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Comment by jQueryIsAwesome | Hacker News Reader

The 2nd amendment is like a parabola from the bible, you can give it any meaning you want. I am pretty sure nuclear bombs are arms but nobody is crazy enough to pretend it includes those. But those would destroy a tyranny for sure (along with anything else).

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You should read Vernor Vinge's "The Ungoverned". (The implicit spoiler in my reply is that nuclear weapons do play a part in the story.)

1. I think you mean parable. not parabola. 2. You can give the second amendment any meaning you want, but unless it is the same meaning as the authors of the amendment, you're wrong.

(from another HN comment) "I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

> unless it is the same meaning as the authors of the amendment, you're wrong

Yeah, lets ask them what they mean... Oh wait, well, we will have to ask you right?

At least in regards to the 2nd amendment what the authors meant is very, very clear. See the top HN comment.

No, is not very clear, they don't even mention firearm calibres, gun power, machine guns, the drug war, automatic weapons, chemical weapons, missiles, nuclear artifacts, criminals with guns, tanks and other kinds of military vehicles, grenades; basically because back then those things didn't even existed or where not considered relevant. Today is a very different world that they didn't imagine even in their wildest dreams; is a romantic but childish illusion that their words can be literally applied to a world so different to the one they saw.

I'm nitpicking, and/or don't understand what you've written, it appears that you're making an argument for repealing the second amendment rather than making an argument that it isn't clear what was meant by the second amendment.

the authors of the amendment made their meaning abundantly clear. Since you obviously didn't read my entire post, I'll re-iterate this quote:

"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

Context man, they were recently in a civil war and the communication and transportation was so bad that towns had to be prepared by themselves to affront any possible Britain retaliation; but now with the biggest army in the world, with carriers, combat helicopters and combat jets doesn't seem to have too much sense.

vietnam, iraq and afghanistan are all proof that the largest military in the world can be defeated without having an aircraft carrier. But the citizenry can't be armed with pitchforks and expect to be able to overthrow the government (see North Korea)

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