The Second Amendment protects nuclear weapons!

[KAM_Indianapolis]

Bill Gates announces to world - "Give me Washington and use Windows ME or else..."

He certainly has the resources...

[Cosmoline]

I just looked through the text of the Constitution, and it contained not one word or phrase that would give the federal government the power to restrict the ownership of property, save gold, silver, and intellectual property. Isn't it the case that the Constitution is an exhaustive list of the powers of the government? That the government can do what is spelled out in the Constitution, and nothing else???

That's my argument. Where have I gone wrong?
--------------

The Commerce Clause, while it was expanded way too far in past decades, does give the Feds quite a bit of power over the regulation of personal property. But let us take your position as true. The enumerated powers still do NOTHING from preventing each of the 50 States from passing strict anti-nuke laws backed by whatever penalty they care to impose.

As far as the Second, it's not remotely possible to reasonably interpret "arms" to include nukes. Every aspect of the Bill of Rights must be subject to some rational balancing, including the 2nd Amendement. Otherwise the amendments will either mean far too much or far too little.

[Dangus]

Well, I'll agree about the checks and balances in the Constitution being wimpy. But the failsafes in US nuclear procedure are equally weak, because they depend on the actions of honorable men. In practice, the President can order a nuclear attack against any target in the world, and it would be carried out. Do you trust the President with that kind of power?

In THEORY the president could just order a nuclear attack without provokation. Do you honestly think the joint cheifs would cooperate with a president if he said, "Lets nuke Montana, just as an example to gun owners". No way in hell.

The reason I trust the government with weapons of mass destruction? They want power. They want money. They want influence. They can't have those things if they blow us up. Guns are what it takes for them to suppress us and to make us submit. Nuking the people means no more power base.

No, a nuke can't (where did you hear that it could?) It's pretty obvious that you don't know much about nuclear technology. First off, the Plutonium used to construct the pit is an alpha emitter, and not a very powerful one. In layman's terms, Plutonium is not very radioactive. Every advance in nuclear weapons technology in the past thirty years has gone into making nuclear devices easier and safer to handle.

I may be wrong on this one.

Do you think that, if you possessed a canister of VX, Tabun, or other nasty chemical agent, that you would feel compelled to "release them into the air and kill everyone?" No? Then why do you think that I would want to do that?

Not everyone is a saint. Not everyone can be trusted. Why do we even have any laws at all!? Lets go for all out anarchy while we're at it...

Those two sentences could have come directly from the Sarah Brady anti-gun phrasebook. Re-read my last post on property rights not being dependent upon utility.

So what?! We are talking about nukes here. You're not gonna go to the firing range and practice with your nukes. What the hell do you need a nuke for??! With a gun you might have some benefits against criminals and the corrupt, but with a nuke? Blow them up and take a lot of people who have nothing to do with it. Same reason I don't agree we should be allowed to own 2000lbs. cast iron bombs. There's just no strategic need for us to have them, not politically, not to fight crime, not for anything. We ultimately need small arms, which, in event of a civil war, we can use to capture ordnance from the enemy, whomever that may be. If my neighbor screws up with his gun there is a very low chance his bullet will find me or my family, even my entire house. If a 2000lbs. bomb accidentally goes off in his basement, we're all screwed. I will not tolerate that risk.

[MellowMikey]

No offense to anyone in particular, but I personally don't trust some people with a sharp stick, why would I trust them with a WMD???
Some of you guys are way out of touch with reality.

P.S. I don't trust the govt with WMD either.. guess I am a paranoid or something...

[Dangus]

So, if logistics of storing and operating nukes were simpler (say, HTML editor vs. an old-style printing press) and the cost was down with any other weapon (don't laugh, you can get a 1GHz PC for less than old mainframes cost), would you support private ownership? Or how about hand-held blasters and the like? You don't mind black powder cannon, so requirement of a crew to operate doesn't make a weapon ineligible.

I would still not support private nukes.

I would support the ownership of blasters, because they would be arms, a weapon designed to be used by individual opponents to specifically target enemies with little unintended effects on the areas around that enemy, were a hit to be scored. Hit a guy with a 40mm grenade and you will kill everyone next to him. Hit him with a .223 and you are not certain to kill anyone but him. I think this is an important distinction. Arms only might kill unintended victims, ordnance almost certainly will.

Black powder cannons are an interesting question. They are crew served and certainly powerful, but they are also not used for ill ever. I believe the government COULD regulate them, but I see no point in them doing so.

[ctdonath]

The Constitution authorizes Congress to grant "Letters of Marque" - basically Congress may give permission to private citizens to go attack foreign ships & countries (presumably for retaking stolen property, retribution, etc.). Such permission presumes that said citizens either already have or may obtain battleships and other maximum-firepower weapons. Nothing is said about granting permission to own such weapons, only to use them outside US borders, indicating that the 2nd Amendment fully applies to the biggest weapons available at the time. Today, that would by extension include aircraft carriers, B2 bombers, and nukes.

Don't respond to that yet. Keep reading.

Cooper's Four Rules defines minimal yet complete and redundant rules for handling guns, and by extrapolation, other weapons. You have the right to own and carry a gun, but if you break those rules and thus create a dangerous situation, others (including by incorporation the government) have the right to disarm you in the interest of their own personal safety - you have the right to own a gun, but if you point it at me without proper cause, I have the right to disarm you with deadly force. While one has the Constitutional right to own a nuke, I contend that it is nearly impossible to "keep" one (much less "bear") without inherently violating a nuke version of Cooper's Four Rules, and thus other citizens (acting alone or as an incorporated government) have the right to disarm anyone of their personal nuke - you have the right to own a nuke, but I have the right to disarm you of it via deadly force if you bring it within range of me, just as I have the right to disarm you of a rifle if you point it at me (even if it is unloaded).

You have the 2nd Amendment Constitutional right to own a nuke - but if you bring it in range of ANYONE innocent, even if it is disarmed, you can be legally and righteously terminated.

[Munro Williams]

... wish I had written that.



Yes, I'm irritated that I can't own as many M-60 machineguns, hand grenades, or other heavy ordnance as I'd like.

NBC weapons are used to destroy entire armies primarily by erasing their geographic location or making that location hostile to all forms of life, and exterminating major population centers. The same cannot be said for any other weapon. American strategic doctrine concerning their use is known as "no lone zone," in the tradition of the checks and balances of power which keep ours a most stable political tradition. The President does not have the power to order the use of NBC weapons without the consent of someone who represents the Legislature. That's as it should be.

NBC weapons are the province of the State. They are for use against other States, to erase them from the map. The Second Amendment is a guarantee that the people always have the means at their disposal to overthrow the government if it becomes a tyranny. It taxes patience to imagine that destroying wholesale large sections of the United States and their populations can be imagined to be an efficacious method of restoring liberty to a nation threatened by THEM, whoever "They" are.

C'mon folks, get a grip.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

OK - the question that people arguing for any restrictions should be prepared to answer is "Where do you draw the line and what is the Constitutional/legal basis for drawing the line there instead of where the antis want it drawn?"

[Oleg Volk]

So how do we deal with other ordnance? I.e. do you draw and fire on anyone who has hand grenades within blast range of another person?

[Christopher II]

ctdonath -

Would the same rules apply if the nuclear weapon were in custody of the government at the time?

Later,
Chris

[Ipecac]

So, it's nuclear ordnance now, not nuclear arms? Someone should tell the Pentagon...

BTW, Cooper's Rules, while well worth heeding, are not the law of the land. I've had more rifle muzzles carelessly pointed at me than most, yet somehow I don't think my using deadly force on the careless hunters would have been viewed as a righteous shoot.

Let's face it: the only people sick enough to want to own NBC weapons are politicians and the bureaucrats that scurry around them.

Just as with "normal" firearms, with the right comes the responsibility. If you negligently shoot someone, be prepared for the consequences, legal and otherwise. If you set off your pet nuke, be prapared for the consequences...

[Battler]

If you're scared of your neighbor owning a nuke (although being forced to store it out in the desert so as to not have it "pointed" at anyone) - how about Russian and Chinese communists having nukes? Who should you worry about more?

Another thing to consider in the nuke argument: Where are you going to get one? The infrastructure behind the manufacture is elaborate and expensive to the point where only nations can afford them.



Battler.

[Don Gwinn]

First, thanks everyone for making a good discussion of this and, incidentally, making my job easy.

Next, I have to agree that I don't believe nuclear weapons are "arms" as the term was used and understood in the 2nd Amendment. The differences between arms and ordnance seem pretty clear to me, regardless of what the Pentagon calls a particular weapon 200 years later. What the Pentagon calls it now is irrelevant; if the founders wouldn't have called it an arm, it's not protected under the 2nd.

The founders would quickly agree that a battle rifle is an arm; a nuke? I think not.
Of course, that doesn't apply to man-portable nuclear devices that can be operated by one person.

[Christopher II]

Agreed, this has been a good thread. I'm having fun with it, anyways...

Don -

You didn't quite come out and say where the line between "arms" and "ordinance" should be drawn. So, where? Is a hand grenade ordinance? What about a Carl-Gustav rocket launcher? Or an old-fashioned 75mm recoilless rifle which, despite firing what amounted to a tank gun shell, was designed to be carried and fired by one or two men?

I fear the line between arms and ordinance is pretty blurry, and will always try to err on the side of the citizen.

Battler -

You make an excellent point that I tried to imply earlier. The costs and logistics of owning a nuke would probably restrict ownership to governments or large corporations. Yeah, the idea of Bill Gates as a nuclear power is pretty funny. But what about a company who wants to used shaped ADMs in large-scale mining? What about Rockwell or Raytheon, who wants to build a nuclear expolsion-propelled spacecraft? There are a multitude of positive, non-aggressive uses for nuclear explosives that have yet to be explored.

Onward, onward!!!

Later,
Chris

[AnotherPundit]

I just had to deal with this argument the other day: I posited two arguments, which I'll copy/paste here.

From square one:

People have the right to defend themselves from unjust aggression. They do not have the right to unjustly take aggressive action against others. A weapon of mass destruction cannot be used by an individual to defend him or her self against aggression, without simultaneously aggressing against other innocents. Hence, they are by nature unjust weapons. International consensus pretty much recognizes this, though I doubt most people really think it through.

Alternate, equally valid response:

A nuclear weapon is not a personal armament. They've tried to develop "nuclear grenades." Problem was there's no way taht a human can throw them (or even launch them) far enough away so that the human using them isn't killed in the resulting blast. Hence, they are not "personal arms," because they are impractical an inefficient (to say the least) for an individual person to use. A weapon can't be used for self-defense if it can't be used without killing the user.

[Dangus]

Once again. I definitely draw the line between ordnance and arms as follows:

Ordnance: Indiscriminate within a certain area, not designed to be, and difficult to, use against individual people, animals, or vehicles without indiscriminate destruction killing in the immediate area, and/or surrounding areas. Most forms of ordnance are crew served, or require crew support.


Arms: Weapons designed to attack specific invidivual targets, or multiple individual targets specifically. Each individual action performed by the weapon is likely to result in the destruction of one target and only that target. Arms may be capable of accidental indiscriminate destruction or killing, but are not gauranteed to do so. Arms do not typically require a crew to operate or support. It is also my belief that equipment relating to individual combat and protection are also included. Medieval texts fequently list armor as "arms". This leads me to include individual protective equipment and non-ordnance-bearing crew-served vehicles as arms. A battleship, if incapable of firing it's artillery, but capable of firing it's defensive .50 cals, would be acceptable under this, though quite certainly impractical. A tank, without capability of firing it's main cannon, but capable of firing it's .30 or .50 cals, would also count. Body armor is also absolutely protected under the second ammendment, it is an essential part of "arming" one's self.


Find me a text by a competent author who has ever referred to an individual "arming" themselves with a howitzer or a fully functional battleship!

[ctdonath]

Some obvious questions do tend to follow my view on the subject.

"Where is the line, if there is one?"
Unless agreed upon otherwise (as in previous question), the line is where innocents become at risk of immediate and otherwise unavoidable risk of death or grave bodily harm, a line best described by Cooper's Four Rules and Ability/Opportunity/Jeopardy (I missed the AOJ point in my previous post). Safeties/disarms/triggers do not generally affect this. Note that a gun has a linear area of effect, a sword has a planar area of effect, and a bomb (grenade or nuke) has a volumetric area of effect. Awareness of the weapon's presence and potential escape time is a factor (which I still haven't worked out).

"How to evaluate "jeopardy" in regards to ordinance?" (Oleg's grenade question)
A grenade is comparable to a gun: a fairly small area of effect, and those in range have a decent chance of detecting endangering behavior. If you see a gun or grenade, within reason you can tell whether threat to human life is immenent. Launched ordinance is in a grey zone; maybe someone can help me clear this point up. At the other end of the spectrum, a nuke has such a vast area of effect that there is a nearly constant severe danger of numerous innocents being accidentally caught up in even a "proper" use (triggering the "opportunity" point), and there is almost no hope of detecting imminent threat to innocent life (so "jeopardy" is almost always triggered). A guy with a grenade hung from his neck may just be making a weird fashion statement; a guy with a nuke is (in nearly all conditions) inherently violating all of Cooper's Four Rules, has the ability to kill innocents, has opportunity to kill innocents (many likely in range), and is placing many innocent lives in jeopardy (even if I start driving away right now I'd be in range for an hour or so) - it's pretty clear that the line has been crossed.

"Does the gov't have the right to own nukes? Do The Four Rules apply to military-owned nukes?"
We the people have (arguably) granted the gov't that "right", and can revoke that "right". We have permitted gov't possession of nukes within range of innocents; this is not necessarily a problem, as concious suspension of The Four Rules is permitted. Cooper observes that The Four Rules may be suspended, say when cleaning a gun or addressing a threat; similarly, AOJ may be suspended - in the case of the gov't owning nukes, the people have authorized the military to create a tightly controlled (*cough*) system to safely suspend The Four Rules and AOJ. We the people have granted special dispensation for the military to own nukes with the mutual understanding of special conditions; so far no special dispensation has been granted non-military folk.

"But Cooper's Four Rules are not the law of the land!?"
They should be.

[ctdonath]

Find me a text by a competent author who has ever referred to an individual "arming" themselves with a howitzer or a fully functional battleship!

The American Revolution of Independence and all applicable historical texts. Maybe not "individual" use, but clearly used by a cohesive group against an adversarial cohesive group with little or no chance of harming innocents. A group of people have the right to mutually arm themselves against another group clearly out to harm them; if that means one tank crew against another, so be it. The "Letters of Marque and Reprisal" reference in the Constitution apparently presume that individuals have the right to prepare and man a battleship.

"Ordinance" as you put it can pretty clearly be used so as to minimize the chance of innocents being harmed, comparable to a rifle being used responsibly instead of being fired indiscriminantly into a crowd or at a target with high chance of overpenetration.

A nuke, however, has such a massive blast radius that avoiding innocents is very difficult.

[Ipecac]

I'd say that setting off a nuke without harming innocents is impossible , whether it is triggered by a government or an individual makes no difference to the incinerated and radiated. Simply because one resides in a country which is at war with another, doesn't make one a combatant.

One could take a kitchen match, a gallon of gasoline and a few padlocks to a crowded, nearby building and create an indiscriminate killing machine capable of killing hundreds or even thousands. Given the right conditions a fair portion of a town could be destroyed in this fashion; in the town I live in, a fire in the '60s got out of control to the extent that buildings nearby were blown up to reduce the chance of the fire spreading further. Oh, and then there's Los Alamos.

The point is, banning weapons doesn't work, and is illogical. I thought we all knew that. Murder is illegal, damaging another's property is illegal. Knowing that, who would be insane enough to want to own a nuke? Besides the government, I mean. Those who are crazy enough to own and use a nuke are not likely to be bothered by a little ol' law against them, anyway. You know, like a criminal.

"But Cooper's Four Rules are not the law of the land!?"
They should be.

No, they should be common knowledge.

[Ed Brunner]

Q What does "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" really mean?
A. It means that the government can not prevent its citizens from owning and carrying weapons.

Q. Specifically, what weapons are covered?
A. It covers any and all weapons. Any attempt by the government to limit or define weapons would be considered to be infringement.

Q. Do you mean that you could own nuclear weapons?
A. You got it Grasshopper!


Now if you want to disregard the Constitution, you can impose all sorts of restrictions, intellectual and otherwise.

[Dangus]

The "Letters of Marque and Reprisal" reference in the Constitution apparently presume that individuals have the right to prepare and man a battleship.

As a matter of fact they do not. They presume that nobody has made it illegal to do so yet. It says nothing about a "right". We can't just apply that word to everything we feel we want. That's a good way to lose the RKBA fight.

[Dangus]

As to the distinction suggested above that ordnance CAN be used to kill only intended victims, this is true, but by it's nature the effects are not very controllable. A grenade may only have about a 5x5x5 foot blast area, but the shrapnel has a mind of it's own. A stun grenade, on the other hand, could be described as "arms" due to it's usefulness in war, but lack of deadliness against unintended victims.

I suppose the distinction is a bit tough to draw, but I think we really should draw it, and then get that distinction passed into law, preferably as an ammendment. Then we would have a legal absolute on what is and is not ok. This would make the ATF's arbitrary decisions about what is and is not a destructive device absolutely obsolete. I think the primary distinction of what is and is not safe is controllability. Is it even conceivable to make the weapon only do what is intended? With a nuke, I say absolutely not. With a 2000lbs. bomb. Maybe, but too hard to be sure. A grenade yes, but then again it's too hard to be sure it won't hit some kid blocks away with the shrapnel. Perhaps even designating a level of acceptable cause area would be ideal.

Say, for example, the weapon has usefulness in war, but has a negligible direct cause outside of 5 feet of the enacted attack, that would be ok. Any incindiary weapons would be acceptable assuming the incindiary cause was that small. Other objects being caught on fire by it would not be part of the direct action of the weapon, and therefore not subject to any restrictions. Cause must be used here, because it implies the actual action of the weapon and not the effect. To allow no effect outside of 5 feet of the enacted trajectory would be to say that if you hit a gas tank and blew it up, you would be effecting an explosion bigger than allowed and thus violating the second ammendment. We must say the enacted attack because this would stop bullets from being limited to no more than 5 feet of range, and would protect you from liability if the bullet penetrated the target and hit something unintended.


So lets try writing this is quasi-legalese:

Arms: Weaponry designed for attacking a target. This weaponry is almost exclusively man-portable, and can be operated by one person. Arms are limited to having a causality area of no more than 5x5x5 English standard feet from the point in each target that it strikes. There is no limitation on the number of targets one arm can strike, only that each action taken by that arm affect no more than the stated area. Rare situations, such as debri from a weapon which normally does not affect an area greater than this size, leaving this defined causality area, shall never be subject to more than a minor citation of more than 30 US dollars, and such fine shall not be imposed without a fair trial. This does not exempt citizens from charges relating to reckless misuse of arms, as defined by each state. No laws governing what is and is not misuse may be construed to limit the right of people to keep and bear arms.

[Dangus]

No, a nuke can't (where did you hear that it could?) It's pretty obvious that you don't know much about nuclear technology. First off, the Plutonium used to construct the pit is an alpha emitter, and not a very powerful one. In layman's terms, Plutonium is not very radioactive. Every advance in nuclear weapons technology in the past thirty years has gone into making nuclear devices easier and safer to handle.

It just occured to me that if people were allowed to keep and bear their own nukes, we'd probably get a lot of "junk nukes" on the market. I think your point loses a lot of validity at that stage... Most people will not be buying Polaris, Minuteman, or Tomahawk missiles, they'd be buying shoddily built nukes that are made for a "mere" 20 or 30 thousand.

Oh, and just think how Oklahoma City would have turned out of Timmy had the right to keep and bear a nuke....

[Zander]

"Their use is an act of war, and if anyone here thinks that
any single person has the right to wage war, well, your potato's been bakin' too long."

So, Munro...your reaction to Clinton bombing an aspirin factory and killing innocent people was what, exactly?

[bronco61]

It just occured to me that if people were allowed to keep and bear their own nukes, we'd probably get a lot of "junk nukes" on the market. I think your point loses a lot of validity at that stage... Most people will not be buying Polaris, Minuteman, or Tomahawk missiles, they'd be buying shoddily built nukes that are made for a "mere" 20 or 30 thousand.

Dangus, was that a joke? For a second there you had me going. I was thinking Diane Feinsweine has been trolling this forum!

Replace:
"junk nukes" with "junk guns".
"Nukes" with "Guns"

...and you almost have a perfect Feinswein/Boxer quote when she argues against "Saturday Night Specials"! hehe Good job!