[MineralMan]

Uh-oh! This should be an interesting thread, for sure.

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

[inquest]

It had in mind anything that can be used to execute the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.

[DaGman]

"I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?"

Got asbestos?

[Just another Joe]

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

Actually I would think they did since most of the cannon used in the American revolution were privately owned.

[Joe Brower]

"I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?"

A much better question would be why a government, with entires navies, air & ground forces at it's disposal, be so obsessed with keeping small arms, much less AA, out of the hands of it's citizens.

[bvw]

Yes.

[RKV]

I'll bite - yes it certainly did contemplate privately owned weapons of this type. See Article 8 Section 11 of the Constituion which grants congresional power to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal". A letter of marque is used by privately owned warships, which even in the 1700's would have had devastating firepower. That settles the issue for me quite easily.

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

[Destructor]

" wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?"

I wonder if the 1st Amendment had your asinine comment in mind?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Yes it did, but it didn't envision any restrictions on the incarceration of people who are clearly insane. This played out exactly the way it should have. Person starts behaving and talking in ways that belie dangerous insanity. Free citizen becomes alarmed and decides to alert authorities. Authorities arrest dangerously insane person.

[Centurion2000]

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

Considering that it was legal for a provate citizen to own the equivalent of a Missouri class battleship in 1800, I'd say that it did.

Letters of marque and reprisal = private citizens with warships.

[Fierce Allegiance]

As aircrraft weren't around, the capability to eliminate them isn't exluded.

I say I should have the right to thermonuclear wepaons under the 2nd ammendment.

[evets]

There were chilling pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the cross-hairs of a high-powered rifle scope drawn over themObviously... what other kind of 'cross-hairs' would they be? (paintball?) </step away from the sarcasm>

[PhilipFreneau]

>> I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

The 2nd Amendment covers any weapon you need them to fight against a tyrannical government.

[archy]

Uh-oh! This should be an interesting thread, for sure.

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

The closest thing of the sort available in the times the founding fathers were drafting the document was horse-drawn tube artillery. One reason that those assembled gentlemen were gathered to write a foundation for the governing system for their new country was that one of their contempories, a portly fellow named Henry Knox, was a dedicated and talented enthusiust and collector of such ordnance and had self-taught himself how to use it, becoming the American colonial rebels' first artillerist. I wonder what sort of equipment he'd be gathering around his plantation nowadays....

[Billthedrill]

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

Well, nobody has made a legal call yet as to what constitutes "arms" and what does not. Most people in the firearms legislation biz have come to consider the text "keep and bear arms" to refer to arms that can be borne, i.e. carried. But that is nowhere written down (at least as far as I know) and is purely a working classification.

By that guidance this "antiaircraft" weapon is borderline, even as it's a borderline AA weapon. This particular firearm may currently be possessed quite legally in many states with the correct federal ticket (Title II). Unfortunately my state (Washington) isn't one of those.

There's an awful lot of hearsay in the article - I'm sure some (liberal) neighbors of mine would consider me a right-wing gun-toting camo-wearing militia "type" although the camo is an oil-spattered t-shirt and the last militia I was in was the U.S. Navy. But the thing with the cross-hairs on the political figures is at least disturbing. The guy may well be a nut, but it's best not to try to make that judgment from a newspaper article.

BTW, too bad about not getting to fire a real AA weapon. I was lucky enough to get to shoot a string at a towed target with a 5"38 naval rifle. One tends to think about firearms in a whole different light after that experience...

[Who is John Galt?]

I wonder if the 2nd Amendment had anti-aircraft weapons in mind?

The Japanese Arisaka Type 99 bolt-action rifle of 1939 was fitted with anti-aircraft sights, which obviously qualify the rifle as an "anti-aircraft weapon." And every other bolt-action rifle in the world is 'functionally equivalent.'

I used to live in the Peoples Republic of Kalifornia. I know you don't mean to, but you remind me of Diane ("Mr. & Mrs. America, turn 'em all in!") Feinstein.

;>)

[Tench_Coxe]

Well, in the time when cannon were considered the ultimate in military firepower, there were private cannon in the colonies.
When men-of-war dominated the seas, converted, private sloops, armed with cannon, sailed out to face them.
When the Brown Bess was considered the ultimate infantry weapon, farmers soon gathered arms of equal lethality to return the Brwon Bess' ball.

[Axenolith]

That could just be an old .50 cal. De-miled to semi auto you could probably get a couple of hundred rounds a minute out and last I saw they sold em at Traders (kick ass gun store in San Leandro AKA the antichrist to gun haters) for 6000 bucks and the ammo was ~$108 for a belt of 120...