Replies

No, I don't care to post citations to the opinions of the NRA. We can talk about Supreme Court and other Federal Court decisions (allowing for the regulation of machine guns) if you'd like, because that's actually law.

The question is whether or not the limitations in the actual law are actually constitutional under the Second Amendment, and that is a question of reading one rather muddy English sentence: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

That's the supreme law of the land, and the court cases and state laws and regulations that have interpreted it (or ignored it) are the law of the land.

The NRA, the National Rifle Association, is interested in gun rights. I agree with them: there IS a right to keep and bear arms under the Constitution. I will even go farther: it's a FEDERAL right, which overrides state's rights to a great degree, insofar as the Federal government chooses to regulate the militia from Washington, and insofar as "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is a personal right on a par with the 1st Amendment (and therefore pre-empts state law by federalizing the right at the constitutional level).

All that is so, but I say it means GUNS. Regular old guns. Weapons for personal protection.

It doesn't mean mass casualty weapons. It doesn't mean nuclear weapons. And it doesn't mean machine guns. Just guns. My wife has the constitutional right, I believe, to carry a pistol in her purse to protect herself. But nobody has the right to build bombs in his basement or to have a .50 caliber machine gun nest on the roof of his house.

There are common sense limits on this right, I say.
But I notice that they are not directly there in the language of the 2nd Amendment. It was written before WMD, before machine guns and nerve gas and nuclear weapons. So, it SAYS "Arms", but it doesn't MEAN it, not in the present sense. Mass casualty arms are too dangerous for individuals to possess, and they far exceed any rational self-defense needs.

But I've already said that.
All I have asked you is whether or not YOU think that the 2nd Amendment means you have the right to possess nuclear weapons or fully-automatic machine guns. Those are a pair of simple yes or no questions.

You've responded to my questions with questions.

I've answered your question. No, I do not care to post NRA sources. I'll post law.

Now answer mine, oft repeated:

Is there a personal right to nuclear weapons: YES OR NO?
Is there a personal right to fully-automatic weapons: YES OR NO?

What do YOU think?