[493] in libertarians
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (rgr@MIT.EDU)
Fri Dec 9 12:48:11 1994
From: rgr@MIT.EDU
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Cc: rgr@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 09 Dec 1994 12:45:28 EST
As far the arguements that citizen's weapons can be limited
based on some sort of "personal use" standard or the standard of an
infantry soldier, I disagree and think that this is not the intent
of the 2d Amendment.
For over a hundred years citizens owned artilery which (in those
days) required a crew of three or more to operate. In the war of 1812
and other conflicts, congress issued Letters of Marque which allowed a
private owner of a ship to outfit it as a ship of war and take prizes
from enemy shipping, in exchange for giving congress a share (1/4 or
1/3). Navy ships required a large crew and were the single most
expensive weapon available then.
Since the idea is to balance the power of the Government, I
think that the only limitation you can make is on weapons not kept by
the U.S. Armed forces or any other government agency. If the people
cannot have it, they may not have it collectively or individually, with
no distinction drawn. Personally I believe that nuclear weapons do not
currently help national security that much, but I would not outlaw them
in private hands until the Armed forces had destroyed the last of
theirs. I personally think that our Armed Forces are a lot stronge than
they need to be.
Incidentally, many citizens in the U.S. privately own the larger
and more complicated tools of war, mostly as collectables. I met a
Houston businessman back home who bought a Mig-15 from China, and owns a
share of an F-86 Sabre. Some years ago, when the Florida National Guard
decommissioned some F-105s, (vietnam era fighter-bomber) they choose to
do so by cutting them in half and selling them as scrap. Some people
spent about a million dollars buying a lotof the cut planes, which had been
cut in different places, and making a few working ones out of them. I
know that the F-86 and Mig-15 that I mentioned still had working .50s
and cannon (20 mm I think) as well as the mounting brackets for
missiles.
--Rob Ristroph
