As I said, for the weapons of warfare; bombs, missiles, artillery, jet fighters, armed tanks and all weapons of indiscriminate destruction including chm/bio/nuke WMD's, there is no claimable by a citizen (or deniable by government) "right" to own them as the powers of development, acquisition, maintenance, ownership and deployment of such things has been conferred by the people to government. Short of rescinding those powers, the people can't claim what they have surrendered. As an example, the citizens can not claim the right to print their own money (or claim the 1st Amendment's protection of the equipment / materials to do so) nor is the government denying the "right of a free press" by prosecuting counterfeiters. The power to coin money has been completely surrendered by the people . . .
As for other weapons, STY's "
every instrument of war that the soldier can carry in to battle should most definitely be available to 'we the people'." I agree that it would be unconstitutional to outright ban those items.
I do believe that even if SCOTUS were to apply the most stringent standards of "
fundamental right" status to the right to arms (which it has alluded to) and to apply
strict scrutiny (presently not assigned to the right to arms) to the contested law, I believe the government could sustain the tax / registration scheme (NFA-34) that is in place now for full auto machine guns and all manner of "destructive devices" of war that are legally in the hands of hundreds of thousands of private citizens. So that isn't so much a ban or a right's denial but the government arguing (and proving) that the "
the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling [government] interest".
The preexisting right to arms was secured to perpetuate the general militia principle which of course still exists; as long as there are civic minded citizens willing to assemble in time of need, bringing their own arms for mutual aid, then the principle remains alive. As such, the standard or criteria to determine if an arm enjoys 2nd Amendment protection remains applicable; if it is of the type:
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". . . as are usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment." --
Aymette v. State of Tennessee, 2 Humph., Tenn., 154, 158., passage cited directly in
UNITED STATES v. MILLER, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)
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It is a fine line that SCOTUS has had to toe since 1903. That's when the constitutional means of calling the citizenry to service, organizing and training them as militia and deploying them as militia was extinguished. Presently,
NO entity, public or private, is empowered to call the citizenry to service, organize, train or deploy them as militia . . . Any and all civilian militia service obligation and all state militia powers under Art I, § 8 has been removed by Congress.
If one really wanted to argue the nitty-gritty, Congress relieving the citizenry from all organized militia obligation extinguished any and all interest the federal government could be said to possess in the
one weapon a citizen would have mustered with if called. In that regard, if you
really wanted to institute a gun / gun owner registration, you should lobby for an active militia law to be re-enacted by Congress. At least then you would have a list of militia aged gun owners.
