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Comment by otikik | Hacker News Reader

> Luckily for the US, its gun culture ensured that small arms ammunition industry has a civilian component in the US. This is not the case with other types of ammunition, as shown earlier with Javelin and Stinger missiles

I am trying to keep an open mind and see where this person is coming from, but I don't think "Luckily" is the right word to use. If I was feeling particularly charitable I would call it a "Mixed bag".

It's a bit ridiculous, but imagine for a second if Javelin and Stinger missiles did have a civilian component.

> If competition between autocracies and democracies has really entered a military phase, then the arsenal of democracy must radically improve its approach to the production of materiel in wartime

That is one option, there are others. We could, for example, decide to take preventive economical measures against autocracies, and thus preventing them from capital they could use to build their own arsenal. Everyone having smaller arsenals is good for everyone (except the Military Industrial complex, of course).

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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).

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..."

", 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

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

> You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning.

My point entirely.

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.”

The first part explains the reason for the second part. It's not prescriptive or actionable. Its like saying "When it is hot out, food spoils quickly, in our house we keep the milk in the fridge.", that doesn't mean it's ok to leave the milk out in the winter.

The constitution is designed to be understood by the citizens who are subject to it. If you start to engage in word play you are almost certainly on the wrong track. Same goes for "charging a item with a crime and not a person", justifications for mass surveillance or limitations on press freedom or speech.

That is not the interpretation I or many others over literal hundreds hundreds of years of documented history believe.

This is all besides the point though, I’m not here to argue about the specifics of the 2nd amendment and interpretations of each clause. The original poster asked how the US got in the situation with missiles not being in civilian hands based on what they currently knew of the US.

The historical reasons behind that are the same whether or not they were made incorrectly

> The constitution is designed to be understood by the citizens who are subject to it.

Even if I were to accept this as truth, that went out the window when the slaves were freed and I do not accept this as true as you needed to be a white land owning male[1] in the original founding to even vote.

There was zero expectation by the founders that everyone subject to the Constitution would be capable of interpreting it correctly. I would need to see some historical evidence before I could have my mind changed on that point

[1] Some exceptions, they were all changed to remove the women’s vote at some point up until women’s suffrage was passed

Replying to vt85 who got flagged almost instantly.

lol at the “socialist wait I mean democrat” comment.

“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary”

You should look up that quote and find the socialists view on arms. I have zero problems with weaponry and have shot since I was a child. The instant infantile reaction to the idea that not everyone has the same interpretation of an ambiguous sentence is honestly kind of a tiring knee jerk reaction to discussing the second amendment at all.

If you are so concerned about weaponry go learn how to do some basic metal working and chemistry and you can manufacture all the weapons you want with hand tools even and the government won’t be able to take the knowledge from you

"You can’t drop half the sentence and have the same meaning."

In a very technical sense, but if you understand what a subordinate clause means you'll know what can be dropped with changing the restriction on everyone of the main clause.

The technical sense comes from what the subordinate was politically achieving at that time, the Anti-Federalists were properly suspicious of standing armies and regulars, but the guys who actually got a reputation for the successful prosecution of the Revolutionary War starting with the indispensable man Washington knew the nation's defense could not entirely be left to militias.

> In a technical sense

This is a common mistake software engineers make when parsing law. It is not code and cannot be treated in a technical sense as the language it was written in was English which is not technical.

Imagine every person reading the law is like their own personal compiler and so when they intercept “the law” they get different results. Our Supreme Court exists entirely to determine the standard interpretation of the law whenever a disagreement occurs

That’s a different argument entirely.

I’m not arguing against Heller. I’m saying the amendment exists because an armed populace was needed for national security, not overthrowing the government.

> security of a free State

The arms are required to not only secure the State, but also keep it free.

How free is a state taken over by, say, Canada?

Either way as the court decided today it applies to all "bearable arms", I guess you can't really bear a hellfire missile, M1-Abrams Tank or an atomic bomb, but I don't see how fully automatic weapons aren't bearable. Viral\chemical weapons seem super bearable, but I bet they would call them something tricky like munitions instead.

Really the law doesn't have much internal consistency. People like to say it's complicated, but I think it's just broken.

If you can lift 60 pounds, you can bear atomic weaponry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Muni...

You're right; rather than fix the issues technological progress has made for the Constitution, we've chosen to wimp out and make a bewildering, inconsistent set of "yes, buuuuuut..." legal decisions.

What about the word of Chief Justice Burger?

> “The gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

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.

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.

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.

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 for the simmering portion and Q as the rapidly growing portion

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....

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

The point is the Anti-Federalists said "No Bill of Rights, we won't observe the Constitution." Starting with New York I think this was made an explicit contingent condition of their ratification of the Constitution. Thus a compact, or covenant if you prefer.

Thus the Bill of Rights are special in a way no other Amendments are and cannot be abrogated without breaking the covenant that allowed the Constitution to become a thing in the first place.

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard this legal argument. Is there some paper on it? I can see how they are culturally and temporaly special in that the people at the time would not have joined without them but as far as I know they have less legal weight than any following amendment as they can change the text of any portion of the Constitution including the 10 amendments of the bill of rights

on [2] the Spartans had something very similar, and we all know how that ended (hint : not great for Sparta)

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.

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

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.

The current crop of gun-owners represent the greatest immediate threat of tyranny.

Congressional hearings addressed such a threat quite recently. Ongoing, even.

> 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).

> 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.

>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.

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.

>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.

> 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.

> imagine for a second if Javelin and Stinger missiles did have a civilian component.

You mean if rocket clubs were free to pursue their interests to a much further extent than the toys they're restricted to now? Rockets don't always have to be weapons.

Not to mention fireworks show it can be a perfectly safe endeavor with the proper legal framework. Even kids can use them.

No, I'm way more worried about the fact a terrorist could come at my door with a tank at any moment and I have no way to defend myself. And what if it's not a terrorist ? What if I have to defend myself against the state itself ?

At least we should be able to equip the schools to protect our children, if not directly our homes.

I have another idea. What if we all pooled together to buy some defense equipment, created some kind of club for training people, elected a bunch to run it; and then enjoyed the protection from this shared service without having to own heavy weapons ourselves?

We could even call it "arm club" in reference to fight club, to make it popular. And eventually give it a cute nick name ending with -y like arm cluby. Or army.

You are at much greater immediate threat from your well-armed neighbors. And they from you.

Lately, the greatest ongoing threat from tyranny, by the numbers, is that visited upon black people by over-armed, trigger-happy, and unindictable police. In what way does your owning guns help, there? Better to disarm the police. But then police have no protection from people (superficially) like you.

You didn't get the /s of the thread apparently. I'm French. The US gun politics are bonkers to me.

Seriously, what sane person would be worried that a lone terrorist would manage to bring a tank to a suburb and need a civilian Javelin to fight that ? If a tank is at your door, it's not terrorism, it's war.

The fact it seemed credible enough for you to answer seriously to it makes me think the USA situation is even worse than I thought.

It is. Your joke is professed reality for probably a good third of Americans.

> Seriously, what sane person would be worried that a lone terrorist would manage to bring a tank to a suburb and need a civilian Javelin to fight that ? If a tank is at your door, it's not terrorism, it's war.

I'll just leave this here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawn_Nelson_(criminal)#Tank...

(It wasn't even the tank rampage I was looking for...)

Police departments issued armored personnel carriers are more worrisome, just by number.

Maybe those rocket clubs would benefit (in the narrow, ignoring undesired side effects sense) by classifying their toys as munitions and seeking support from the NRA. I know there's folks that've wondered the same about protecting encryption via that path rather than by trying to classify it as protected speech.

I can't say I love the priorities and values our current systems in the states represent.

A for profit weapons industry and a for profit health care industry create other problems such as more war and more sick and indebted citizens.

Sorry 2nd amendment-hating missle-grabbers: the only way to stop a bad guy with a T72 is a good guy with a Javelin*

* or NLAW, Stugna, AT4, Carl Gustaf, general air superiority, etc.

Man, can you imagine range days with a Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle?

I can feel the noise ordinances from here!

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