Should Americans be able to have unrestriced access to all types of weaponry?

Should Americans have access to heavy weaponry?

  • No. Too dangerous for ordinary citizens

    Votes: 20 10.9%

  • No. We can't be trusted with anything larger than 50 caliber.

    Votes: 7 3.8%

  • Yes. It would make no difference if we could own them.

    Votes: 156 85.2%
  • Total voters
    183
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Question: Before 1968, dynamite and grenade-launchers and Lahtis were over-the-counter items. Have they ever been used to kill a person?
Has a single terrorist used a 20mm lahti or a 500kg aircraft bomb?

And which terrorist group up to today has ever used heavy machineguns (except "militia" terrorist groups like "Hisbullah", which only appear after law and order collapse anyways)?
 
Because your car isn't likely to explode in the driveway from neglect and level the whole block.
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Right, but if you neglect basic maintainance on your car, you could easilly lose control and end up rear-ending a station wagon full of kids at a stoplight, or swerve off the road into a bunch of pedestrians. Improperly stored gasoline could start a major fire that - under the right conditions - could easily wipe out the whole block (or more!).
You expect someone who buys a car to know to change the brakes and ensure other relatively mundane repairs are made so that their vehicle stays in proper and safe operating condition. You don't ban cars based on the possibility that someone will cause serious damage due to neglect. You don't ban gasoline because someone might try to store it in a paper box and let a room fill up with fumes and then improperly wire their house and have the resulting explosion destroy the homes around them and start a fire some dry summer day that wipes out the better part of a town. Similarly, if someone stores explosives, I expect them to ensure that they are stored in a safe manner and properly disposed of if they become unstable. No need to ban them based on the possibility of their misuse or mis-storage.
Regulate harmful actions, not ownership.
 
As I said in my previous post, everyone who supports the idea of citizens not owning WMDs seems to draw the line at what citizens should be allowed to own in a different place.

Some folks try to dress it up by defining "is", oops, excuse me "bear" as anything that can be carried by an individual. Some folks lean toward the socialistic interpretation that WMD might cause harm to society. Some try the environmental lobby definition of harm to the environment.

What exactly makes any of you any different than the folks that support the AWB? As far as I can see, no difference whatsoever. Pretty it up with pseudo-intellectual arguments all you like, you just want to be allowed to own what you want to and decide what everyone else should be allowed to own so that you will feel safe.

BTW, Ian, thank you for putting my argument very eloquently.
 
We (the Gov) destroyed an entire country (and rightfully so) because we (still the Gov) suspected they had WMD. That said, I think the wrong weapon in the wrong hands would be a detriment to life as we know it. Look at Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Phillipines,...... they all have all the weapons they could ever want, but so do the crazies. Because of this they live in fear we could not even concieve. Every citizen in Israel owns a gun and a gas mask. That's not what i think of when i think of "free". I would love to own a full auto or BMG and i still can for the right price. Part of the problem with these other coutries is you can buy a full auto ak for around $50 US. (JUST MY $.02)
 
Every citizen in Israel owns a gun and a gas mask.
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That is nonsense. Just pure nonsense. First of all, most Israelis don't own or have any arms at all. Only about 4% of the population own guns, and our gun laws are more restrictive than those of Britain.
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
Second, we do not _own_ our gasmask, though everybody has access to one. Our gas masks are govt. property. We may not even open the cases without instruction from the government.
 
Some have said that, what the small military unit (squad?) can have, we the American public should be able to have, as well. This would include mines, rocket launchers, MG's, mortars, flamethrowers and the like, but presumably not long-range missiles or nuclear capabilities.

Works for me.

John, pining for his "D" Model BAR...
 
In theory, we should be able to own any weapons that we can afford regardless of size or lethality. The second amendment does not directly restrict possession of these weapons solely to those that can be carried and or operated by one man. At least I have never drawn that inference from 2A.

It is already legal to own Tanks, Fighter Aircraft, Naval vessels, (surplus PT boats and Destroyers have been purchased and converted to civilian use) and macine guns, (with the appropriate federal papers.

In reality, we all know individuals who have absolutely no business possessing anything more lethal than a rubber knife or a water pistol. So in spite of the fact that I am rabidly opposed to Government regulating what I can or cannot own, I have to come down on the side of Preacherman on this one.


GOD MADE MAN, SAM COLT MADE THEM ALL EQUAL,

it's just that some of Gods creatures are not playing with a full deck, and thats why we have rubber rooms
 
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Phillipines
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O.K., most guns are illegal for most people in SA, and I believe I remember reading somewhere that gun ownership is currently totally banned on the Phillipines. Don't know about Iran though.

Part of the problem with these other coutries is you can buy a full auto ak for around $50 US. (JUST MY $.02)
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Hey - can somebody add $49.98? :D
 
If you say we shouldn't have access to the "big stuff", I'd ask where you draw the line. Ok, so we can't have 16 inch guns, but we can have smaller atillery. No? Ok, how about mortars? No? How about grenade launchers? No? Ok, how about .50BMG rifles? No? How about .45ACP pistols? No?

The only thing I can see drawing a line with is a WOMD. I don't fear the crazed lunatic with a .50, or even an M1A1, because we can defend ourselves against it. There is no defense against WOMDs.
 
MicroBalrog,
Pardon my ignorance of your countries ownership of firearms. I have never been I am only repeating what i have heard from the media and talk radio in the U.S. Do you feel that 4% of the population of Israel being armed has helped or hurt the situation over there? What kind of gun laws are there and how hard are they to find? Is the small population of armed citizens due to laws or personal prefrence?
 
I believe anything but WMDs are fine. I draw the line after explosive weapons. RPGs, C4, Tanks, howitzers are fine.
 
With explosives, you can easily make them. It would not make it easier for terrorists to get explosives if they were legal. I can legally buy the ingredients for C-4, it's just illegal to actually mix them. All you need is some hexamethylenetetramine, amonium nitrate, acetic anhydride and a few other ingredients, prepare them, and you've got RDX. Add some plasticiser, and you've got C4. It's very easy to get the stuff on the internet. It worked for me. (With chemicals to make compounds MUCH LESS powerful than C4. Home-made firecrackers and such.)
 
Nobody buys $100k of anthrax and stores it in tubberware in their closet. However, I'm sure there are people who steal or make sarin themselves and store it unsafely.

The danger is from people who will have the stuff anyway, not from people who couldn't afford it even if it were available.

Just because something isn't illegal doesn't mean it's available, anyway. Who's going to sell nukes or biochem weapons to civilians?
 
I knew a prison guard once who told about how the prisoners make zip guns out of radio antennas. I read about a teenager who contaminated his entire neighborhood taking the tiny pinches of radioactive chemicals from several hundred smoke detectors. I read about a guy who made a shotgun from a piece of pipe and another who made a functional rifle from a rolled up magazine! Anybody who has had a Junior level organic chemistry class in college can make nerve gas!

Tyme is right. Criminals will always have weapons! These are laws which just inconvenience honest citizens.
 
MicroBalrog,
MicroBalrog,
Pardon my ignorance of your countries ownership of firearms. I have never been I am only repeating what i have heard from the media and talk radio in the U.S. Do you feel that 4% of the population of Israel being armed has helped or hurt the situation over there? What kind of gun laws are there and how hard are they to find? Is the small population of armed citizens due to laws or personal prefrence?
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The Israeli gun law on it's face is simple: one cannot buy a gun without permit from the Ministry of the Interior.
However, the Ministry has a policy of giving out gun permits only to:
1)Professional Security Guards
2)Civil Guard volunteers
3)Ex-military officers (lieutenant and above, IIRC)
4)Inhabitants of Danger Zones (i.e., settlers of Gilo)
all of the above can own only ONE handgun.

They also give out licenses to hunters and sport shooters (although recently they stopped doing that temporarily, because they're developing a new policy for them).

In the Settlements, you also have armories were they can give out state-owned M-16's in case of emergency. The reason you can often hear "terrorist killed by Israelis" is because in the Settlements, nearly everyone has a handgun and a rifle.

Of course, I suspect a lot of us want guns and can't have them.
The number of owners of guns is derived from the amount of "licenses on issue", but I suspect is meaningless, because I know that people who have several reasons to carry (say, a Civil Guard ex-officer, hunter and target shooter) will get a different gun license for each (and buy 2 hangun, 2 rifles, and 2 shotguns), so it might actually be less.
 
Someone asked where the governement gets the power to regulate guns. It's in article 1 section 8:

"To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces" to "suppress insurrections"


And here's the BIG one:

"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. "



No I don't agree with the interpretation. Liberals see the Constitution as something to constantly find loopholes in and work around when it goes against what they want.
 
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