It's an interesting thought experiment: set aside the complex details of our real-world weaponry, and imagine instead of guns we had low-power phasers when the

It's an interesting thought experiment: set aside the complex details of our real-world weaponry, and imagine instead of guns we had low-power phasers when the Bill of Rights was conceived. Now, imagine those phasers get 1% more powerful every year. At what point should we do decide that a phaser at power level X is too destructive for civilian use? While I'm sympathetic to the argument of weaponry as a balance-of-power between government and governed [1], in the modern era it's hard to see its application to civilian-grade firearms as anything more than a fantasy. (If one wants to examine this seriously, I suspect the weapons of choice for a modern insurrection would be things like IEDs, micro-drones, and hacking/encryption.) Still, I think the argument is sound for a right to self-protection independent of government. There just isn't an obvious "bright line" as to what level of destructive power is reasonable for a private citizen, as one progresses from muskets to AR-15s to RPGs to hydrogen bombs. (It is also an open question as to whether regulations like licensing, mandatory safety training, and civil liability count as "infringement", to say nothing of denying weapons to known criminals or the mentally ill.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley#Weapons_and_de...