A Nuke Behind Every Blade of Grass?

File Under: With Both Barrels

On a post about gun-control, a respondent on the Facebook group page asks: "Do you have a limit on what guns people should be able to have?"  Here is my rather long, official response:

"No person should be denied the preeminent technology, which in the failure of all constitutional democratic processes provides him or her with the individual means either as a sovereign person in defense of his or her own liberties or in concert with his or her fellow citizens who have as a people come to a harmonious, democratic accord to remove by force a government that has failed to honor, abide, uphold, and protect said constitution and no longer submits to the will of the people they claim to represent, yet remains in control of a standing military and law enforcement bodies."

The short answer: no, the Second Amendment did not say "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" except for this exhaustive list of firearms and other weapons.  This answer usually leads to the follow-up question: "Should in turn then everyone in America own a Bazooka or nuclear arms?"


This question strains my belief in the philosophy that there are no stupid questions.  Bazookas are an obsolete technology, but you can find curio/replica models for sell if you are into collecting military technology.  Manufacturers of modern rocket/missile launchers and recoilless rifles do not sell their products to civilian buyers.  Moreover, while certain fully-automatic weapons, explosive devices, and augmentations that give firearms supposed "assault weapon" features are available to civilians these are heavily taxed, regulated, and restricted by the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives) and has been since 1934.  There is a reason you do not hear of many high profile stories of people committing crimes using these types of firearms and devices.  They are too hard to come by legally.  Anyone going through that much trouble is not going to commit a crime with it or allow it to fall into the hands of a criminal - unless you are the U.S. Attorney General and you like to play "Fast and Furious" with the law and public safety.

Orangeburg Massacre: Orangeburg, South Carolina, February 8, 1968

Kent State Massacre: Kent, Ohio, May 4, 1970

Jackson State Killings: Jackson, Mississippi, May 14, 1970 

We cannot understand why the government kills its own citizens in cold blood either Mary.

This question really strains reason when you consider nuclear arms.  If you separate the firearm from its ammunition and its operator, set it on a table, then separate a chunk of plutonium from its bomb and its operator and set it on a table, an odd distinction occurs.  The firearm cannot kill anyone regardless of the number of rounds it can hold in its magazine or how many rounds it can fire when its trigger is squeezed.  Long after that chunk of plutonium totally decays that firearm will continue be to completely inert unless someone comes along loads it, points it at someone, and squeezes the trigger.  The chunk of plutonium on the other hand all by itself, by nature, without human interference at all has roughly the toxicity of nerve gas and will slowly kill everyone close enough to observe the experiment over time.  In fact, under the right circumstances plutonium can self-ignite in air at room temperature.  This is why there are Federal laws and international accords governing nuclear technology.

Nuclear technology never should have been weaponized in the first place; it does not defend against tyranny, it engenders it.  When respected scientists had serious reservations that igniting a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere would result in an extinction level chain reaction, how could we have been so brazen?  Nevertheless, the Second Amendment is about the people's right to defend their life and liberty - first and foremost from a corrupt government.  As individuals and as a people we are guaranteed the right by the Constitution to defend ourselves against threats to our life and freedom with whatever prevailing technology is available sufficient enough to ensure the task.  Most certainly this encompasses "military" technology, including any arm that would be used illegally against a citizen by a criminal or a rogue government.  Unless the government intends to perpetrate a "FAIL SAFE" or "WATCHMEN" on its former people, nuclear arms do not belong in the discussion of the Second Amendment.


Do not be mislead: ANY armament that has the ability BY DESIGN to wound or kill more than one target with one operation of its firing device is ALREADY HEAVILY regulated, restricted, taxed. and monitored or just plain old not available to civilians by Federal or State law, international treaty, and industry practice.  No one commits petty crime or mass shootings with legally purchased: fully-automatic weapons, un-improvised explosives, or any other restricted weapon or device not acquired through the black market or made from scrap in his or her basement.  Nothing can or will turn a civilian hell-bent on mayhem into John Rambo, because it just cannot happen in reality.

Allow me to go off on a tangent for just a moment.  Here is an anecdote about fully-automatic weapons: they are inaccurate.  Why? Because physics, psychology, adrenaline, and poor marksmanship conspire to to make people bad shooters.  The military requested and  implemented selective-fire (capable 3 round at a time burst) firearms to increase the chances of hitting the target without wasting ammunition like the previous generation of semi and fully-automatic only firearms.  In the Vietnam Conflict for instance with a speculated 50,000:1 rounds per kill ratio, many shots fired DID NOT hit the intended target if there was one.  A semi-automatic weapon, which is what is present in the vast majority of crimes, can only fire as fast as the shooter pulls the trigger and since it only fires one bullet every time the trigger is squeezed is very accurate compared to the evil "assault weapons" they look like, but DO NOT function like.    If the military determined fully-automatic weapons did not make soldiers more efficient and more lethal why does Congress seem to know differently? They also seem to believe that a 10-round magazine will save lives.  Well, if someone with a firearm can shoot the assailant before he or she reloads then yes, this is true; but, how many times can a  shooter reload a semi-automatic firearm in the 15-20 minutes it takes for authorities to respond to a crisis AFTER someone alerts them?  A child does not stand a chance against a lunatic trying to harm them, if there is no crisis strategy and the people who will end the threat are 15-20 minutes away.  And therein lies the reason why there are so many victims in these shootings and it has nothing to do with firearm features or magazine capacity.  You have: A) driven, disturbed individuals intent on death, B) attacking unprepared, unprotected, defenseless doe-eyed, soft targets C) wreaking havoc and terror D) never does this happen in cities with a solid history of hostage and crisis response E) the schools, campuses, malls, restaurants etc., still are not hardened F) and the people with firearms are 15-20 minutes away.  What you get is a recipe for slaughter.  I'd like to see what would have happened to Adam Lanza or James Holmes if they had showed up in the middle of the Gaza Strip in their vests with their AR-15s.  I Digress.

MOVE House Bombing: West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985

Siege on Ruby Ridge: Ruby Ridge, Idaho, August 21-31, 1992 

Waco Massacre: Waco, Texas, February 28 - April 19, 1993 

WARNING: The following video is very graphic.

This is not about school shootings in reality.  This is about fighting tyranny, some of which I have highlighted on this page.  What the legislature would like, what they would really love is when they are done pretending to represent the people of the United States of America that they can send jack-booted thugs around to our homes to confiscate our registered single-shot air rifles (because that is what they will have legislated us down to) and we will be reduced to shaking our fists at them in righteous indignation.  I suppose we could resort to slinging stones, it supposedly worked for Biblical King David of Israel.  Let us just hope if it comes to that God is still on our sides for being so naive.