[Old Teufel Hunden]

"So, his position is there are no qualifiers on the Second Amendment and then attempts to defend his actions with the use of a qualifier?"

If I may interpret for him, I believe what Mr. Hamblen is saying is that there is a qualifier on the 4th amendment: (that people are secure in their homes from unreasonable searches and seizures except when the government gets a warrant). If they wanted a qualifier on the 2nd amendment, the founders would have put one, but they did not so the right to keep and bear arms is unlimited. It's not to keep and bear arms unless they are machine guns.

They can't use the argument that there were no machine guns during the founders days, because in fact there were. Joseph Belton had invented a rifle that could fire up to 20 rounds in 5 minutes. The Continental Congress was going to buy some of these guns, but the price proved too high. The founders were familiar with the infancy of the machine gun.

[Lion Den Dan]

Not to mention cannon. At the outset of the Revolution, many cannon were privately owned. Privateers had private canon throughout the Revolution and the War of 1212. While one can still own a Revolutionary war type canon, the second amendment does not say the guns had to be of a 200 year old type.

[Saltmeat]

I agree. The second amendment has no limits. If there is a limit to the type of firearm that a citizen can own, then the same government can limit how many firearms a citizen can own. It could also limit the number of rounds of ammunition that one can posses.

This case brings to front and center the ridiculous argument about “assault rifles.” The only difference between the assault rifle bought and sold on the open market today and any other semiautomatic weapon is appearance and perhaps magazine capacity. Yet gun control advocates beat this dead horse to no end.

Am I missing something in this post. Was Mr. Hamblen an officer in command of a National Guard unit in TN? If so, then his case appears to be even stronger because the militia question is totally moot. He not only is a citizen but is without question a member of a recognized militia.

He may be the perfect storm to take this case all the way.

[captbarney]

and there was “canon”, which PRIVATE shippers used to protect their ships against pirates