Posted on 04/16/2007 7:42:32 AM PDT by Lazamataz
Why can't I own nuclear weapons? The Second Amendment guarantees it!
This argument comes up from time to time during gun control arguments. An anti-gun person who intends to use it as a strawman argument usually offers it facetiously or sarcastically. A strawman is a logical fallacy in which a debater exaggerates an opponent's position, directs arguments at this exaggerated position, and claims to have defeated the opponent's real argument.
The Second Amendment guarantees individual citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Even professors who can only be described as extremely left-wing have come to this conclusion. For example, the prominent law professor Laurence Tribe, has reluctantly concluded that this Amendment explicitly upholds the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The writings of our Founding Fathers reveal that there were two sociological reasons to uphold this natural right: To prevent crime, and to defend against a rogue domestic government. As example of the Founders thoughts on the crime-deterrent effect of civilian firearms possession, I give you Thomas Jefferson:
And as an example of how the Founders felt about civilian firearms possession as regards keeping our government 'honest and upright', I give you, again, Thomas Jefferson, who warns:
And from John Adams:
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity ... will respect the less important and arbitrary ones ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.
Therefore, we can reasonably suppose that the Founders intended us to have access to every manner of weapon for defense of home and of liberty. However, therein lies the rub: Does every manner of weapon mean access to nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons?
Our Founders were just men, men of proportion. They drew their ideas for our constitution from the writer and philosopher John Locke. Locke puts forth that we own our own bodies, and thusly we have the right to own and control ourselves.
THE RIGHT OF SELF DEFENSE
If you have the right to own, then you also have the right to assert ownership -- otherwise known as "protect" -- that which is yours. The right of self-defense flows naturally from this right, and is enshrined by our Founders as the Bill of Rights, and even is quite prevalent in the Declaration of Independence. If you have the right to self-defense, then it naturally follows you have the right to effective tools to exercise that right. In simple terms, it makes no sense to say you have the right to drive on highways, but then ban automobiles. Again, the learned Mr. Jefferson agrees:
THE RIGHT TO BE UNMOLESTED
Another right flows from John Lockes principles: You also have the right to be undisturbed. You have the right of 'quiet enjoyment' of your belongings, including your body, so long as you do not molest or act aggressively or violently to another. Nor, of course, do you have the right to disturb anothers quiet enjoyment of his or her belongings by molesting, acting aggressively, or acting violently to another person.
Take these two rights together: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE (and effective tools to defend yourself), and YOU MAY NOT MOLEST OR ATTACK THOSE WHO ARE NOT ATTACKING YOU FIRST.
Therefore, it is clear that any tool of self defense you choose must be a tool you can direct to be capable of discriminating between an attacker and an innocent. Clearly, the following tools are capable, with a minimum of care, of being directed against an attacker without jeopardizing innocents:
The following tools are slightly more questionable, since they are somewhat less able to be directed with great accuracy, and thusly are less discriminating. They have a larger chance of violating an innocent persons 'quiet enjoyment' of his property during the suppression of a criminal attack:
The following tools are completely indiscriminate, and can harm innocent people decades after their use. These tools are completely inappropriate for your right of self defense, since they will certainly violate an innocent persons right of quiet enjoyment of their property.
Hopefully, this will lay to rest once and for all the straw man offered by so many antigunners. Nuclear weapons are not allowed to be used for self defense by private citizens because they are not sufficiently discriminating.
“Nuclear weapons are not allowed to be used for self defense by private citizens because they are not sufficiently discriminating.”
Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate in nature. Therefore, you’re violating the 5th amendment rights of others “life, liberty and property” even by just possessing them. Example, if an accidental detonation or radiation leak where to occur, you would threaten the lives of thousands of people. The same holds true if one were to possess biological weapons. That’s where the individual safety right of others takes precedence over the 2nd amendment.
You do have a 2nd amendment right to bear arms, but that doesn’t mean you have a right to own a weapon so powerful and indiscriminate that it’s mere possession threatens me and my family.
And of course if a nuke was used for self defense, you would vaporize all innocent people within a radius of several miles.
Guns on the other hand can be controlled by owner, and are not indiscriminate in nature.
Seriously, whole countries have bankrupted themselves trying to build one, and then found out that they have a short shelf life. The same thing with a howitzer. Every time you crank one off, there goes several thousand bucks, spiraling into the blue. It's odd that the shear staggering cost of operating one of these toys never seems to be mentioned.
Consider that an MG42 rips thru 1500 rounds a minute, at, say, $0.50 each, that's $750.00, plus the cost of a stellite lined barrel you just melted. Of course, to a Socialist, the mere sound of such a horror weapon would turn them all sickly and pale...
Neither weree ships of war and those could be privately owned as well.
I cannot imagine a private citizen owning an aircraft caarrier (too expensive), but I could see them running a cruiser / yacht armed with Aegis and torpedoes.
Shipping companies could hire it out as an escort through the straits of Malacca for really valuable cargoes.
The Federalist Papers are a good way to see what the founders were thinking about but the Constitution is the law of the land.
Machine guns and machine pistols are plenty discriminating, if used properly. Aimed, full-auto fire is not oxymoronic.
The same argument is used against so-called “assault weapons” by the antis. They rail against the “spray and pray” method, which can be exercised using semi- and full-auto arms alike.
The government doesn’t have to ban a nuclear device, they can ban the fuel for it though.
that's about where I'm at too ... I just cannot imagine someone owning a privately operated carrier. That would be cool but what a resource sink.
—and kidding aside, during the gulf war , I saw a CNN correspondent seriously speak of the potential for “nuclear hand grenades”—obviously, the concept of “blast radius” had not occurred to him-—
My personal opinion is that a shotgun is not much more discriminate than an assault rifle, which isn’t much more discriminate, when on full auto, as a submachine gun.
Who gets to draw the line of acceptability?
Also, I would argue that a submachine gun is less discriminate that a mounted machine gun.
Maybe the line should be drawn at whether there is residual damage after the defense of one’s self. Unfortunately, it could then be argued that if a gun does structural damage that could cause a structure to fall, it could be outlawed as well.
30 yards.
And, what's the blast radius again?
Initial blast radius is 75 miles.
The other thing I'd point out would be the risking of a catastrophe argument.
I think it is very wise for the state to prohibit someone from storing gasoline in milk jugs in the basement of his row home.
The same reasoning would apply to anthrax in his freezer, any radioactive material, or even a few hundred pounds of fireworks much less high explosive.
Kirk, however -- rutting every woman-shaped alien he encountered -- was completely indiscriminate, and would thusly be banned.
They need to be periodically taken apart and lubricated. The triggers and arming codes have to be separately stored and guarded.
Just too much hassle for your average blue collar guy.
As long as the government has access to weapons of mass destruction and normal people have NO, (not limited by price, knowledge, or maintenance), access to weapons of mass destruction, there is no defense against a rogue domestic government.
A man with a knife will, almost all the time, be defeated by a man with a machine gun. A man with a machine gun will, almost all the time, be defeated by a man with a tank.
If I have the price, knowledge, and maintenance ability to have my own nuclear weapon, without it being overtly dangerous in a resting phase to others, the fact that I may use it indiscriminately, against otherwise peaceful people, is not reason enough to preclude me from having it as a defense against a rogue domestic government.
Thanks. I’ve been in this argument at times and ended up defending the right to have everything, up to nuclear weapons, but I recongize a weak argument when I use one. This gives me excellent responses and a generally better position.
The one remailing question: what if it is necessary to oppose the government itself? Should not “we, the people” have access to adequate weaponry for that?
” our modern army the soldiers have to provide their own AA batteries”
To go in the hand-held game consol of his or her choice.
(Hasn’t been so long since I was a soldier that I forgot that 90% of what you kill is time.)
Your reasoning would prevent one from making reloads for guns. THat requires a fair amount of explosive, which if handled improperly could send schrapnel great distances, thus threatening a neighbor in a manner similar to a nuclear leak.
Because they interfere with my AWACS.
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