Amid the constant gaslighting, how refreshing to see a
fully honest fact check.
In fact, you do not have to look far in the Constitution to see that private individuals could own cannons. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 gives Congress the power to declare war. But there is another element of that clause that might seem strange to modern ears — Congress also had the power to “grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.”
What’s that? These were special waivers that allowed private individuals to act as pirates on behalf of the United States against countries engaged in war with it. The “letter of marque” allowed a warship to cross into another country’s territory to take a ship, while a “letter of reprisal” gave authorization to bring the ship back to the home port of the capturer.
Individuals who were given these waivers and owned warships obviously also obtained cannons for use in battle.
5 comments:
It wasn't just the cannons on the privately owned warships.
A significant fraction of the cannons used by the various Continental armies during our Revolutionary War were privately owned.
Eric Hines
You can go buy a privately owned cannon now. There’s literally nothing to stop you. It was legal in the Revolution, the Civil War, and is legal today. Lots of reenactment groups have them.
Similar for full automatic weapons, with the appropriate authorization.
I live near Knob Creek Gun range (https://www.knobcreekrange.com/machine-gun-shoot) which boasts enough firepower to be mistaken for a war zone (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syria-kentucky-gun-range.html)
It's just becoming more and more obvious that this regime has no interest in enforcing gun laws that are already on the books (https://news.yahoo.com/chicago-police-release-footage-gunman-232221046.html) in favor of criminalizing the actions of people who might be their political opponents.
Similar for full automatic weapons, with the appropriate authorization.
As Grim and I have noted, though, we need no authorization, appropriate or other, to obtain cannons and combat-capable ships, only the scratch with which to make the buys or the skills and resources with which to build our own.
Neither would we, in a court where the judge(s) are true to their oaths of office and the actual words of our Constitution, for fully automatic weapons.
Eric Hines
It's fully legal under federal law to get a muzzle loading cannon of a pre-1898 historical type, but local laws may have a say depending on where you are.
It is surprising to see the WaPo get this right, though.
Post a Comment