[nyg4168]

I know people are really passionate about this issue, so I just want to preface my comment by saying that I'm not trying to start an argument, just asking a real question that I don't know the answer to. Okay, here goes:

The 2nd Amendment says the people have the right to keep and bear arms. At the time the 2nd was ratified, that meant, I guess, rifles, muskets, etc., (I don't know too much about firearm history) as those were the weapons used by militias as well as for hunting and personal protection. As firearms technology expanded, the 2nd amendment seems to have expanded as well (aargh...a living Constitution?) Now there seems to be a right to own weapons that are much more advanced (handguns, high-powered rifles, "assault" weapons) than those used in the late 1700s. But there's also some limit on what arms the people are allowed to keep and bear. For example, I can't keep a cannon or a shoulder rocket or a nuclear missile in my backyard for protection (or hunting), even though those are arguably "arms" as well.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is: how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment?

Thanks.

[boofus]

By your argument the 1st Amendment would only apply to quill pens and parchment, and town criers. That's all there was in the late 1700s so obviously the Freedom of Speech does not apply to E-mail, blogs, television, radio, satellite, internet, whatever.

Private citizens actually owned frigates and other warships and could be pressed into service with the US Navy in that era. Private citizens owned cannons as well.

[jjones9853]

I'll bite on this one. It's my opinion that at the time the second was written the common folk had access to the same weapons that the government forces had. One of the functions of the 2nd was to insure that the common folk could stop the government if it turned to tyranny. If that is the case then the common folk would need weapons that could match the governments, up to and including nukes.

The key here is that you have the right to keep and bear arms as long as you don't infringe on someone else's rights.

[orionblamblam]

> how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment?

That always starts a fight, and it almost always ends up with someone mentioning nuclear weapons. However, here's the logic I woudl use:
1) The internal police (local, State, FBI) should have access to whatever class of weapons they want.
2) The citizens should have ready and uninfringed access to the exact same class of weapons... *at* *the* *least*.

So... if the cops got machine guns, the people should as well. If the cops got A-10 tank busters, the people should be able to as well (if they can afford 'em...).

If the cops don't like the idea of me having a bazooka or an MP-5... then *they* shouldn't have 'em either.


Another discriminator I'd find reasonable to discuss: the citizens should ahve any weapon they want... until you get to weapons of mass devastation. Things like bombs and grenades and flamethrowers... *perhaps* those should have a license requirement.

[Sola Veritas]

"I guess what I'm trying to ask is: how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment?"

If it is considered a "one person" weapon, such as an individual soldier would carry. It should be allowed. "Arms" inplies military weaponry. I will backtrack a bit and say that keeping "fully automatic" weapons (machine guns) or shoulder fired antitank weapons, etc. is proper. However, the semi-automatic versions (what really counts) of all single user military weapons should be available to the public. I think you should be able to possess an M16, and its variants with all features, except it should be limited to semi-auto fire. There should be no limits on magazine capacity, etc. Except when those arms are used for hunting - which most modern military arms are useless for. That is my opinion.

[Paul_Denton]

I guess what I'm trying to ask is: how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment?

Well you can thank the left for that. The 2nd Amendment has been infringed upon since the 1930s.

[Another-MA-Conservative]

A couple days ago, another poster on a similar thread answered this question along these lines:

Our government is supposed to govern with the consent of the governed - us. Thus, our government gets its authority from us - the government has the rights we chose to give to it. Our government only has the right to possess nukes because we gave it that right. We can't give rights that we don't already have ourselves; thus we have the right, if not the means, as individuals to possess nukes.

Hard to argue with that logic, if you buy into that quaint old notion of "consent of the governed".

[Jim Verdolini]

“I guess what I'm trying to ask is: how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment?”

The founding fathers did not discuss the issue in these terms. They spoke of managing the militia when they discussed the Constitution (see Madison’s notes) . It was not until the federalists and the anti-federalists got into squabbling over a bill of rights (as a requirement before the states would ratify the Constitution) that the Second Amendment was discussed. In those discussions, it was made very, very clear that the militia was the body of the people capable of bearing arms. There is not a single founder on the winning side of the argument in favor of a bill of rights that spoke of a collective (state) right. The people mentioned in the amendment were the same people found in the rest of the bill of rights. The Militia Act of 1792 specifically spoke of the militia as being the body of the male population capable of bearing arms and also specifically required these people to arrive for service with their own military style arms.

The first mention of a collective right did not occur until a Tennessee case in 1840 involving concealed weapons and based solely on the Tennessee state Constitution. The first federal case to invent a collective right was US v Adams, a district court case in the 1930’s that traces its historic rationale all the way back to this case in 1840.

Every Supreme court case specifically protects the rights of the people to own arms of a military sort as usefull to a militia. The only rights that have been proscribed are the rights to own arms not suitable to a militia. In fact, the overwhelming number of court cases out there only speak to a states ability to regulate concealed carry.

So, the right is an individual right and the specific weapons protected under this right are those suitable for militia use. For this reason, I would have loved to have seen a challenge to the assault weapons ban based on court precedent.

[justshutupandtakeit]

"Arms" are weapons which a man could carry. Firearms are those which use gunpowder and can be carried. Those claiming that the amendment allows possession of any and all weapons are guilty of reading into the document those things they wish. This is exactly what they condemn the liberals for.

[ctdonath2]

They're all allowed. The issue is what one does with them.

[Old Student]

"I guess what I'm trying to ask is: how and why do we decide which arms are and aren't allowed under the 2nd Amendment? "

If you want my "strict-constructionist" argument, anything the government can have, WE THE PEOPLE can have. The Pennsylvania and Kentucky rifles of the Revolutionary War period were the "battlefield superiority weapon" of the day. Like the M-16 in the 1960's, they were smaller caliber, and used less powder, than the predominant military weapons of their day. (that analogy is weak in some areas, and very strong in others, but that is subject for another discussion) The average Pennsylvania or Kentucky rifle of the day was .36 to .45 caliber, where the Brown Bess musket the English soldiers were armed with was .70 caliber. The smaller-caliber weapons used much less powder, were easier to carry, lighter in construction, and generally quite a bit more accurate than the Brown Bess, which was a smooth-bore weapon.

Smoothbore and rifle are important distinctions, as well, in firearms. A smoothbore has a hole drilled in the barrel that is roughly the same diameter all the way down the bore (which is what the hole is called, btw.) A rifled barrel has groves cut in it that twist down the bore, like a long, slow screw thread, and when the ball engaged those grooves, it caused the ball to spin when fired. This stabilized the ball, and helped the rifle to be more accurate than a similar smoothbore weapon. Most muzzleloading rifles used patches of cloth or leather to help the bullet (ball) catch the grooves of the rifling, and to keep the ball from falling out of the barrel.

You mentioned that you are not particularly firearms knowledgeable, so you might not know that caliber is the measurement of the diameter of the bullet in hundredths of an inch; i.e. .70 caliber is 70/100's of an inch diameter. Bullets then were mostly round balls, cast in a mold, or "shot" which was molten lead dripped into a pot of water, and might be more ovoid, but was usually used in a smoothbore weapon, and varied widely in size. They are where we get the term "shotgun" from, as they fired a bunch of smaller pellets, rather than one large ball. Market hunters sometimes used shotguns with a 1.5 inch bore.

The Brits, and most other European armies, fought in formations, where the rebels fought from behind trees and bushes, as the Indians had, until they were trained in the European manner. Fighting as irregulars, they often inflicted proportionately heavy casualties on the Brits, but they seldom won a battle, as they couldn't stand the massed fire of the British formations.

By the way, handguns were fairly common then, as well, for self-defense. They were expensive, but not as much so as the long guns were. Any gun at all was treasured; even broken guns were often willed to descendents. They were very much a way of life in Colonial and Revolutionary War times, and for long after.

[metesky]

You are entitled to own what a combat infantryman carries.

IMO.

[Beckwith]

I'm not responding to your question, but bringing your attention to one of your statements.

But there's also some limit on what arms the people are allowed to keep and bear.

Our rights come from the Creator. One of those rights is to keep and bear arms. Who or what are you referring to that has the authority "to allow" us our Constitutional rights.

[King Prout]

look at the US Constitution, Article One, Section Eight, Part Eleven.

allow me to quote it for you:

The Constitution of the United States... ARTICLE I... Section 8. Powers of Congress... The Congress shall have the power... 11.To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water...

Look up the meaning of "letters of marque and reprisal" and then think of the implications such a power has on the types of arms a private citizen is "allowed" to possess according to the wisdom of the Founders.

Again, allow me to cut to the chase:
A letter of marque and reprisal is a congressional writ authorizing a private citizen to cunduct maritime acts of war against a foreign enemy's assets, military/naval and/or shipping/commercial, using his own privately owned ship(s) armed with his own privately owned cannons.

You should also try to understand that the "militia" definition the Founders had in mind was the reserve militia comprising all able-bodied men at least seventeen years of age. These militia were not the standing army, nor were they the "select" or cadre militia of the several states, nor yet were they the paramilitary forces of the police or fire brigades. They were the common man, and trhey were expected to be armed and trained at their own expense with at least the standard shoulder-arm of the day.

As to "arms" - one last note: DO YOU THINK THE FOUNDERS WERE IDIOTS???
They were well aware of technological progress in firearms design, and knew very well that further improvements were inevitable. Why do you think they used the term "ARMS" instead of "flintlock rifled musket"?

[steve-b]

"Arms" is generally understood to mean the sort of weapons that a citizen might reasonably carry in self-defense. Thus, it might possibly extend to a ship owner equipping his ship with cannon, but would not extend to what we today call "weapons of mass destruction" (which by definition are not precisely targeted -- they can reasonably be kept out of private hands on the grounds that they are a threat to innocent bystanders even if used properly).

[Little Ray]

IMHO, a private citizen should have access to any and all weapons available to a light infantryman.

[R. Scott]

At the time the 2nd was ratified, that meant, I guess, rifles, muskets, etc., (I don't know too much about firearm history) as those were the weapons used by militias as well as for hunting and personal protection.

It also included cannon and armed warships. The muskets commonly referred to were the assault weapons of the time. Hunters preferred the slow firing rifles, not the rapid firing Brown Bess.

[leftover]

I guess that you are using QUIL PENS and a GUETENBURGH
PRINTING PRESS. The Bill of Rights does not grant us
(THE PEOPLE) anything. It suppresses the Government from
interfereing with our GOD GIVEN RIGHTS. A military-style
weapon is just that tool we need to do so if it ever becomes necessary. Get one now.

[Triple]

The body of the constitution authorizes letters of marque and reprisal. These were documents legalizing action by state of the art, fully-armed privately owned battle ships.

They authorized action, these vessels were previously legally armed.

Google search the papers for the privateer "Lucy" if you doubt me.

So yes, by law and by tradition US citizens may own ships of war.

[meatloaf]

Believe it or not quite a few folks own cannons ... legally.

[Bogey78O]

You could own a cannon or a battleship when the Constitution was ratified. Those were the biggest weapons of the age.