[Dead Corpse]

Read up a bit more. It was to provide Federal funding for private ships already equied to be hired in to the Navy, to allow them to attack pirates/enemies, and to disburse funds for their up keep and re-arming.

[Jim Verdolini]

The funding is not an issue, the granting of permission, a Letter of Marque, is the issue. Do you grant the government a right to limit your second amendment rights to a permission? No government permission, no right?

No, the second amendment protects an individual in the ownership of a specific class of weapons. ALL the court cases support this interpretation. Cannons are not in this class.

That is not saying you cannot own a cannon. it is saying that both the feds and the state have a right to restrict your ownership. They have no such right to restrict your ownership of a rifle, shotgun, or handgun with any suitability to the militia.

Read US v Miller or Emmerson and you will get a better idea of what the law really is.

Then consider....if all the federal supreme court precident prohibits the feds from limiting ones ability to privately own arms suitable for a militia, how did they manage to pass the assault weapons ban?

My answer is that it was never attacked using this precident.