Personal Ownership of Nuclear Weapons

More gun control stuff! Sorry, but I am interested and taking the time to do some research. Keep reading. You'll learn a lot.

One of the most common criticisms of the 2nd Amendment is that it is antique, quaint...that it was impossible for the Framers to anticipate future weapons development...that this obsolete amendment was meant to apply to the black-powder, flint-lock muskets of the time.

I wanted to know if the 2nd Amendment can be interpreted as having a limit.
And I wanted to understand this in terms of the opinions of the NRA-type people...I wanted to know what the gun nuts think.

1. Gun advocates generally concede that the Founding Fathers were unable to anticipate the future lethality of weapons. 

2. BUT...they also maintain that the spirit of the amendment is that private citizens have a right to "parity" with government forces. Even so, there are differences of opinion:

• Parity with Police—These folks see police forces as the main concern/threat to liberty. Police groups can become corrupt or they can obey the orders of a corrupt government. So...goes the logic...whatever weapons police have defines the weapons that citizens have a right to own.
• Parity with the Military—The same logic applies here, but I think these folks are more likely to be Nazis...rather than just extreme libertarians. I suspect these are the folks who never really reconciled over the Civil War.

So...this idea of parity is fairly common and would seem to support the idea that citizens have a right to own just about any type of weapon. (This is crazy, but many gun advocates think this way.)

3. Some gun people...who are also passionate constitutional scholars...parse the 2nd Amendment even further and they stress that the right involves "keeping and bearing" arms. Therefore, it pertains only to weapons that can be carried. 

(Interesting...this would exclude the ownership of mortars...except for very strong people...but would allow for machine guns and automatic rifles. Presumably, only Superman would be allowed to own a tank.) 

(Don't laugh. People on the internet actually do have long and detailed discussions regarding this bearing aspect of the 2nd Amendment.)

4. The National Firearms Act of 1934 severely regulated the private ownership of machine guns. Basically, you had to pay a steep tax, submit to a thorough background investigation, register yourself, register the weapon, fingerprints and photographs on file...and...you can't sell it to anyone else unless they go through the same process. Typically, the background investigation takes ten months to complete. AND...you can't move to another state with your machine gun unless you report it to the ATF bureau.

5. The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 basically said...no more machine guns. But it allowed all properly-registered and existing machine guns to be kept by their owners and to be sold...if all the strict requirements are met by the buyer. It also became illegal to repair old machine guns. In essence, this is a war of attrition against automatic weapons. The dwindling supply of these weapons has made them priceless in the marketplace.

6. Every year, the owners of these ever-dwindling machine guns get together for a festival. You can look at the weapons, witness a demo, and for a price, you can even shoot them under proper supervision. This popular festival is held in...you guessed it...Las Vegas!

In summary:

• Laws enacted since the framing of the constitution limit 2nd Amendment rights to semi-automatic weapons and prohibit anything deadlier.
• Gun advocates generally disagree with this restriction. To be fair, the gun people don't seem to really be pursuing the right to own machine guns (or mortars or tanks)...it is something that is more theoretical than passionate. Whereas, the defense of semi-automatic rifles is passionate and powerful.

And just to be clear...I advocate gun control. I believe that all assault rifles (semi-automatic, high muzzle velocity, huge capacity magazines) are too dangerous for civilian ownership.

We controlled machine guns in 1934! We should do no less for assault rifles today!

Oh yeah...and what happens when we finally invent this thing? I suspect it will be sooner than you think!