@#%$ legalize nukes for personal use. You know anyone that will be walking down the street with a nuke? Besides me... and Chuck Norris. Of course, he'd just be using it to look less threatening. *shot by Ron*

I've never understood the fascination with Chuck Norris. o.o

As for the topic on hand...it'd be kind of unrealistic to think people would just be walking around with personal nuclear devices like a regular handgun.

Self defense is a recognized inalienable right.

Nuclear weapons don't qualify as self defense weapons. They do qualify as national defense weapons, or deterrent weapons (Mutually Assured Destruction). This is why the authority to launch a nuke is not given to everyone, and that there are failsafes in place so that if anyone involved in the launching process has a legal reason why they shouldn't launch, they can stop the launch.

Firearms qualify as self defense tools, as do baseball bats and framing hammers, and just like sports equipment and construction tools, firearms have other uses than self defense.

A nuclear weapon, not so much... Not a lot of kids playing "blacktop nukeball" or using a "Nukebomb nailgun", or even a "Nuclear deer rifle, shoot your deer and cook it from the inside out! tm"

Jimro

Nuclear bombs are just an extreme example, though. What about uzis, or whatever?

Self defense is a good standard, although if the potential threats have automatic guns, they could be considered defensive. But allowing people to have them could be extremely risky. I suppose the subjective line of "reasonable" self defense has to be continualy redefined with technology.

And the question of the futurre is interesting. Theoretically, if people would eventually be able to build things of arbitrary danger, how do you protect the right to safety and privacy at the same time? Would we end up with all manufactures being built with deterrents (see poison in rubbing alcohol), or even worse, computeized surveillance designed to stop people from doing it?

Automatic weapons fall under 2nd Amendment protection.

Also, people can already make things of arbitrary danger. Just ask David Hahn.

But in all serious, there's a measure of common sense involved. Handheld laser blasters? People could have them. Death rays capable of wiping out a country? Eh, not quite.

It depends on the severity of a weapon. Automatic weapons can only damage to people in front of you. Missiles and long-distance weapons can destroy whole cities. Which one do you think pro-2nd Amendment people are more likely to advocate? The former or the latter?

Fully automatic weapons are not a real concern to most police officers, simply because they are so very rarely used.

The one noteable exception is the incident in North Hollywood, I think the movie was called "44 Minutes" or something.

A fully automatic weapon is not illegal in the US, but it requires a background check and permit to own and operate them legally. Other countries that didn't have restrictions on fully automatic weapons only saw a rise in crime as weapons were banned.

Anyways, what seperates a fully automatic weapon from a nuke is aiming, the automatic weapon still requires aiming to be effective, whether for self defense or sport. The nuke just needs to go off.

And the only thing that seperates a fully automatic weapon with a semi-automatic weapon is the number of bullets that go out the barrel with each pull of the trigger.

Jimro

Any individual who requires a machete for the purposes of cutting vegetation shall register the machete with the local police department on an annual basis and, upon payment of an appropriate annual registration fee as determined by the local granting authority, shall be issued a permit authorizing him to possess the machete solely for the purposes of cutting vegetation.

Its not a joke, its an actual state (Mass.) Senate Bill, #1384.