Gil Hamilton wrote:Coyote wrote:I honestly thought we'd get through at least one gun debate without someone bringing up the old "but-but-but... what about explosives?
The reason it keeps coming up is because it's a valid point.
First of all, you are speaking of Constitutional. It says NOTHING in the Constitution about the weapon being controllable or not. The second amendment states only that the right to bear arms will not be infringed upon. Unless you've got a different constitution to me, it says NOTHING about the nature of the weapon. That means, under a strict reading the Constitution, you can't infringe on the right of yahoos to make pipebombs, because it is most certainly a type of weapon. Yet, we absolutely do.
In other words, you haven't addressed the point. Going "But-but-but... explosives are dangerous! Guns aren't as much!" is a strawman. Of course bombs are dangerous! However, that doesn't change the fact that we legally define what counts as something you can bear as arms. Unless you think ALL arms are Constitutional, you cannot call any weapons ban unconstitutional, because you are already acknowledging the the government has the right to restrict what counts as a legally ownable weapon and what does not.
For that we'd have to get into the finer points and intentions of militia laws. I do not dabble in explosives beyond what I do for my Combat Engineer duty in the Reserves. However, I can say that I have never been issued a pipe bomb in my entire time in the Army, which is subtantial. Grenades, yes, C4, det cord, etc, yes, but not pipe bombs. Someone who knows more about
why explosives and pipe bombs are not allowed would have to take this one up, since I neither know much about it or care overmuch about using explosives.
I'd wager it is because explosives have more of a history being used for terrorism than for direct combat; explosives can be set and then left to blow up when someone else activates something-- ie, a boobytrap-- and there is also not always a way for the bomb-maker to control who detonates the device (see the problem with land mines left in third-world countries).
So stop dodging the point on the issue.
I don't feel I am. The restriction on explosives seems reasonable to me and I never saw a reason why it shouldn't be.
Secondly, you cannot control the bullet once it leaves the gun. Can you control where the bullet comes down? Is your aim infalliable so you always hit your target and not accidently hit something behind your target?
Seriously, man, I have more control over where my one bullet goes than I do over where several hundred shards of shrapnel goes. If I have to answer to a judge & jury about an errant bullet, I can say with definition, "I was aiming for X". You can't claim any such control with a bomb-- how can anyone say with a reasonable degree of truth that they threw a grenade or pipe bomb at an attacker and made sure the explosion only targeted the one person they were "aiming" at?
You can actually make the same argument for a well made explosive. An explosives expert can tell you exactly how their bomb will behave based on its placement, hence how they can safely implode a building with explosives without accidentally hurting anyone. We license demolitionists because its a real science, and absolutely hold them responsible if the explosion does something unexpected.
I know for a fact from personal experience that explosions do
not always do exactly as they are expected, no matter how well engineered they are. You admit as much by saying that demo engineers are held repsonsible for things that go wrong. Remember, a demo engineer isn't doing a hasty IED ambush with minutes to spare, a controlled det of a building is going to be a long, careful, painstaking process that will be overseen by all sorts of demo and safety engineers-- and even then, they do not always go as planned.
They have personal responsibility for the bombs they set and where the explosion goes; it is expected of them. The fact that most yahoos who want to make pipebombs aren't REMOTELY that skilled is irrelevant to the argument.
It would seem to be-- you just argued yourself right there why limiting explosives is a good idea. Which side are you arguing?
You argue that it is the personal responsibility of the gun owner to not hit someone else accidentally, well, you can also make the argument that it is the responsibility of the pipebomb maker not to plant them in places that will kill civilians. Pipebomb makers have a personal responsibility not to misuse the devices that they make and if they otherwise don't have a criminal record, should not the government TRUST their citizens not to accidentally or on purpose misuse the arms that that are their Constitutional Right?
If you want to argue in favor of pipe bombs as legitimate militia weapons, and weapons suitable for personal defense, by all means, be my guest. I'll watch. Burden of proof is on you to prove such a claim.
And yet you don't trust people who make pipebombs and seem to support putting them in jail for extended periods of time, even while you claim that use of weapons is a personal responsibility issue! You are trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Um, no, not really. No one else seems to be arguing for pipe bombs. There is no NPBA, or National Pipe Bomb Association, demanding rights that I know of. Unless you want to start one.
You are wrong. "Militia" weapons are weapons that would be considered necessary for the milita to do it's job ...
Again, refer to the United States vs. Miller Supreme Court case, where a type of shotgun was ruled not protected by the 2nd Amendment because it served no practical purposes for Militia duty.
Congratuations on completely missing the point! The point is that what constitutes "arms" is entirely up to the government to define, given that we've already put paid to the notion that all arms are allowable.
We did? What's this "we" thingy, Kemo Sabe? I am not the one arguing in favor of pipe bombs.
If they DID decide to make "swords and pikeaxes" the only allowable weapons that people could carry, it would be EXTREMELY silly, but it wouldn't be unconstitutional! The point is that you cannot claim weapons restrictions as unconstitutional because at this point, we restrict the hell out weapons anyway, something you agree with in general.
Thus, the argument becomes one of what is reasonable, NOT what is constitutional. You are arguing that pipebombs above should be banned because explosives made by non-experts are RIDICULOUSLY dangerous and thus it is REASONABLE that it should be a crime to make them. It is REASONABLE that handguns be allowed because they are less dangerous on the whole, both to yourself and others. These are points I all agree one, believe it or not. However, REASONABLE is not what you are arguing, you are arguing CONSTITUTIONAL. That is what I'm arguing against. Until you can point to the part of the Constitution that explicitly defines what "bear arms" means, then you are aren't arguing the Constitution, you are arguing what is reasonable in your opinion.
Refer back to
Miller for what constitutes a "militia weapon". They only specifically dealt with sawed-off shotguns, but it is a start. And the 1934 Act limited availability of fully-automatic weapons to the general populace. And as I have mentioned several times in this thread, in the
Heller case, the notion of an individual Constitutional right to own weapons does not preclude some controls or regulations.
What is left undefined is what, exactly, those controls, regulations or restrictions can be. Some of this will be outlined in the upcoming case challenging Chicago's gun ban (although I have a feeling that it will mostly end up focusing on Constitutional 'incorporation'). Technically, yes, all
Heller did was say, definitively, that an individual American has the right to keep and bear arms. Now they have to decide what those "arms" may be.
According to the precedent set by
Miller, it is established that "arms" must be suitable for militia purposes. So that narrows it somewhat. They may have to focus on settling two other things: what,
exactly, is the militia, and what,
exactly, is it's mission to be so that we know what "militia arms" are "suitable"?
Once that is determined, depending on how the Chicago case goes, and which of the many interpretations of the
Cruikshank case wins out with regards to the "priviledges and immunities" enjoyed nationawide by all citizens of America within the borders of America, regardless of which State thay are in, will win out. Then we may see a rule that states that militia weapons may be standardized by certain types. However, all this is speculation. A lot of precedent will have to be gone over. This will be determined by the Supreme Court.
In the
highly unlikely event that pipe bombs become recognized as militia weapons.
But that is problematic, because then it sets the legal precedent that all of the Bill of Rights may be applicable only to those technologies which existed at the time of writing. So the right to Press and Free Speech would not apply to the Internet, TV, radio, or even telegraph, but only to movable print press, bullhorns, signal flags and smoke signals.
Exactly. The Constitution doesn't spell ANY of these out, so it is the duty of Congress to define what all these things mean legally. Therefore, your issue is not
constitutional, it is whether or not their definition is reasonable. Limiting weapons to what was available at the ratification of the Second Amendment is silly, in the same way you point out that the right to Free Speech to media available at the time is silly. I agree with you. However, Constitutionally speaking, if some moonbat Congresscritters managed to do it anyway, it wouldn't be Unconstitutional.
It depends. I cannot recall off the top of my head if these new manifestations of "speech" have already been ruled to be "the same status as..." previously accepted and recognized free speech; and it could also be argued that the speech itself is protected,
regardless of the medium through which said speech is manifested. We'd have to look up free speech laws as they have been interpreted through recent history.
Besides, the government does explicitly limit free speech on the Internet, TV, and Radio, thanks to the bastards at the freakin' FCC.
In a way, though, this reinforces the notion that certain arms are considered suitable for civilian ownership, while others are not. "Free Speech" or not, you cannot shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, so the old saying goes. Is that a limit of Free Speech? Yes, technically, it is. But it has been deemed to be a reasonable restriction. Pipe bombs at some point were determined to be the same status-- a restiction on the 2nd Amendment, but a reasonable one. And actually, you can use words in general speech that are banned on electronic media-- in books, in movies, in every day life. There is no "allowed areas" where you can detonate pipe bombs... there's just places where you are not likely to get caught, or, far enough outside city limits or territorial waters where there are no applicable laws to pursue in the matter.
Again, in order for the militia to serve its purpose, it must have relevant weapons to do the job.
Which means you have missed the point of my argument.
I don't see how; the military doesn't use pipe bombs, so they are not applicable to militia purposes; and I agree that there are restrictions placed on the 2nd Amendment which are reasonable while you seem to be arguing that since the 2nd Amendment doesn't spell out what is allowed, that
anything should be allowed.
)
They shot themselve sin the foot, pun intended. 