Which was exactly what I said in Post 14.
Honestly, are you guys just not listening to me anymore, or do my views not count because I’m not an American?
Is it a legal restriction imposed by the US government preventing the sale of the Phalynx system, or an unwillingness to assume liability by the developers, or a law in the country the system is developed in, or what? I don’t think the USA prevents individuals from legally owning stuff like tanks and missiles, right? It’s just the logistics of actually acquiring tanks and missiles and Phalynx systems are more trouble than they’re worth to potential buyers.
What’s the murder rate in Britain like? What’s the prison rate? What’s the rate of accidental shootings?
I can offer something for the last one.
Another reason we are happy with less guns in the UK. 
As for Sam Stone’s comment, ‘home invasions’ are far from ‘common’ over here, unless he means we may have all heard of one?
Virtually all modern heavy military ordinance either uses explosive warheads or requires charges of propellent large enough to qualify as explosive devices in their own right. Which leads to the interesting question of the constitutionality of laws restricting access to explosives. It would be anomalous to say the least if it were held constitutional for a state to ban fireworks within its borders but had to allow its citizens to possess RPGs.
We kind of stopped paying attention to Australia when the Austro-Hungarian empire broke up. That and the whole “Hitler Thing”. We do think kiwis and kangaroos are cute, however. Penguins too, but the fact that you eat them is disturbing. Maybe if you re-did The Sound of Music with Russel Crowe and Anna Paquin.
I take it they don’t teach fundamental firearms safety in that 2-week training course before giving guns to the police in the UK?
We had a discussion on here awhile back of whether the Constitution was (or should be considered) a Living Document or of it must be interpreted with Original Intent or in a Textualist fashion.
I believe the question in the OP relates directly to that. If you believe the Constitution is a living document then certainly the 2nd should be reinterpreted based on how things are today and not the facts on the ground in 1791. The two times are so wholly incomparable that applying the law as intended over 200 years ago is just absurd. And yes, I would say you’d do the same thing for the 1st Amendment (as has been brought up here) in light of technological changes such as the internet. This does not mean you toss the 1st or 2nd wholesale but view them in today’s context. It may well be after looking at the internet and the 1st amendment you think everything is peachy and nothing essentially changes. With the 2nd Amendment I think someone could look at it and decide that Stinger Missile systems are not cool for private ownership (although I agree in a very strict reading of the 2nd, as it stands, Stingers and M-47 DRAGON Anti-Tank Guided Missiles and so on should be fine). Afterall, if we are to have weapons to protect us from our own government we NEED stuff like that. For my part though I find the whole “we need guns to protect against a tyrannical government” bit specious.
If there are any models that were built prior to 1986, then those units are legal for US civilians to posses. Since the Phalanx was built using the M61 Vulcan Gatling cannon which has been around for a few decades, there should be some of them in the hands of regular joes, just without all of the cool targeting stuff.
But could you buy the ammo for it? According to Wiki:
WalMart carry those?
It shoots regular 20mm ammo too. Not sure if you need to pay the DD fee for each round of 20mm though. I am pretty sure that Wally World isn’t carrying much bigger than a 12 gauge these days.
One of the Knob Creek machinegun night shoot videos from a few years ago has some gatling/minigun firing tracers. It looks like a laser and makes a low rumbling hum rather than individual reports (Note: I do not have sound, so these may not be the right videos. Still pretty crazy.)
A rifle firing 20mm (>.50cal, >12.7mm) is a DD (unless automatic, in which case it’s a machine gun), but the bullet would not be unless it was explosive or incendiary (w/ a charge >0.25oz).
Cool videos. What are they setting off to make the mushroom clouds?
Tannerite, probably.
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What is a “DD fee”?
And can you buy 20mm belt feed ammo as a regular civilian? (Anywhere…was joking about picking it up at WalMart)
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The National Firearm Act of 1934 creates a registry of certain types of weapons (for tax purposes. No, really!). Short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, machine guns, sound supressors, and destructive devices have a $200 tax. Any Other Weapons have a $5 tax.
DDs were added to the list of taxable weapons by the Gun Control Act of 1968 aimed primarily at veterans of foreign wars (not the organization) bringing back grenade launchers and anti-tank rifles. In some cases the DD label applies not only to the gun but to each individual projectile (i.e., a grenade launcher has a $200 DD tax and each individual grenade round has a $200 DD tax).
The Firearm Owner Protection Act of 1986 closed the machin gune registry to new entries, which is why you hear about “pre-86” or “transferable” weapons. If a gun isn’t in the registry you can’t legally sell it because the BATF won’t let you pay the taxes on it.
In theory, yes. In practice, not many people have 20mm belt-fed weapons, so deactivated “decorative” rounds are more common to find. I’m sure if you could find a transferable vulcan cannon you could find a source for the ammunition for it.
Binary devil guy did a fine job explaining the joke that is NFA and DD’s so I’ll let that one go. I was kidding about WalMart too but forgot to add a smilie.
I have not read the entire thread to now, but my $0.02:
The Second Amendment references “arms.” Not “muzzle-loading muskets,” not “handguns” or “swords,” but arms. Many other writings by this country’s founding generation clearly indicate they saw an armed populace as a check against tyranny; in fact, there own personal experience against British rule proved this to be true.
Therefore, the invention of any kind of arm does not invalidate their original presumption of guns’ role as they saw it. In fact, a good case to be that current regulations that do exist (prohibitions against machine guns, explosives, etc.) contradict their intent. After all, one cannot oppose a tyrannical government unless one is appropriately armed. The arms available to civilians at the time of the Revolutionary War and for more than a century afterward were as good or better than what organized armies possessed. Any person with the money could go out and buy as many rifles and cannons as he/she wished. And that is exactly what the Second Amendment originally intended. If it meant anything else, it would have said something else.
Again, just my $0.02.
Sorry to have to break my own stipulation about side topics in this thread, but I just had to say something about this. So technically new automatic weapons aren’t “illegal”, the government simply won’t let you comply with the requirements of the 1934 law? :dubious: Isn’t that the same sophistry cities like Chicago use to refuse to register handguns? And if those weaselly tricks are struck down by further SC cases, will that apply to the 1986 law?
One in the same.
Unsure about that…