Comment by amelius

There would have to be a very long period of peace, first. Periods of government instability, as we have now, actually cause American citizens to want to reaffirm their rights, not relinquish them. And, the 2nd amendment represents something symbolically beyond its function: a unified collective will against tyranny, corruption, and evil.

What a dystopia. If anything the situation in Minnesota should teach liberal Americans that they all need to arm themselves massively.

> Get grass roots support for it.

This must be satire. This will never, ever happen in the US. Guns are a religion here.

At the moment, the most dangerous people with guns in US are the ones working for the federal government.

> Get grass roots support for it.

You know that line from the Mandalorian, "Weapons are part of my religion"?

That is true in the most literal possible sense for a large portion of Americans. And not all of them right-wing, either- if anything, the past 5 years have convinced many of my left-wing friends to get concealed weapons training and being carrying pistols.

"anyone who opposes the government must be stopped"

are you sure?

>SCOTUS has ruled before that 2A does not afford freedom to own any kind of weapon. There are limits on explosives for example.

This is largely machine guns and explosives. Pistols, rifles, etc are ordinary weapons in common use*

*NYC authorities may not agree

When and where can I buy a cannon with grapeshot? They had that during the revolutionary war, and the founding fathers probably owned at least one, so I want to be able to yell "Tally Ho!" too.

The only weapon class I know of that's outright illegal to own is anti-aircraft missiles. That carries life imprisonment just for possession, with no violent intent. Because the government never wants to give up its air supremacy. This is why whenever you hear of feds concocting an international weapons conspiracy they always have to add anti-air bazookas to the charges because it's the only thing that actually can unequivocally be proven as illegal to own[0].

Basically everything else can be owned with an NFA tax stamp. Nuclear weapons my understanding is the difficulty is more with laws on handling the material than specifically owning one as a weapon, so I'm unsure those are even outright illegal either.

Explosives are actually one of the ones with looser restrictions. Even felons can own and re-instate their explosives rights, because bafflingly when congress de-funded the firearms rights restoration process for felons they forgot to do the one for explosives. Felons can also own and manufacture explosive black powder without scrutiny or paperwork, even ones intended to go in a black powder gun.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68365597

1. The second amendment wasn't written because the authors thought guns were inert. It was written precisely because they could impart deadly force.

2. As someone else pointed out, early repeating rifles did exist then.

3. If the meaning of the constitution is only to be evaluated against the technology available at the time -- what does that say about the validity of the 1st or 4th amendments with modern technology?

The Girardoni repeating air rifle predates the ratification of the constitution by ~11 years and was taken on the Lewis and Clark expedition ~13 years later. Really the whole discussion around 2A is usually nonsense because it ignores the context that the entire Bill of Rights had a completely different meaning prior to the 14th amendment leading to incorporation over the last century (and other expansions of federal power via commerce clause); that is, the Bill of Rights originally did not apply to the states.

Very obviously individuals were expected to be part of the militia, which was the military at the time (c.f. the Militia Acts 2 years after ratification requiring individual gun ownership and very clearly laying out that all able-bodied white male citizens aged 18-45 were part of the militia), but also states could regulate weapons if they wanted.

The balance of power being considered then was between the state and the people. Fear over a standing army was real.

Nobody banned anything here either.