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I’m not saying I disagree with you, but I want to test your commitment. For the purposes of this test, you can’t alter the hypothetical.

Let’s create Joe. Joe is a sociopath. He’s vile and evil. Think Stalin/Obama/Hillary all in one l. Joe is not a felon but he’s short tempered, violent and believes that killing 99% of humanity would be a good thing.

Joe works in his garage and due to blind luck stumbles upon anti-matter which will allow him to create a super weapon that will simultaneously protect him from all known weapons and will allow him to kill 99% of the rest of humanity with the push of a button.

Does the 2nd Amendment protect that weapon?

My answer to your ridiculous hypothetical is that the Constitution itself contemplated Americans having fully armed WARSHIPS. See Letters of Marque in Article 1, Section 8.

Personally, I would draw the line at WMDs, but the Constitution does not say any such thing.

Your question is moot. If Joe developed that power and being a sociopath then the 2nd A becomes irrelevant. If he used the weapon and eliminated 99% of the population then the Constitution becomes a dead document surpassed by the whims of a sociopath. By the way, anti-matter already exists. Harnessing it so it doesn’t annihilate matter is the problem.

The issue isn’t that he can create the weapon. The issue is his intent. If you know that his intent is to kill others then the 2nd A doesn’t apply. In affect, his intent would be the overthrow of a Constitutional government.

I'm an absolutist. I think that inmates in federal penitentiaries should be denied guns. Inmates locked in to insane asylums should be denied guns. If someone is allowed to walk the streets, they should have a weapon without restrictions.

I will not quit the Second Amendment over a hypothetical anti-matter weapon. One can always come up with some hypothetical to justify tyranny -- "Hey, Hitler was right to try and kill all the Jews, because just imagine this situation ..."

Nope. I won't go there. I reject genocide, and I reject people who think the Second Amendment ought to contain a whole bunch of loopholes. I am an absolutist.

"Does the 2nd Amendment protect that weapon?"

The fact that any "Joe" can make such a weapon in his garage or anyplace else does make the availability of that weapon a certainty.

Your demand for a yes or no answer is not logical in the context of the issue. The framers of the Bill of Rights assumed that incompetent people (insane, retarded, violently criminal and the like) would be disarmed by others in their communities and states.

If "Joe" builds a weapon to wipe out nearly all of humanity, then nearly all of humanity will be wiped out in spite of any laws. So the proposed hypothetical situation makes the question moot.

Yes, the law requiring a special license and more extensive background check for owning fully automatic firearms is a measure for regulating a higher level of competence in owners of such firearms.

Without the repeated pushes for bans against semi-automatic, modern sporting rifles by the more privileged among urban and suburb dwellers and by frustrated exes, there would be no backlash rising in favor of deregulating the ownership of fully automatic firearms. There are well over 20 million modern sporting rifles “in common use” now, and such rifles account for an extremely small number of murders committed by firearms.

With populism certainly on the rise and talk of stacking the Supremes, though, deregulation fully automatic firearms in the very near future is a likelihood. It’s a “make my day” moment in politics.

Neighbors in my part of the country are very conscientious about where they point their firearms while practicing and hunting. The sound of firearms doesn’t bother anyone here. Can’t say the same about many of the folks in blue doper states, but I don’t see a downside to that, either.

And speaking of dope, it would seem more logical to go after drug abuse in blue doper states instead of outlawing self-defense while legalizing dope.