We the people are guaranteed the right to possess machine guns as those are the weapons that will be used against us.
Just as the first amendment protects all forms of speech it it primarily aimed at protection of POLITICAL speech. The second amendment protects firearms and other arms for hunting and sport but it's primary purpose is protecting rights of arms for war and today that means machine guns.
Ironically the federal government outside of the military has no such rights or power. We the people are guaranteed the right to own a full automatic M4 carbine, an FBI or BATFE agent is not.
Absolutely correct and I am not CURRENTLY a gun owner. At the time of the ratification many Americans possessed weapons of equal and superior performance to ones issued to the Army or militias. Private artillery was common, whether in private frontier forts like Fort Bridger, on merchant vessels, or swivel guns on river flat boats. In the post Civil War West it was a common occurrence that trail drive drovers were better armed than a platoon of Cavalry. Around 1908, when the Army was issuing 5 shot ‘03s you could buy a Remington Model 8 or a Winchester 1907, both semi auto medium caliber rifle. Both purchased by the French Army in WW1.
You’re absolutely right that the Second Amendment protects our right to own and carry all such weapons. However, a century of infringements from the NFA to the GCA to FOPA have stripped away pieces of our rights until what’s left is barely recognizable.
This is why it is CRITICAL that we make sure President Trump wins in November and that we keep the Senate in GOP hands. We have a grand opportunity to take 1-2 more seats on the Supreme Court. If that happens, Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, Gorsuch, and those new picks will hear case after case and restore our 2A rights back to what they were always supposed to be. We will gut FOPA, the GCA, and the NFA. No more bans, no more registration, no more tax stamps.