Do Second Amendment “Arms” Include Cannons?

People own fully functional tank and enjoy shooting off their cannons at meets like Knob Creek at West Point, KY.

Youtube of tanks firing off their cannon. Scroll to 10:00 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR5gEQdP7ig

Youtube of 76 mm cannon at Knob Creek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dSdnxxrjGQ

Get off your lazy ass and read a book. Start with “The Life of Uncle Billy” by W.T. Sherman.

The verb “bear” means you have to be able to carry it.

Joe can take your tank and howitzer away if Congress allows him to do so.

Do Second Amendment “Arms” Include Cannons? I would appreciate any additional materials that anyone may have.

The short answer is no. That does not mean cannons are unlawful, just that they are not protected by the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) referenced in the Second Amendment.

The 2nd Amendment prohibition against infringement of the right to keep and bear arms is absolute. The right to keep and bear arms is not, and never has been, absolute. That the right cannot be infringed does not imply that the right itself did not have certain inherent limitations. It most certainly did.

The right was neither created, nor defined, by the Constitution. It was a pre-existing right. It pre-existed the States and was carried forth from the colonies into the independent states before there was a Constitution. It was most certainly an individual right and not limited to the militia.

District of Columbia v Heller, 554 US 570, 580-81 (2008), Opinion of the Court by SCALIA, J.

If “bear arms” means, as we think, simply the carrying of arms, a modifier can limit the purpose of the carriage (“for the purpose of self defense” or “to make war against the King”). But if “bear arms” means, as the petitioners and the dissent think, the carrying of arms only for military purposes, one simply cannot add “for the purpose of killing game.” The right “to carry arms in the militia for the purpose of killing game” is worthy of the mad hatter. Thus, these purposive qualifying phrases positively establish that “to bear arms” is not limited to military use.

Heller at 624-25:

“In the colonial and revolutionary war era, [small-arms] weapons used by militiamen and weapons used in defense of person and home were one and the same.” State v. Kessler, 289 Ore. 359, 368, 614 P. 2d 94, 98 (1980) (citing G. Neumann, Swords and Blades of the American Revolution 6–15, 252–254 (1973)). Indeed, that is precisely the way in which the Second Amendment’s operative clause furthers the purpose announced in its preface. We therefore read Miller to say only that the Second Amendment does not protect those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns. That accords with the historical understanding of the scope of the right, see Part III, infra.
We conclude that nothing in our precedents forecloses our adoption of the original understanding of the Second Amendment.

Heller at 627-28:

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). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or 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.
We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.” See 4 Blackstone 148–149 (1769); 3 B. Wilson, Works of the Honourable James Wilson 79 (1804); J. Dunlap, The New-York Justice 8 (1815); C. Humphreys, A Compendium of the Common Law in Force in Kentucky 482 (1822); 1 W. Russell, A Treatise on Crimes and Indictable Misdemeanors 271–272 (1831); H. Stephen, Summary of the Criminal Law 48 (1840); E. Lewis, An Abridgment of the Criminal Law of the United States 64 (1847); F. Wharton, A Treatise on the Criminal Law of the United States 726 (1852). See also State v. Langford, 10 N. C. 381, 383–384 (1824); O’Neill v. State, 16 Ala. 65, 67 (1849); English v. State, 35 Tex. 473, 476 (1871); State v. Lanier, 71 N. C. 288, 289 (1874).
It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M–16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

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.

The right, as it has existed since the states were colonies, is an individual right to self-defense. The right itself contains limitations as explained in the English common law pre-dating American independence.

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.

It has never meant a right to carry any and all weapons for any purpose. It does not mean that today.

That is the right the Constitution says shall not be infringed.

“The second amendment is not absolute” -Democrats
“The right to abortion is absolute.” - democrats.

Yes

Heller is a true example of miscarriage of “justice”.

It puts limits. Either the government can ban everything, or they can’t put limits on anything. One or the other, and they weren’t willing to test the countries citizens. Because they are cowards, just as in 1939.

The same goes for United States v. Miller, 1939.

A time will come when these decisions are viewed with as much contempt and scorn as Scott v. Sandford m, 1857 is seen today.

The ussc gets plenty wrong, they know that they do, too preserve the status quo.

In Federalist #29, Alexander Hamilton writes:

[I]t will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it.
This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.

"Little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms" means that the people were expected to be able to use the same arms as the standing army, and be just as good at using them.

-PJ

Merchant ships were armed for defense.

We're still trying to perfect the technology to estimate yield and height of burst. There is little data available to construct models. There are lots of good seismic and meteorological sensors and networks, but very little sensor tech for nuke bursts. I'm hoping we don't get some fresh data from Putin anytime soon.

"The British were coming for the privately owned cannon in Concord on April 19th, 1775."

You say, "The British", but Paul Revere warned that, "The Regulars are coming out!", meaning the regular army of the King who ruled the colonies. It was their own government attempting to disarm them.

Here's a rough chronology:

1) People in Boston threw tea into the harbor rather than pay a tax.

2) Their own government occupied Boston with the regular army and proposed to stay until the tea was paid for.

3) Citizens opposed their own army's attempts to disarm them outside of Boston.

4) Those same citizens conducted an armed raid against their own government's installation, Fort Ticonderoga, and transported the stolen cannon to Boston.

5) Waking to find their fleet at risk of destruction by means of those stolen cannon, the government agreed to evacuate the occupying army from Boston.

I am totally unconvinced that our Founders intended to require future generations to steal arms from the government, as our Founders had been forced to do, in order to oppose tyranny.

The Second Amendment was not designed merely to permit the people to oppose tyranny. It was meant to discourage even the slightest attempt to impose tyranny.

My wife was commenting on how some liberal had said something like “These nutso Republicans thinks the 2nd Amendment allows them to have nukes!”

I told my wife “Well - it does. Whatever the government uses a citizen should also be able to use.”

And while several rich guys have fighter jets and tanks, I’m not sure any of them have the bomb. I’m guessing the armaments to go with the jets and tanks are probably difficult to come by too.

https://davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/american-revolution-against-british-gun-control.html

The above article is very interesting and discusses “The Powder Alarm” which happened September 1, 1774 in Charlestown. It was being held at a local militia powder house.

Exceprts:

Five days after the Powder Alarm, on September 6, the militia of the towns of Worcester County assembled on the Worcester Common. Backed by the formidable array, the Worcester Convention took over the reins of government, and ordered the resignations of all militia officers, who had received their commissions from the Royal Governor. The officers promptly resigned and then received new commissions from the Worcester Convention....

In South Carolina, patriots established a government, headed by the “General Committee.” The Committee described the British arms embargo as a plot to disarm the Americans in order to enslave them. Thus, the Committee recommended that “all persons” should “immediately” provide themselves with a large quantity of ammunition.

Without formal legal authorization, Americans began to form independent militia, outside the traditional chain of command of the royal governors. In Virginia, George Washington and George Mason organized the Fairfax Independent Militia Company. The Fairfax militiamen pledged that “we will, each of us, constantly keep by us” a firelock, six pounds of gunpowder, and twenty pounds of lead. Other independent militia embodied in Virginia along the same model. Independent militia also formed in Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, and South Carolina, choosing their own officers.

Captain Kidd was a privateer - but hanged as a pirate. His papers were signed by the King of England, but the King disavowed that he had made a contract with Kidd. A very interesting and detailed history of Kidd in the book “The Pirate Hunter” by Richard Zacks.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/militia-sea

Above is one of the first links to pop up on a search of “Privateering”. I didn’t read it yet. But, during the Revolution the American colonies only had a few official ships at the time. Hundreds (thousands?) of private ships with cannon formed our “navy”.

I don’t recall off the top of my head how they were paid. I’m guessing they were “paid” with whatever they could capture from the enemy ship.

Starship.

Now you are talking.

keep, and bear

Heller is a true example of miscarriage of “justice”.
it puts limits.

The right to free speech has limits. Amber Heard just learned that lesson. The constitutional protection of the right to free speech did not make defamation (libel or slander) a protected right. It did not create a protected right to shout fire in a crowded theater. A right with inherent exceptions may be unconditionally protected from infringement. That does not protect any inherent exception to the right.

Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 281 (1897)

The law is perfectly well settled that the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were not intended to lay down any novel principles of government, but simply to embody certain guaranties and immunities which we had inherited from our English ancestors, and which had from time immemorial been subject to certain well-recognized exceptions arising from the necessities of the case. In incorporating these principles into the fundamental law there was no intention of disregarding the exceptions, which continued to be recognized as if they had been formally expressed. Thus, the freedom of speech and of the press (art. 1) does not permit the publication of libels, blasphemous or indecent articles, or other publications injurious to public morals or private reputation, the right of the people to keep and bear arms (art. 2) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons, the provision that no person shall be twice put in jeopardy (art. 5) does not prevent a second trial, if upon the first trial the jury failed to agree, or if the verdict was set aside upon the defendant's motion, United States v. Ball, 163 U.S. 662, 672, nor does the provision of the same article that no one shall be a witness against himself impair his obligation to testify, if a prosecution against him be barred by the lapse of time, a pardon or by statutory enactment. Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, and cases cited. Nor does the provision that an accused person shall be confronted with the witnesses against him prevent the admission of dying declarations, or the depositions of witnesses who have died since the former trial.

Heller is correctly decided, and your statement of discontent does not change that. The court placed no limits on the RKBA, but traced the history of the RKBA, back to the English Common Law. The RKBA has had limits since its inception, in the Colonies long before the Constitution, and also at the time of the adoption of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment protected the RKBA as it existed. It was and is an individual right to keep and bear arms which are lawful to possess.

Heller only applied to the District of Columbia. It was affirmed by McDonald v. Chicago 561 U.S. 742 (2010) which made it applicable to the States.

McDonald stated at page 768 (footnotes omitted),

Heller makes it clear that this right is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Glucksberg, supra, at 721 (internal quotation marks omitted). Heller explored the right’s origins, noting that the 1689 English Bill of Rights explicitly protected a right to keep arms for self-defense, 554 U.S., at 592–593, and that by 1765, Blackstone was able to assert that the right to keep and bear arms was “one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,” id., at 594.
Blackstone’s assessment was shared by the American colonists. As we noted in Heller, King George III’s attempt to disarm the colonists in the 1760’s and 1770’s “provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms.” Ibid.; see also L. Levy, Origins of the Bill of Rights 137–143 (1999) (hereinafter Levy).

Heller at 598

That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.
The debate with respect to the right to keep and bear arms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution.

Heller at 599-600

It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.
It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for selfdefense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution. Justice Breyer’s assertion that individual self-defense is merely a “subsidiary interest” of the right to keep and bear arms, see post, at 714 (dissenting opinion), is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely upon the prologue— but that can only show that self-defense had little to do with the right’s codification; it was the central component of the right itself.
Besides ignoring the historical reality that the Second Amendment was not intended to lay down a “novel principl[e]” but rather codified a right “inherited from our English ancestors,” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897), petitioners’ interpretation does not even achieve the narrower purpose that prompted codification of the right. If, as they believe, the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia, see Brief for Petitioners 8—if, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee—it does not assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny. For Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia, which must include the authority to say who will belong to the organized force.17 That is why the first Militia Act’s requirement that only whites enroll caused States to amend their militia laws to exclude free blacks. See Siegel, The Federal Government’s Power to Enact Color-Conscious Laws, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 477, 521–525 (1998). Thus, if petitioners are correct, the Second Amendment protects citizens’ right to use a gun in an organization from which Congress has plenary authority to exclude them. It guarantees a select militia of the sort the Stuart kings found useful, but not the people’s militia that was the concern of the founding generation.

Keepable and bearable by any citizen not legally incarcerated.
ALL laws and regulations regarding who can possess and what he can possess in the matter of arms of all categories are unConstitutional.

Dana Loesch said her neighbor owns a tank.