[QUOTE=DanBlather]
So your assertion is that the Constititution allows state militias to own “guns” and other arms, but the Fed Govt can deny states the right to equip their militia with cannons, artillery, and other ordnance. Is that a common belief?
[/QUOTE]
Set the WayBack machine, Sherman!
The original militias didn’t have (or need) a law banning the possession of ordnance as, quite frankly, few could afford such devices (naval cannon, field pieces, and such.) Back when, in the pre-Revolutionary colonial days, the British Army provided most of what was necessary to conduct war, relying on militias more as scouts and skirmishers than “Line” troops. Ship owners could often get permission to arm their vessels with cannons, as it was dangerous on the open seas.
Much of this holds true through the Revolution and most of the early days of the Republic, when a militia unit might be called something like “The Fairfax County Light Foot,” or the “Carter County Irregulars.”
As State-level militias became more frequent in the decade or two preceding the Civil War, Artillery units were still quite rare, as the equipping and maintaining of such units was still an expensive proposition.
This changed during the Civil War; while Infantry and some light Cavalry units predominated in the state militias, state militia artillery units, while rare, did exist. I am unaware of any particular debate surrounding the formation or equipping of such units, except to say that I think such units might have more closely resembled our modern National Guard than the “civilian soldier” classic militia member.
With the formation of the National Guard early in the 20th century, the feds ponied up the ducks for the arms and ordnance of what was then acknowledged as the “organized militia.” While the terms “arms” and “ordnance” are frequently (and mistakenly) used interchangeably in common use, legally, functionally, and tactically they are quite different.
The quick-and-dirty distinctions between the two has been that arms are carried, operated, and maintained by the individual soldier. Ordnance is typically crew served by a team or squad, and is also typically used in area-denial mode (machineguns, mortars, mines, and artillery fall into this category), or an anti-material mode (AA missiles, flak cannons, bazookas, RPGs, flamethrowers, and, to some degree, artilery/mortars again)
With advancements in technology, weapons have been made more lethal and compact, reducing their bulk, and the number of people necessary to effectively employ them in a combat environment. For instance, an RPG or Stinger team can be as few as two people: a shooter, and a reloader/spotter. For redundancy’s sake, it would probably be more like 3 or 4 people in a conventional unit, although irregulars (as seen in Somalia and Iraq) can still employ them effectively in smaller numbers; sometimes as few as one in “hit-and-fade” attacks.
This advancing technology led to problems in the Prohibition era, when fully-automatic weapons technology was developed sufficiently enough to place one in the hands of the individual in the form of weapons like the Tommy Gun, or Thompson SMG.
Given the disproportionate havoc a very small handfull of individuals were able to wreak with such weapons, some form of government oversight was inevitable, and probably necessary, to stem the criminal bloodshed. The disproportionately high tax stamp ($200 on a $20 firearm) mentioned upthread was meant to curb
ownership of these weapons, and it did to a certain degree.
All that remained was for “the feds” to track down the actual criminals who didn’t give a flying fuck about any “tax stamp,” arrest or kill them, and confiscate their weapons.
Things were pretty peacefull for near on half a century after the NFA was enacted and enforced untilthe 1980s, as mentioned earlier upthread, when Congress passed (and King George I happily signed!) legislation prohibiting manufacture/importation of any more automatic weapons, freezing the current supply in the system and driving prices astronomically high.
At this point, legal owners of fully-automatic weapons are fairly wealthy, closely watched people, who have a serious financial interest in keeping their noses clean, and all the “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed on their state and federal paperwork on those weapons.
Back on the subject of militias, the “organized militia,” or National Guard, is pretty much all that is used today. The “unorganized militia” has been left to whither on the vine, with Selective Service and the draft now the primary choice of filling the ranks quickly. Given modern battlefield conditions, this is probably a good thing.
Training and unit cohesion are vital fundamentals on the modern battlefield, and having a uniform issue weapon relieves a major headache for logisitcal planners.
Which means that the classic “militia” is, and has been, deader than Fred for a long time here in the USA.
But the Constitution says what the Constitution says, in spite of fancy legal wrangling meant to reinterpret it in such a way as to grant legislators and justices sweeping powers to disarm everyone, everywhere, with the stroke of a pen.
If they want to ban guns, I say let them do it honest and in the open: amend the Constitution with the amendment process built right into it.