6 ms·

RE missiles and civilians (Non-US person here with a few questions): I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fun

by palmetieri2000 4y ago

RE missiles and civilians (Non-US person here with a few questions): I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? I imagine the answer probably lies somewhere in the "too much risk for accidents or deliberate hostile use" territory. I hope this isn't inflammatory, not my intention, given what we continue to see re mass shootings, and the gun control proposals that happen afterwards it seems a bit like you have the worst of both worlds. Put differently, there are enough citizen firearms with enough firepower to facilitate individuals attacking soft targets with horrendous effect but not enough firearms or firepower for civilians to actually have any remotely likely potential of defeating a tyrannical US military (or even police force).

ceejayoz 4y ago
> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? That's because it isn't actually the fundamental purpose. It was written at a time where the country didn't have a permanent standing army. That's why the amendment starts with "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."
- willcipriano 4y ago
  ", the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You don't have to take my word for it, here is the latest from the supreme court: > "It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the people” whom the Second Amendment protects" > “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” > "law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense." > "As we stated in Heller and repeated in McDonald, “individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right.”" > "The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different" https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
  - lovich 4y ago
    You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning. The GP is right that the amendment started with a “ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...” You can drop that Supreme Court link but the Supreme Court is currently at one if it’s lowest trust levels by the public on record and is assumed corrupt by a large portion of the populace due to the fuckery around seating the current Justices and the openly political manner in which their nomination was decided. The poster farther up the chain was asking about how we are in the current situation re missiles and that judgement had absolutely zero to do with it Edit: additionally even the section you linked from the amendment refers to the entity “The People” and not “citizens” or “people”. There is the implicit assumption by the judicial system that the legislature meant what they put down and so the different terms refer to different entities. Something for “The People” is not automatically agreed by everyone to mean that each individual has the right
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      > You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning. My point entirely.
      - lovich 4y ago
        If it was you’d include the entirety of it. How does it being for “The People” work with “Necessary for a well regulated milita” in your mind? Does the word regulated not exist? Edit: as neither of us have put the full text, putting it here. In the course of getting the exact text I also learned that there are multiple versions of the bill of rights with different punctuation and capitalization(i.e. “The People” vs “the people”) which adds even more confusion to the intent. It was not an amendment written clearly enough to convey the specific intent 250+ years in the future and there going to be disagreements about it. “ 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.”
        willcipriano 4y ago
shemtay 4y ago
If memory serves correctly, after the famous mafia hit “St Valentine’s Day Massacre” in Chicago with an at the time shocking body count of 7, civilian access to then state of the art machine guns was restricted, thus setting a precedent. EDIT: I don’t think that really answers your question. The real answer is that, to a certain extent the words as written don’t matter so long as enough voters and decision makers decide that they don’t. Moreover it is considered a very right wing viewpoint here to say that the constitution should be enforced strictly as written or originally intended.
- Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
  And as a result our first post-WWII new and first General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG, TL;DR: barrels are in field quick change consumables) was the awful M60. Now replaced by a couple of Belgium Fabrique Nationale (FN) models, they're a generally very competent company. Last time I checked they had the contract to make machine gun barrels and ran three hammer forges for this and other guns.
chillingeffect 4y ago
The only government it was ever concerned about was the British. The militia also maintained the slave state, which one reads between the lines is the eminent goal.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lovich 4y ago
Contrary to much of modern political US discourse the founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be an immortal document treated as sacrosanct and inviolable. Thomas Jefferson[1] wanted the Constitution to be rewritten every 19 years as he did not believe future generations should be constrained by the limited understanding of the past. Given that past history, the government and it’s various bodies didn’t have a problem with banning weapons more powerful than the founders could have imagined from being in the hands of every civilian. What is probably confusing you is there is a long simmering but recently rapidly growing religion in the US[2] that does believe that the Constitution is sacred and cannot be altered, and have gained enough political and social power to treat it as such. If I recall correctly the United States is currently in the longest stretch between Constitutional amendments in its history, as a result of this political/religious movement [1] one of the more famous founding fathers and a major contributor to the writing of the Constitution [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion for the simmering portion and Q as the rapidly growing portion
- Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
  You're ignoring the agreement made between the Federalist and Anti-Federalists, the latter led by none other hand Patrick Henry. The Bill of Rights was their price for accepting the Constitution, and nullifications of the former renders the whole compact null and void. Given that a case can be made for even the Third Amendment, no quartering of soldiers in people's dwellings being abrogated by the surveillance state.... And is sure sounds like you think religion is a four letter word....
  - lovich 4y ago
    I do not understand the point you are trying to make other than the last sentence. If you think pointing to a religions beliefs is treating it like a four letter word I think that has more to do with your feelings about them after their beliefs are put out into the open instead of hidden or eluded to. What did you mean by “the nullifications of the former renders the whole compact null and void”? The Constitution is still valid or the Bill of Rights would have no affect, and it still doesn’t change some of the founders belief that the Constitution should not be permanent
sgjohnson 4y ago
They are allowed. It’s just extremely difficult to acquire them. NFA is a bitch. And even if you could overcome the obstacle that the NFA is, you’re unlikely to find a seller. The most a civilian can reasonably acquire is a 40mm grenade launcher & grenades for it. The caveat is that each individual grenade (and the launcher itself) would be an NFA item, so a $200 tax stamp. But yes, all of this should be unconstitutional.
junofan 4y ago
What? You can own missiles. Fill out ATF 5320.4 and pay the tax stamp.
TheAceOfHearts 4y ago
If you're willing to go through the paperwork and pay for the appropriate permits it's possible to legally own a lot of highly dangerous equipment. I think the only weapons that cannot be legally owned by civilians through any means are things such as nukes and chemical weapons. Guns are probably a sufficient deterrent against tyranny. A hypothetical tyranical army is unlikely to just start bombing major cities and blindly killing civilians. Guns don't have to enable the citizens to win, they just have to raise the cost of victory high enough to not be worth attacking.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  The current crop of gun-owners represent the greatest immediate threat of tyranny. Congressional hearings addressed such a threat quite recently. Ongoing, even.
aidenn0 4y ago
> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? I imagine the answer probably lies somewhere in the "too much risk for accidents or deliberate hostile use" territory. Because for much of the 20th century, the prevailing interpretation of the 2nd amendment differed from that. Even today, that interpretation is disputed. 1934 was when the first significant federal restriction on owning any sorts of weapons was introduced, and included restrictions on "destructive devices" which is what e.g. a javelin would be considered. These are technically not banned federally, they must merely be registered (and you need a license to manufacture one). Many state laws have various rules about private ownership of explosives that would ban them though. For anything developed for the military, there are also state-secret rules that may prohibit some of these from being made generally available to the public as well (even when we know that the items are already in adversary's hands). As far as being a check on the police, the Black Panther Party would (legally at the time) open carry shotguns while "observing" arrests made as a check on police brutality, and it's largely agreed that the banning of open-carry in California was a response to this. That being said, if it came down to "cops vs. non-cops" in most areas the non-cops are likely to win just due to sheer numbers. Sale of (new) fully-automatic weapons to civilians was not federally banned until 1986 (in what was an otherwise fairly pro-gun law).
20after4 4y ago
> not enough firearms or firepower for civilians to actually have any remotely likely potential of defeating a tyrannical US military (or even police force). This is exactly right. Government is not interested in protecting the rights of it's citizens, especially a right to that would be in direct conflict with the government's own interests. Individuals with guns pose little threat to the power of a government heavily armed with powerful military weapons and armored vehicles. Of course, the second amendment was written in a time when none of that existed yet.
- yucky 4y ago
  >Individuals with guns pose little threat to the power of a government heavily armed with powerful military weapons and armored vehicles. Afghanistan & Vietnam proved otherwise. What you're saying is demonstrably false.
leetcrew 4y ago
not a constitutional scholar, so I can't answer that aspect of your question. I can at least give a "reasonable person" explanation though. it's not hard to teach someone to safely handle small arms. a responsible twelve year old can be trusted with them, as long as they have been taught four simple rules: 1. don't point gun at stuff you don't intend to shoot. 2. always treat gun as if it is loaded. 3. finger off trigger until ready to shoot. 4. know target and what's behind it. with small arms, understanding and following those rules diligently is enough to prevent virtually all unintentional injuries. they're not hard to follow, but some people can be spectacularly irresponsible. I'll leave it as a debate for another time whether/when it is acceptable to intentionally injure other people. the same principles apply to "bigger" weapons, but become a lot harder for your average person to implement. what's a safe direction to point an anti-tank missile in? how do you ensure the safety of people downrange of your artillery piece that can hit targets 70 miles away? you obviously can't use any of these things in self-defense unless you're prepared to also delete your entire house. tl;dr: it's mostly fine for people to have small arms because it's easy to use them safely. it's not easy to teach someone how to safely use missiles, mortars, etc.
yucky 4y ago
>How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? The right to bear arms has been decided by the Supreme Court to apply to arms that are bearable. Also, if a ragtag group of uneducated goatherders can hold off the US Military for 20 years in Afghanistan with AK-47's then the 400 million "small arms" in private hands in the US is more than enough.
ASalazarMX 4y ago
> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items If they buy missiles, logistics and costs of maintenance aside, they will want to use them, or worse, sell them in the black market at great profit for the cartels/mafia to use.

ceejayoz 4y ago

> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? That's because it isn't actually the fundamental purpose. It was written at a time where the country didn't have a permanent standing army. That's why the amendment starts with "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..."

willcipriano 4y ago
", the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You don't have to take my word for it, here is the latest from the supreme court: > "It is undisputed that petitioners Koch and Nash—two ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens—are part of “the people” whom the Second Amendment protects" > “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” > "law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense." > "As we stated in Heller and repeated in McDonald, “individual self-defense is ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment right.”" > "The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different" https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf
- lovich 4y ago
  You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning. The GP is right that the amendment started with a “ A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State...” You can drop that Supreme Court link but the Supreme Court is currently at one if it’s lowest trust levels by the public on record and is assumed corrupt by a large portion of the populace due to the fuckery around seating the current Justices and the openly political manner in which their nomination was decided. The poster farther up the chain was asking about how we are in the current situation re missiles and that judgement had absolutely zero to do with it Edit: additionally even the section you linked from the amendment refers to the entity “The People” and not “citizens” or “people”. There is the implicit assumption by the judicial system that the legislature meant what they put down and so the different terms refer to different entities. Something for “The People” is not automatically agreed by everyone to mean that each individual has the right
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    > You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning. My point entirely.
    - lovich 4y ago
      If it was you’d include the entirety of it. How does it being for “The People” work with “Necessary for a well regulated milita” in your mind? Does the word regulated not exist? Edit: as neither of us have put the full text, putting it here. In the course of getting the exact text I also learned that there are multiple versions of the bill of rights with different punctuation and capitalization(i.e. “The People” vs “the people”) which adds even more confusion to the intent. It was not an amendment written clearly enough to convey the specific intent 250+ years in the future and there going to be disagreements about it. “ 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.”
      - willcipriano 4y ago

shemtay 4y ago

If memory serves correctly, after the famous mafia hit “St Valentine’s Day Massacre” in Chicago with an at the time shocking body count of 7, civilian access to then state of the art machine guns was restricted, thus setting a precedent. EDIT: I don’t think that really answers your question. The real answer is that, to a certain extent the words as written don’t matter so long as enough voters and decision makers decide that they don’t. Moreover it is considered a very right wing viewpoint here to say that the constitution should be enforced strictly as written or originally intended.

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
And as a result our first post-WWII new and first General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG, TL;DR: barrels are in field quick change consumables) was the awful M60. Now replaced by a couple of Belgium Fabrique Nationale (FN) models, they're a generally very competent company. Last time I checked they had the contract to make machine gun barrels and ran three hammer forges for this and other guns.

chillingeffect 4y ago

The only government it was ever concerned about was the British. The militia also maintained the slave state, which one reads between the lines is the eminent goal.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

lovich 4y ago

Contrary to much of modern political US discourse the founding fathers did not intend for the Constitution to be an immortal document treated as sacrosanct and inviolable. Thomas Jefferson[1] wanted the Constitution to be rewritten every 19 years as he did not believe future generations should be constrained by the limited understanding of the past. Given that past history, the government and it’s various bodies didn’t have a problem with banning weapons more powerful than the founders could have imagined from being in the hands of every civilian. What is probably confusing you is there is a long simmering but recently rapidly growing religion in the US[2] that does believe that the Constitution is sacred and cannot be altered, and have gained enough political and social power to treat it as such. If I recall correctly the United States is currently in the longest stretch between Constitutional amendments in its history, as a result of this political/religious movement [1] one of the more famous founding fathers and a major contributor to the writing of the Constitution [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion for the simmering portion and Q as the rapidly growing portion

Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
You're ignoring the agreement made between the Federalist and Anti-Federalists, the latter led by none other hand Patrick Henry. The Bill of Rights was their price for accepting the Constitution, and nullifications of the former renders the whole compact null and void. Given that a case can be made for even the Third Amendment, no quartering of soldiers in people's dwellings being abrogated by the surveillance state.... And is sure sounds like you think religion is a four letter word....
- lovich 4y ago
  I do not understand the point you are trying to make other than the last sentence. If you think pointing to a religions beliefs is treating it like a four letter word I think that has more to do with your feelings about them after their beliefs are put out into the open instead of hidden or eluded to. What did you mean by “the nullifications of the former renders the whole compact null and void”? The Constitution is still valid or the Bill of Rights would have no affect, and it still doesn’t change some of the founders belief that the Constitution should not be permanent

sgjohnson 4y ago

They are allowed. It’s just extremely difficult to acquire them. NFA is a bitch. And even if you could overcome the obstacle that the NFA is, you’re unlikely to find a seller. The most a civilian can reasonably acquire is a 40mm grenade launcher & grenades for it. The caveat is that each individual grenade (and the launcher itself) would be an NFA item, so a $200 tax stamp. But yes, all of this should be unconstitutional.

junofan 4y ago

What? You can own missiles. Fill out ATF 5320.4 and pay the tax stamp.

TheAceOfHearts 4y ago

If you're willing to go through the paperwork and pay for the appropriate permits it's possible to legally own a lot of highly dangerous equipment. I think the only weapons that cannot be legally owned by civilians through any means are things such as nukes and chemical weapons. Guns are probably a sufficient deterrent against tyranny. A hypothetical tyranical army is unlikely to just start bombing major cities and blindly killing civilians. Guns don't have to enable the citizens to win, they just have to raise the cost of victory high enough to not be worth attacking.

ncmncm 4y ago
The current crop of gun-owners represent the greatest immediate threat of tyranny. Congressional hearings addressed such a threat quite recently. Ongoing, even.

aidenn0 4y ago

> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items, if the fundamental purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow the citizenry to fight tyranny then why aren't the citizens allowed the appropriate arms to do so? How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? I imagine the answer probably lies somewhere in the "too much risk for accidents or deliberate hostile use" territory. Because for much of the 20th century, the prevailing interpretation of the 2nd amendment differed from that. Even today, that interpretation is disputed. 1934 was when the first significant federal restriction on owning any sorts of weapons was introduced, and included restrictions on "destructive devices" which is what e.g. a javelin would be considered. These are technically not banned federally, they must merely be registered (and you need a license to manufacture one). Many state laws have various rules about private ownership of explosives that would ban them though. For anything developed for the military, there are also state-secret rules that may prohibit some of these from being made generally available to the public as well (even when we know that the items are already in adversary's hands). As far as being a check on the police, the Black Panther Party would (legally at the time) open carry shotguns while "observing" arrests made as a check on police brutality, and it's largely agreed that the banning of open-carry in California was a response to this. That being said, if it came down to "cops vs. non-cops" in most areas the non-cops are likely to win just due to sheer numbers. Sale of (new) fully-automatic weapons to civilians was not federally banned until 1986 (in what was an otherwise fairly pro-gun law).

20after4 4y ago

> not enough firearms or firepower for civilians to actually have any remotely likely potential of defeating a tyrannical US military (or even police force). This is exactly right. Government is not interested in protecting the rights of it's citizens, especially a right to that would be in direct conflict with the government's own interests. Individuals with guns pose little threat to the power of a government heavily armed with powerful military weapons and armored vehicles. Of course, the second amendment was written in a time when none of that existed yet.

yucky 4y ago
>Individuals with guns pose little threat to the power of a government heavily armed with powerful military weapons and armored vehicles. Afghanistan & Vietnam proved otherwise. What you're saying is demonstrably false.

leetcrew 4y ago

not a constitutional scholar, so I can't answer that aspect of your question. I can at least give a "reasonable person" explanation though. it's not hard to teach someone to safely handle small arms. a responsible twelve year old can be trusted with them, as long as they have been taught four simple rules: 1. don't point gun at stuff you don't intend to shoot. 2. always treat gun as if it is loaded. 3. finger off trigger until ready to shoot. 4. know target and what's behind it. with small arms, understanding and following those rules diligently is enough to prevent virtually all unintentional injuries. they're not hard to follow, but some people can be spectacularly irresponsible. I'll leave it as a debate for another time whether/when it is acceptable to intentionally injure other people. the same principles apply to "bigger" weapons, but become a lot harder for your average person to implement. what's a safe direction to point an anti-tank missile in? how do you ensure the safety of people downrange of your artillery piece that can hit targets 70 miles away? you obviously can't use any of these things in self-defense unless you're prepared to also delete your entire house. tl;dr: it's mostly fine for people to have small arms because it's easy to use them safely. it's not easy to teach someone how to safely use missiles, mortars, etc.

yucky 4y ago

>How are the laws that allow the US gov to exclude citizens from owning these not 'un-constitutional'? The right to bear arms has been decided by the Supreme Court to apply to arms that are bearable. Also, if a ragtag group of uneducated goatherders can hold off the US Military for 20 years in Afghanistan with AK-47's then the 400 million "small arms" in private hands in the US is more than enough.

ASalazarMX 4y ago

> I've never really understood why citizens in the US aren't allowed these items If they buy missiles, logistics and costs of maintenance aside, they will want to use them, or worse, sell them in the black market at great profit for the cartels/mafia to use.