibited concealed carry.

We interpret the Constitution by what was in the mind of those who wrote and ratified the amendments, not what came 20 years later. Concealed weapons were common at the time of ratification. They were not banned anywhere, nor were permits required, until it happened in two states, over twenty years later, one of which was overturned by the Kentucky Supreme Court, as you mentioned, in Bliss v.Commonwealth, which readers can find at the link.

Kentucky specifically amended their Constitution to allow the legislature to ban concealed carry. The Second Amendment was never amended.

Please educate me where Blackstone shows concealed carry as an exception to the English right to bear arms. I do not see it.

In any case, Blackstone references English common law, which did not ban concealed carry, and was overruled by the Second Amendment, which was a far broader protection, as the colonists had learned was necessary during and before the revolution. Here is Dave Kopel explaining the state of law in 1789 or 1791:

The claims that there was a categorical ban on carry are absolutely unsupported by early American history, except for the, there were rules against slaves who didn't have their, their master's permission. There were laws say against Indians carrying guns in towns. People weren't part of the you know, American polity, but for regular law abiding, peaceable Americans, there were no bans in 1791, in 1789, or at any time before that on either open or concealed carry, with the exception of the East Jersey, short lived East Jersey laws we talked about in the late 1600s.

Louisiana mimicked Spanish and French common law, and they passed the ban on concealed carry under that tradition. No one challenged it in court. Louisiana was part of the Louisiana Purchase, and had not been under English law.

Just because there were a couple of unusual court cases, where concealed carry was upheld, decades after the Second Amendment was ratified, is no reason to assume prohibitions on concealed carry were common at the time of ratification. They were not.

Nor are Heller and McDonald very instructive, or the Ninth Circuit case of Peruta. We should get some clarification in a few weeks in the New York Rifle & Pistol v Bruen case, which is all about carry outside the home. New York City bans both open and concealed carry for nearly everyone outside the home.

The Ninth circuit has been extremely hostile to the Second Amendment.

I appreciate you taking the time to make these detailed answers.
You said classes of firearms. Are semi-automatic weapons a class, and what would stop Biden from outlawing them?

If he packs the Supreme Court, which at this point seems unlikely, but if he did, he could pretty much ban whatever he wanted, and the Court would go along with him.

Would you still hold to the line that the Supreme Court decides the Constitution, or would you say, to heck with them, the baby, and the bathwater, it says “shall not be infringed?”

Kentucky specifically amended their Constitution to allow the legislature to ban concealed carry. The Second Amendment was never amended.

If the Federal Constitution made concealed carry a right, Kentucky and many other states could not have laws and constitutions permitting a state regulation or ban of concealed carry.

Please educate me where Blackstone shows concealed carry as an exception to the English right to bear arms. I do not see it.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/blackstone_bk1ch1.asp

Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England

Book the First - Chapter the First: Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals (1765)

5. THE fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. ft. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.

See the part about "such as are allowed by law?" Consult your state law.

I would note that Blackstone is not the common law per se. It is a compendium restating the common law. The actual common law is pre-DOI collection of English case law, the decision of their courts. There are two such compendiums, but the first published about a century earlier than Blackstone was in Latin, as were many of the early English court opinions.

And, of course, Heller (affirmed by McDonald which incorporated it against the states) stated at 554 U.S. 626:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e. g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152–153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e. g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489–490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students’ Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884).

Nor are Heller and McDonald very instructive, or the Ninth Circuit case of Peruta.

They may not be instructive to you, but they are clear to the courts.

We should get some clarification in a few weeks in the New York Rifle & Pistol v Bruen case, which is all about carry outside the home. New York City bans both open and concealed carry for nearly everyone outside the home.

The Court tends to write narrow decisions, only deciding what is necessary. I would certainly favor holding the New York law unconstitutional. I believe they will strike down the "proper cause" requirement. Concealed carry with extremely onerous regulations, and selective grants of permits, is probably going to be held unconstitutional. They may also address the granting of a disporportionate amount of permits to less populated areas. I should think they are most needed in places like alphabet city. There is some sort of reverse logic going on there. The court could state that carry outside the home is a fundamental right. A state could probably authorize open carry, or concealed carry, and not violate anyone's RKBA.

Peruta upheld a law on concealed carry and the Supreme Court declined to review the case. That says nothing more than they chose not to hear it. It could mean that the argument was not persuasive, but a different argument might yield a different result. It is not really a matter of whether concealed carry can be regulated, but to what extent. Whatever the case, it stands as good law in the 9th Circuit.

Just because there were a couple of unusual court cases, where concealed carry was upheld, decades after the Second Amendment was ratified, is no reason to assume prohibitions on concealed carry were common at the time of ratification. They were not.

Whether they were common or not it irrelevant. Whether the 2nd Amendment made concealed carry a fundamental right is relevant. The common law did not make it a right, and the 2nd Amendment did nothing to add it to the right. I'm all for states authorizing licensed concealed carry. I'm fine with open carry. Heck, they have driver ed in schools, at whatever age guns may be carried they should have firearm safety classes in schools.

If enough people want concealed carry, or open carry, they can put it in their state constitution or their state law. One state found that they had worded their constitution to prohibit a concealed carry law. They changed their constitution.

You said classes of firearms. Are semi-automatic weapons a class, and what would stop Biden from outlawing them?

That would be a class of weapons, just as automatic weapons are a class. Probably the Constitution and the Court would stop Biden. Biden is not the Legislative Branch. It would probably require a law. I lost track of how many of Biden's regulations or executive orders have been found unconstitutional.

If he packs the Supreme Court, which at this point seems unlikely, but if he did, he could pretty much ban whatever he wanted, and the Court would go along with him.

As an historical note, it would not be a first. Lincoln packed the court with five appointees, bringing the total justices to ten, following Legislative action to raise the number from nine to ten. With five, he and the Congress had a veto-proof block on the Court. Through attrition, it fell during the Andrew Johnson (D) administration, and Congress lowered the number so Johnson could not appoint anybody. After Grant (R) took office, Congress restored the number to nine, where it has stood ever since.

Biden would need Legislation to do it. At this point, I do not see it happening. Then he would need the Senate to advise and consent to any appointee. If it could be pulled off, as in the Civil War, then yes, the Court could interpret the Constitution to have strange things emanating from the penumbras. There have been some rather odd decisions in war time, like upholding the internment of United States citizens of Japanese, German or Italian ethnicity.

Would you still hold to the line that the Supreme Court decides the Constitution, or would you say, to heck with them, the baby, and the bathwater, it says “shall not be infringed?”

I would still hold that the Supreme Court is given the authority to interpret the law. Would you really rather have Biden or the Legislature do it?

If one looks at the government we had before the Civil War, and the government since the Civil War, that war may be seen as a second revolution. There was no large standing army before the war. People think of the 16th Amendment as giving us the unapportioned income tax and the IRS to enforce it. Nope. The IRS started as the Internal Revenue Bureau. Lincoln appointed George Boutwell as the first Commissioner to enforce the unconstitutional unapportioned income tax. The list of IRS Commissioners goes back to the 1860's. After the tax was struck down in the 1890's, it was resurrected by the 16th Amendment, and marketed as a very small tax on the very wealthy. Once they were given the power, they could transform the tax into what it is today.

There is always a provision to call a Constitutional Convention, but nobody could predict what might come out of that. There is always a provision for Constitutional amendments. I can think of a few that should be repealed. The Second Amendment could be revised to include concealed carry. I don't know if three-fourths of the states could agree on anything.

Theoretically, an Amendment could be adopted to make all arms used by the military available for purchase by the public at the same price as they are sold to the military, tax free. A minor problem might be what is done for a police force.

If it got as bad as you theoretically project is possible, I would not support making believe that the Constitution says what it does not say. The PTB don't care what I think now, and they won't care any time soon. Except on paper, there would neither be a legislative nor judicial solution. If it got to that point, it would probably be time for secession. Before secession was reimagined as impossible, Vermont seceded from New York in 1777 and joined the constitutional union in 1791 as a free and independent state (not as a territory). See Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593, 607-608 an opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court. "[T]he Order-in-Council was nullified by successful revolution, and Vermont was admitted as an independent state with self-constituted boundaries. ... her independence was recognized by New Hampshire in 1777, by Massachusetts in 1781, and by New York in 1790." When the constitutional government was formed, really eleven states seceded from the other two. Washington was inaugurated more than a year before Rhode Island ratified, and six months before North Carolina ratified. Check out the title page of the Congressional Register, Vol I (or II or III) for the first Congress under the Constitution of the United States, listing the eleven states by name.

I'm not even clear how how secession would work these days. We are moving toward liberal urban areas dominating the far greater expanse of conservative non-urban areas. It is not just a split between sections. How do they even separate? When the checks and balances fail completely, I damn sure don't know a peaceful solution.