I would disagree with the first premise: the nothing gives the government the right to possess nuclear weapons. the Constitution clearly spells out the federal government's exclusive power over the Army and the Navy. If one wishes to quibble and say that it doesn't mention the AIR FORCE, that's true, but it falls within the military power. Nuclear weapons are part of the military power, and the Constitution gives plenary power for the organization, regulation and equipment of the military to Congress, with command of the forces given to the President. Nuclear weapons are merely a technological advance of the military power, but it's clearly military power, and clearly within the ambit of the grant of power to the feds to have them.
The problem, of course, is that the logic can be extended to the "right to keep and bear arms" under the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment can be interpreted as giving individuals the rights to have armaments of whatever sort...hence private ownership of nukes, WMD, machine guns, Claymore mines, and similar powerful weapons.
One can look at historical precedents from colonial times around the time of the Founding and see that military weapons such as cannons and private armies were, in fact, limited. In New England, militia weapons were kept in magazines. Some argue that this was original conditions (in some places) and that the government can do that.
Unfortunately, of course, blacks were chattel slaves at the time, and there's nothing in the Constitution that gives a formal legal status to slavery, nor which would deprive slaves of the rights and privileges under the Constitution. They didn't have those rights because nobody applied the language to them, even though it clearly DID apply to them, as written. Moral: original conditions are not much of a help.
Truth is, there are weaknesses in ALL of the positions one takes regarding personal ownership of weapons or restrictions against it. The language of the 2nd Amendment is ambiguous, referring first to regulation, then referring to non-infringement with rights. The application of the Amendment has been unclear. Precedent is bad for all positions.
I think that we have to be rational and consider the function of the amendment. First, we need self-defense. There are 14,000 murders a year, and a lot more rapes and attempted murders and assaults, and the numbers are climbing again after a lull of several years. The government CANNOT protect individuals everywhere. Very few women can really fend off any average man if he's determined, but with a gun, the playing field is levelled. Guns are still necessary for self-defense, and self-defense itself is still very necessary. So, reading the 2nd Amendment to say that people cannot be deprived the right to arms for self-defense is highly useful and salutary. But note that that means the right to carry concealed weapons - handguns. It doesn't mean the right not to have to REGISTER them, so that if there's a crime with a gun, the bullets can be traced to the gun and the gun to the owner, etc.
The registration issue speaks to a second question: the role of private ownership of firearms as a CHECK on government. Certainly in British and American revolutionary times, the personal right of firearms was understood as a reserve of power against the government itself. And certainly it still is that...provided people will actually USE the guns in such a way. If guns are registered, obviously, this dramatically weakens or eliminates the ability of private firearms to be a check on the government. If guns are NOT registered, it weakens the ability of the government to pursue crime.
What is the answer?
Well, if I were running for President, I would take the view that there is a personal right to self-defense, which can only be practically exercised by the personal right to possess handguns and to carry them. I would say that the Constitution envisions that right, and that as a federal constitutional matter, the states cannot take away the right of individuals without a record of violent felonies to carry firearms.
However, I would also recognize the inherent safety problem in a universal free-gun environment.
The question is: how do you force people to be properly trained in safety before getting a gun without forcing them to register the guns (and thereby give the government the list of everybody who has a gun).
This is not a trivial problem, and no, we cannot just say that it's none of the government's business. The 2nd Amendment DOES speak to a well-regulated militia, and not simply to a universe of hidden gun ownership out of the rule of law and reach of regulation.
The trouble with registration is that those who hate guns use it to take away rights.
The trouble with licensing individuals is that it allows for the same individuals to make licenses almost impossible to get.
The trouble with REQUIRING everybody to go through training is the forcing of people whose conscience really abhors guns to do that which they find abhorrent.
My answer, if I were running for President? The initial default position must be to maximize liberty. We will maintain federal limits on all weaponry more powerful than semi-automatic weapons. We will not have federal licensing or federal registration for at least ten years, and we will enforce federal guns rights against the states, just as the DC Circuit did, and press the point through the justice department, et al, that the right to keep and bear arms is personal, and that the states cannot bar it. Interstate commerce and federal rights will prevent states from preventing concealed carry. There will truly be a FEDERAL right to private, concealed, unregistered and untrained firearms ownership, just as the Constitution can be interpreted to mean. We will encourage training. The ATF will focus on illegal weaponry (machine guns, bombs, etc.) and on weapons possession by convicted violent felons and minors (minors can use guns with parental supervision, but they cannot own them or carry concealed), but will back off the gun shows.
And then we will wait and see what happens for a full 8 year term and, hopefully, the first term of my successor. 12 years is enough data. Crime will either boom, or sink, or stay the same. If it booms, we will need to regulate a lot more. The 2nd Amendment allows for a well-REGULATED militia, and if crime really goes up after we deregulate and legalize and liberalize the rules, then we have to clamp down. If crime goes DOWN or stays flat, then we leave the liberal rules in place.
What we don't do is commit to a dogmatic "the government has no right to regulate weapons at all" stance, because that's idiotic. Anthrax labs in your creepy neighbor's basement are NOT just his business, and the second amendment does NOT contain an individual right to rebellion.
If crime explodes, well-regulated will be given some teeth.
I am willing to give broad self-defense liberty a full and fair test. If it works, it was the right thing. If it DOESN'T, then the Second Amendment DOES contain the language that allows for the regulation of guns.
I will be accused of being cruel and callous by gun-haters, for gambling "all those lives", but if I'm right and crime goes down or remains flat, then actually the change in rule won't have changed anything. I will be accused of the broken-glassers of being a Communist/Fascist/Liberal/Pinko/French-gun-grabber for asserting that people do NOT have the right to private unregistered ownership of anything more powerful than semi-automatic personal guns, and that in principle the government has broader regulatory power over guns than it is wise to exercise without testing out liberty first.
There isn't any way to amend the 2nd Amendment without either losing all gun rights or having some weird rule in which my neighbor can have an anthrax lab. The existing Amendment is sufficient, but it allows both regulation and de-regulation. The argument should be made that people, especially women, are SAFER if they have guns and are trained in them, and if that's true, then enforcing the national right will bring down crime. If it's NOT really true, the explosion in violent crime will be obvious, and the democratic will will swiftly limit gun rights.
Oh, and I would encourage investment by gun manufacturers in personal firearms that only work in the hand of their owner, by which the gun identifies the owner by fingerprint or DNA or retina or somesuch. In such a world, kids couldn't shoot themselves, and registration would be meaningless, because there'd be no aftermarket in guns.
I knew from scanning your ramblings early on in the thread you thought REGULATED meant:
controlled
liable to
subject to
subordinate
subservient
rather than the TRUE meaning of:
disciplined
deliberate
efficient
methodized
meticulous
ordered
precise
...well-regulated
Hence the Congress was granted the power to contract with them under the "letters of marque and reprisal" clause. The WMD (of their day) remained safely in private hands, although the government was tightly regulated in his contracting for their services.
The Second Amendment protects a preexisting right, it doesn't grant anything. The Constitution grants powers to the branches of the federal government, restricts the states from exercising certain powers they had prior to the Constitution. But it protects the rights of the people.