Do you have the right to bear nuclear arms?

[sweetheart]

The second amendment suggests that, in the context of the day, we had
the right to bear the most state-of-the-art arms of the militia.

Does our militia include nuclear weapons; of course it does. Nuclear
weapons are the backbone of today's militia, and YOU have the right to
bear one.

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is the basis of civil society, and
expressing that in weapons, if every of your neighbors had the right
to kill your entire city with their sucide nuclear bombing, a just
society would have to prosper.

In the mind of a warrior, there is a time when you jump on the grenade to
save your buddies. Similarly, the second amendment suggests that
you have the right to keep your black powder magazine store, so you
can blow up parliament providing you don't get too drunk. The framers
really did intend for a free people to overthrow their government for
an even-better constitution once in a while... and the right to bear
arms has been watered down.

It is time we were each given one of the american warheads with a red
button next to our beds. Then all americans would have the right to
cause a hiroshima in their home town, and the country would have to
get more serious about its abusive culture.

[Zuni]

1. yes

every american should be able to posess tatical nuclear arms. That would end street violence completely

[SmokingJacket]

2. Yes, you're right.

The "right to bear arms" means nothing, really.

Obviously, we should be allowed to own knives.

Obviously, we should not be allowed to own nukes.

So the line must be drawn somewhere in between. Where? I dunno. That's what we need to discuss and figure out -- rationally and in good faith.

It's not as simple as the NRA types would wish.

[Tamyrlin79]

6. This brings up a separate issue, though.

So, we've decided that states, not individuals, have the right to bear nuclear arms. That means that if one sovereign state has the right to seek and build nuclear arms, so do all sovereign states. That includes Iraq, Iran, & North Korea. This right exists irrespective of who is in power at the time. Just because some nuclear powers are now governed by sensible people, it does not follow that they always will be. And, vice versa. Perhaps Kim Jong Il's successor will be a very pleasant, sane guy.

So, ending nuclear proliferation suggests preventing knowledge and know-how from getting into the hands of those who do not already possess it. But, if any one state claims the right to possess it, all of them have the same right and have the right to pursue that possession. And, it is clearly in their interests to do so, if they wish to maintain the balance of power and not become dominated by those who already have this technology.

Thus, the nuclear proliferation issue is one that must be ended in one of two ways: states must be allowed to pursue their own nuclear weapons under some international regime to keep the peace, or no regime can have any nuclear weapons. The former may seem difficult to achieve, but the latter, a complete ban and dismantlement, is more unrealistic. Even if only at token levels, the ability to build and create such weapons (and at least threaten their use) will likely be retained. It is probably unrealistic to think otherwise.

[sweetheart]

24. That issue is the heart of the matter

The rationalizations are lace curtains on "might makes right". There
is no logic in international nuclear matters. Terrorists who have them
cannot be dissuaded on their source of power. If the constitution says
that it is the right of the state to keep nukes, then surely it means
that all states have that right, considerng reciprocity and precedent
in international legal thinking.

So iran has the right to bear arms. North Korea has the rights to bear
arms... but that logic is the same for any entity, truth be told, why
should not Brad Pitt have his own nuclear arms too. If north korea is
the empire of 1 man, then why should kim jong il have any more rights
than you? Then, it turns out, perhaps what the framers intended,
that the right to bear arms is universal for all individuals and states.

But rahter, we hear a load of twisted illogic that suggests the rule
of force and patriarchal power... that the only people with rights to
WMD's are those who are most brutal, those who have "used!!" them on
civilians... clearly establishing their lack of qualification.

[SmokingJacket]

26. Well said. nt

[Ready4Change]

3. Good question.

I'd say no.

But I sure would like an F-16!

I guess it's because I can't figure a use for a nuclear weapon. If I set it off it'll create no end of hassles for me.

But, with training, I could have a BLAST flying an F-16 around.

[sweetheart]

12. I'd like a YF-23

Nuclear bombs are a pain to keep around, and very expensive. If i had
to pay for it myself, i'd rather have a YF-23. Its such a beautiful
bird, i'd just park it in the driveway and oogle at it like a lover.

:-)

For nukes, rather, i'd love to have my own nuclear submarine, like
captian nemo, with the world's nuclear arsenal with doctor evil and
mini- me. Or perhaps a remote series of ocean-floor based nuclear
missile silos... ones that are 5000 feet down hardened silos all over
the ocean floors of the earth waiting for citizen Kane to
launch for justice.

[Ready4Change]

23. The Nautilus! Now THERE'S a good use of nuke power.

I am totally with you on that. I dream of making a RC Nautilus, with a hardened prow, diving ability, and some form a massive overpower for ramming speed.

Then, I'd sneak in on some other RC boat clubs "Day at the Lake.

Muahhahahahahaha!

[G_j]

4. well at least that would eliminate the world's biggest problem

the human race.. :-)

[sweetheart]

13. "the human race": dumber than sheep, and noisier too

That humanity is so breathtakingly stupid is surely a sign
that god had nothing to do with it. :-)

[G_j]

16. well it takes real talent, (some might even call it genius)

to raise stupidity to such breathtaking heights. :think:

[sweetheart]

18. What an extroadinary construction

That humanity is even remotely rational, is set in the frame of that
very race wastefully killing its own chilren every day by the thousands,
degenerate and self-congratulatory on its collective degeneration.

If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.

[G_j]

19. I have pondered this

many a time.

The size of our brains makes our capacity for "stupidity" greater than all the other animals.
Our capacity to create has resulted in extremes of ugliness (atomic weapons etc.) but also beauty (music etc.)
If only we would individually and culturally embrace the beauty.
Perhaps we are not capable of that..yet. :shrug:

[jody]

5. RKBA refers to arms appropriate for self defense and common defense

performed by law-abiding citizens.

The right to possess nuclear material is covered by TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 39 > § 831. Prohibited transactions involving nuclear materials

[sweetheart]

8. its just a law, not the frame

TITLE 18 and the laws have obscured the bill of rights. We all have
the right to "go nuclear". If our militia has the right to go nuclear,
we do too, and any laws they've made are corruptions nibbled out of
the constitution by a gang of rats.

Real americans have no problem with individuals bearing nuclear arms,
or they would not have entrusted so many thousands of them to the whim
of a cowardly war criminal.

The framers meant for you and me to have the right to go nuclear. This
was to guarantee that every customer is happy with the product, or the
experiment experiences radical change. In a very fair and just way, a
nuclear-armed citizenry would help america evolve past its sicknesses.

There would be a little collateral damage, but far less than the millions
of lives lost since the constitution has become corrupted and a war
criminal is threatening hundreds of millions of people with a
nuclear threat.

I rather trust my neighbor with a nuke much more than GWB, wouldn't
you?

[Lefty48197]

7. If you listen to those dam freak NRA members...

Yes, you can own any weapon you want. Nuclear, fully automatic, F-16, it doesn't matter. Those psychos don't know limits anymore than our dipsh*t "President" does.

[slackmaster]

9. No - All nuclear technology belongs to the federal government

Your right to bear nuclear arms has been curtailed through due process of law. Or if you take a Second Amendment absolutist postition (which I do not now nor have I ever) you could say your right to have a nuclear weapon has been infringed.

There is (at least theoretically) a process through which an academic institution, corporation, or even a private individual could secure licensing to build or buy, and use, a nuclear explosive device. But you would have to show a compelling need that could not be fulfilled with some other technology. The door to use of nukes, say, in space for an industrial or mining purpose, is not completely closed.

Edited to add: Personally I have no problem with you having a nuclear weapon as long as you can pass the same background check given for machine gun buyers, and you can comply with all applicable laws for storing it safely. If you DON'T really want one then you are guilty of bad sarcasm.

[sweetheart]

10. Ok, so say i want to use one for a performance

Do you think i could get a license to have a music concert with an
above ground 100 megatonne nuclear detonation as the grand finally.

It would be a killer gig, and given that many millions of people would
love to pay good money to see an above ground test from 20 miles away,
surely i could promise the military many millions in ticket sales.

And think of all the good PR of doing public above ground tests. Then
people could feel better about paying for the bloody things, 'cuz
we'd finally get to see the results of 50 years of line-item tax
drain on our public spending.

Isn't it my right as a citizen, equal and all, to ask for them to
service "my" economic idea as well? They think mining is cool. I
think a big nuke would look totally killer 100 miles up in the
atmosphere on a dark desert night. I'd bet people 'd pay 1000
dollars each to see an above ground test... maybe even more.

[slackmaster]

11. Like I just said in the edits to my previous post

I have no problem with you getting and detonating a nuclear bomb if you can pass the background check and do everything legally and not endanger anyone (including future generations).

Above-ground nuclear tests on Earth are banned by international treaty, so you'd have to set it off in space. 100 miles may be too close.

[sweetheart]

14. But that sidesteppes the question

Maybe the framers meant for me to have one without a background check,
charleton heston style, so i can defend my backyard from stray
dissenters. Maybe the right to bear arms is a sort of intelligence
test built in to the constitution to eliminate the parts of human
society that should be destroyed. It's all gods will after all, and
if somebody does a Curtis LeMay, then, they would be decorated heros too.

[slackmaster]

15. I've played Nuclear Straw Man many times on the Internet

You're not very good at it, really.

It's not effective unless you are actually debating someone who believes in an unlimited right to bear arms. Since nobody in this thread takes that position, you are arguing with nobody but yourself.

[sweetheart]

17. Not making that point

I'm suggesting, that maybe the framers were serious about empowering
the individual with all the powers that they empowered the state.

I've argued this before, years ago on DU as a long thread about the
straw man, and i'm bored with that line of thinking. My point here
is less to do with nukes, and more a re-framing of how the framers
considered individual liberty.

The fact is, that all it takes is ONE individual to be suicidally
dissenting in a society and you have a "war on terror"... that it
seems, the right to dissent in such a way is the ultimate crime,
driving them to the ultimate fear.

That somewhere it is unwritten that one of our own children would
consider using a nuclear bomb to blow up his/her family... and that,
truth be told, it is their right, be they of sound mind and body.

As they are then exercising the ultimate criticism of a society,
not to vote for the opposition, not to "not vote" but to vote
NO, explosively.

More and more people are voting "no" explosively these days, and in
that sense, it is highly relevant. Who is allowed to vote no
with mass murder weapons and who is not. And why does a society
based on a principal of individual liberty, goodwill and trusting
its individual militia members to defend the state, suddenly
is the enemy of those very indivdiuals, reserving the right to
suicide bombing only for the criminally insane.

[G_j]

20. you make excellent points

of course the framers probably could never have imagined anything on the scale of nuclear weapons. But yes, if the state can have them, then why not the people?


To be very simplistic about it, it is the state that has far too much power. Perhaps the people should never have let the state develop these weapons and build a military far beyond what is needed to defend it's people.

sort of a maddening question, but it does point out how out of wack things are, we really are not free.

[sweetheart]

25. What happened with trusting the citizens?

I'm aghast at the erosion of citizenship, that is has been reduced to
prisoner, where no longer are citizens trusted with their natural rights
to make choices for themselves.

15 Gallons of gasoline is a very big fire-bomb, and every person who
reaches the age of 16 is pretty much allowed to drive a firebomb anywhere
they want in america if they pass a little driving test.

It seems we trust citizens to not be suicidal, or the whole thing breaks
down. Yet, here we have a set of laws and precedents that presume that
people are not to be trusted with their own well being, as if we're all
clinicically bonkers and need to be kept away from razor blades for fear
that we might slit our own wrists.

The erosion itself creates a mental deviance that creates terrorism. The
erosion is "disenfranchisement" where people are stripped of their
citizenship, and their liberty to be represented by their government,
and reduced to house arrested illegal combatants.

How can the liberty innate in the human spirit not fight anything that
seeks to oppress it, even if that is the government of the land, seeking
in death by 1000 cuts, the loss of sovereign indivdiualism in to a
morass of irresponsible, murky, puerile legal views that we are not
our own masters.

I have never committed any crime whatsoever, i am not a criminal, i
should have every right to carry a nuke up the washington mall,
because we citizens are the terrorists they're at war with. We are
the flesh-puppets that the system seeks to encage, and one way or
another, the spirit of human freedom will take opposition to all its
oppressors and destroy them, whether the only weapon be time itself,
the ultimate bomb, that will erase all of humanity in 100 years.

Beware of the time bomb, God just pushed his big red button. :-)

[MissMarple]

21. Yup. Just ask the NRA.

:evilgrin:

[KerryOn]

22. Well at first I thought you ere wrong....

... but according to American heritage you are correct. "Arms" - A weapon, especially a firearm: troops bearing arms, ICBMs, bombs, and other nuclear arms.

Its one thing having thugs armed with M16's, and would be quite another if everyone had nuclear arms. I suspect that the day is near when many will have such arms, and then we can kiss are asses goodbye.

[OrlandoGator]

27. Yawn.

There's a well-known rule that the moment you invoke nuclear weapons in a gun rights debate, you automatically forfeit.

[Swamp Rat]

28. That rule does not apply here.

:)

[Liberal Veteran]

29. Nothing like holding people to a rule they had no part in making.

Or agreeing to.

The side that says there should be no limits on gun ownership because the constitution doesn't specify a particular type of "arms" wants to hobble to argument of the opposition when they take it that argument to it's logical conclusion by making up silly rules about what can and can't be discussed in an discussion of how far our 2nd Amendment rights extend.

As a gun owner myself, I've ofter wondered the same thing. If you can make the argument the 2nd allows for no restrictions on automatic weapons because the amendment is non-specific, then why can't you make the same the argument regarding other types of ordinance.

[sweetheart]

30. Who's talking about gun rights

This is about the right to sovereign citizenship, and the right of the
individual to live in peace with his neighbor, no matter the weapons
in his garage.

The ultimate weapon is the human mind, and every object on earth can be
turned to death if the mind is behind it. In that sense, a truckload
of petrol, or some misinformation about babies in incubators are all
weapons of brutal mass murder for the mind behind them. It is not the
issue of nuclear weapons, but the fear and distrust that a citizen
can no longer be trusted to not detonate themself.

If your neigbor had a garage filled with black powder and nails,
it could kill you if it caught fire. He's legally allowed to keep a
garage with black powder for his guns, and its a sort of "mini nuke"
and ultimately you just have to trust that your neighbor is a decent
human being, because he has a mind and the possibility of killing you
or your family at any time if he bends his mind that way.

So the fear is not about weapons at all, but about the possibility that
people may become mentally feeling like murder, and use their weapons.
And that is part of civil society, we have "trust".

I'm saying, that the framers intended us to be able to kill each
other, to kill the government too, and that entrusting the sovereign
citizen with this power, it will remain unused, as civil society is
so much better, and invididuals can be trusted to choose "life".

I'm talking about the nuclear right of individual free will, not
a thing to do with guns. The "arms" are the intents, wishes and
dreams of the individual, and we are all immortally entrusted with
the right to bear arms, to turn whatever we touch in to a weapon
to destroy ourselves and/or our society. And if these persons
are out there who wish to destroy their society, over the course
of a lifetime, their damage will be greater without nukes than
with them; as hatred is the ugliest weapon of all, and only
comes from people.