Seriously, how many multimillionaires are going to waste there money on nukes?
I'm sure OBL would have happily funded Jose Padilla's purchase of a few nukes.
I'm also fairly sure Timothy McVeigh could have scraped together enough funding for one.
But nukes are just the most extreme end of the spectrum. Think there's anyone who'd have enough money to buy a shoulder launched SAM to bring down an airliner? Again, plenty of funding would be available from external, if not internal, sources, I am sure.
What many people fail to realize is that a nuclear weapon is useless-unless you have enough of them to blow up the world.
Not if you are a nutter with an agenda.
If North Korea decided to incinerate Tokyo what would it accomplish besides getting itself turned into a glass parking lot?
Nothing. But if North Korea could channel funds to an extremist group in the US, who could then buy their own nuclear weapon, to use inside the US?
And as far as the infringement of out rights in the twentieth century goes, you're right. Nothing really happened until our first socialist president FDR opened the flood gates. It's a slippery slope, as they say...
So would you be prepared to have
all weapons on sale to US citizens? Nukes, chemical, biological, SAMs, ATGMs, grenades, mortars, artillery, tanks, fighters, bombers, etc?
Think everyone should have the right to their own weaponised anthrax? Think militia groups should be allowed to manufacture Sarin and own stinger missiles?
I believe there has always been a clear seperation of ordnance and arms under the Constitution according to the definitions of the day (that still largely apply today). Ordinance may not have been specifically prohibited, but they were not specifically protected either.
The definition of Arms did not, at the time, include cannons, etc. and it does not today.
Can you support that? If the
intention of the 2nd is that people should be able to stand up to their government, then they need a full range of weaponry. It ain't about hunting, after all.