The 2nd Amendment (Part 12)
Intro To The Constitution (Part 24)
Previous article in this series: “The 2nd Amendment Can’t Fulfill Its Purpose”
Advanced Technology
I will grant you that there does need to be some kind of {coordination/regulation/etc.} to prevent American military technology from falling into the hands of hostile nations who would use it against us, because our culture has been so thoroughly destroyed that most people don’t have a sense of national identity anymore. But that kind of thing has already been done before; for a while, unlimited strength encryption was classified as a weapon by the United States, and while American Citizens could use it freely, it was illegal to give it to a foreign national. I’ll grant you, that for such a thing to work well, it absolutely requires a restoration of the {culture & [national identity]}. The culture today is so degraded, and there are so many hostile factions stirring up hatred towards our own {people & culture}, that we very-well may not be able to trust some portion of our people to hold such secrets. However, the solution to that is not to accept defeat, and condemn our people to impotence. Instead, we need to restore communities so that people have a sense of {belonging & purpose}, and purge the {corruption & special-interests} which are {inciting & exploiting} social conflict for their own gains.
But, again, this could also be handled at a State level, where each state establishes the rules which it believes proper for the security of such secrets. However, one could also argue that giving away such technology could be considered treason, not just against that State, but also the whole union, in which case it could be a Federal issue.
Another alternative is that the non-profit militia corporations could be required to enact certain {[security procedures] & [access controls]}, similar to current government contractors, and then trusted members of the militia could be promoted into positions of access to such technology. However, any mechanism such as this would need to be done very carefully so as to avoid eventually reverting back into the condition we have now, where the general militia (i.e. every man in the country) are forbidden from possessing such weapons, and only those sanctioned by the government can wield them.
Nukes
This one’s difficult, so let’s think through the various aspects of the issue, and their consequences, and see if we can come up with a reasonable potential solution.
First, in general, my point in arguing for the 2nd Amendment is not because I think weapons aren’t dangerous, nor that I want the worst people to have access to the most powerful ones. It’s not that at all. My point is that there’s nothing special about the government that makes them more trustworthy with weapons than American citizens of equivalent character. After all, the government is composed of American citizens. It’s not as if the government is some magical entity that transforms people into pure benevolent saints. If anything, it attracts psychopaths. If you’re concerned about some random citizen doing something crazy, then why aren’t you concerned about members of the government being corrupt and doing something just as bad, if not worse. And if those psychopaths are going to have such weapons, then shouldn’t we have them to protect ourselves from them? Will bad people get guns? Yes, they already do. In fact, the more severe criminals, such as {gangs, mafias, & cartels} often have even more powerful weapons than law abiding citizens can get, because they don’t obey the laws, and they just get whatever they want. Also, as we discussed in the earlier articles on gun control: 80% of the criminals who had guns, got them illegally. Gun control doesn’t stop them, it only makes law abiding citizens weaker.
However, the discussion shifts once we begin to address those few modern things which are, by their fundamental nature, completely different animals.
The only restrictions that I think should apply to the 2nd Amendment (in terms of weapons being universally forbidden) are weapons which are, in a way, not even really weapons, but are instead, existential threats to humanity. Weapons which are, by their very nature: impossible to control precisely, deliberately intend collateral damage, and whose lethality persists for generations after the event, unless counteracted by profound degrees of intervention. In other words, weapons whose sole intended purpose is indiscriminate civilian casualties, and whose consequences cannot be contained: i.e. {nuclear & biological} weapons; although, an argument could be made to also include {carpet-bombing, land-mines, chemical-weapons, & [elemental/persistent poisons, such as depleted Uranium]}. But, I also don’t think that the government should have them either. I think both of them represent an existential threat to humanity, and if we don’t figure out a way to let go of them, the future does not bode well for the point when our capacity for space travel improves. If trends continue, it won’t be long until we’ll be capable of {mining & redirecting} asteroids, and even a small asteroid diverted to impact the Earth is more devastating than the largest of nuclear weapons. During the Cold War, the US government even researched putting giant rods of Tungsten into orbit, in the “Rods from God” project, to essentially do the same thing: dropping a giant mass from orbit and obliterating a target with the power of a nuclear bomb, using nothing but kinetic energy.
Furthermore, there is also the risk of such weapons falling into the hands of foreign nationals. With normal weapons, if an American betrays the country by selling weapons to a foreign country, it’s only a hand full of weapons, which are useless on the scale of international wars. Instead, the primary risk from such an act is that it enables the foreign country to reverse engineer the technology, and produce their own by the millions. Thus, the degree of damage done, is proportional to the degree of advancement of the technology. At present, {nuclear & biological} weapons are among the most technologically advanced weapons available today; thus, it is paramount to prevent that technology from falling into the hands of hostile nations; along with cyber {hacking & security} software, and/or stealth {aircraft & detection} technology. Thus, as a matter of national security, it would be reasonable to require high degrees of security for any organization which possessed them. “We The People” are still entitled to own every terrible weapon of war which the government can wield, but we also have a {responsibility & duty} to the country to protect the security of that superior military technology.
Additionally, WMD’s carry with them a risk which other arms do not. In the scenario where an American citizen betrays the country by selling weapons to a foreign national, while doing so with a {gun or vehicle} only causes serious damage via its reverse engineering, for WMD’s even a single one on its own causes serious damage. In fact, it’s even worse, because the foreign power doesn’t even require the {technology or resources} to undertake its reverse engineering. Merely using the one they’ve {purchased or stolen} is sufficient to cause catastrophic damage. Thus, there are National Security concerns with {WMD’s & [high tech weaponry]} which go {above & beyond} their mere risk to the public from their American owners. As such, it is reasonable for them to have {restrictions & requirements} {above & beyond} those of normal {weapons & materiel}, so long as it does not result in the exclusive capacity of the Federal government to satisfy them.
Perhaps one solution is that such weapons of mass destruction cannot be owned by individuals, but can still be owned by organizations of American citizens, in accordance with the 2nd Amendment right; but even that is squirrelly. In other words, a single individual cannot own a nuke, or dangerous pathogen, but private organizations can, in the same way that today, private contractors can own military tech which the general public cannot. The soul of the 2nd Amendment is that anything which the government wields, the private public must be allowed to have in order to defend against the government. However, some weapons carry with them supreme dangers, and both {[the general public] & [the government]} may be bound to certain {storage, security, & activation} restrictions in order to ensure sufficient safety to the public. So, if such a weapon is too dangerous for a sufficiently competent Non-Profit Corporation to own it, then it is also too dangerous for the government to own; and not only should the government be banned from possessing it, but any government agent who is caught facilitating the government’s secret possession of it should be guilty of treason against the people for undermining the balance of power between {[the government] & [the people]}, and thus enabling government tyranny. Again, one of the primary {checks & balances} against the government is the private citizens’ ability to resist them militarily. If the government has the trump card of some massively destructive weapon which they can use with impunity, then it severely undermines that ability. However, there is a genuine issue of the sheer magnitude of destruction which a single bad actor can do with such a weapon, which is so much bigger than a single individual with a {gun, vehicle, or even explosives} that causes the counterbalancing argument of public safety to gain significant weight in the unpleasant calculus of war. Thus, in the same way that there are laws about the safe storage of explosives, to prevent {accidents & unauthorized-access}, so too would such mandated security be reasonable for weapons which pose a clear danger to public safety {above & beyond} what is reasonably necessary.
This is not the same thing as owning a {gun, tank, airplane, or ship} for one simple reason: such things operate on the scale of individuals, but WMD’s operate on the scale of {organizations & populations}. Carrying a gun will protect you from a mass shooter, owning a battleship will protect you from a naval {blockade or [attack on your harbor]}, but owning a nuke will not protect you from a rogue actor detonating one. Nuclear deterrence only works via the threat of retaliation, which is only a meaningful threat against large organized groups of people with a shared identity. The spirit of the 2nd Amendment is allowing the people as individuals to protect themselves, and allowing the people as a whole to overpower the federal government. WMD’s serve no purpose for individual protection, and their utility in a rebellion against the government is dubious, since a rebellion is, by definition, the people vs the government, and the civilian collateral damage incurred from a strike on any but the most remote government target, would essentially just be the people attacking themselves. However, in the event of a civil war, wherein the country breaks up into multiple pieces, nukes regain the same advantage they have against foreign nations, as a retaliatory deterrent. But, in that style of a civil war, the local State governments would be aligned with the people within each region.
Thus, perhaps the best solution would be for each State government, as the unifying leader of their militia, to be the ones to have nukes. This would mark a compromise between limiting ownership of such vastly {destructive & dangerous} weapons to only those organizations whose {power & [decision making capacity]} are sufficiently distributed as to mediate rash decisions, as well as integrating it with the existing political structures which the general population of today are accustomed to handling such things as {[classified military technology] & [war decisions]}; while also providing the necessary counterbalance to unchecked Federal supremacy.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that States should be able to launch nukes whenever they want. Instead, nukes would be restricted by Article 1 Section 10 of the Constitution: States are forbidden from engaging in war without the consent of Congress. I think we can all agree that launching a nuke at someone is an act of war; and the international test ban treaty prevents launching a nuke for a non-war related reason. So, nothing would really change. We already have US Citizens who are trained to {manage, maintain, & protect} nuclear weapons. The only difference would be an additional inhibiting layer of authority at the State level, such that they are not allowed to launch without both {Federal & State} agreement. You could even have Federal {funding & regulations} to ensure that all the nukes are maintained properly, run regular training & tests, and enforce safety standards; just like how the Federal government can impose minimum standards for the State militia.
Another objection is rapid response time. To solve this, the governor of each State could be required to have a secure communications device with them at all times, just like the president has the nuclear football. Then, if the president wants to launch, an emergency conference call is broadcast out to all the governors, and a minimum percentage of governors are required to be on the call for it to count, and then a majority of those present must consent. If they do, then the president transmits his authorization, the consenting governors then pair it with theirs, the nuclear silos verify both, and they launch. Requiring this quorum of Governors also prevents a launch when only 1 or 2 States consent, but the majority oppose.
If you really wanted to maintain the status quo, you wouldn’t even have to move the nukes. You could just establish the land containing the nuclear silos as a joint State complex, similar to how an embassy is sort of considered pseudo-sovereign soil. So, the nuclear silos around the country would be divvied up among the States, and each silo complex could be assigned a subset of the States around it, along with a Federal contingent; ex: 10 States per complex, plus 1 Federal unit. Then, each State could send a contingent of their own citizens to serve on the base, and the launch keys could be upgraded to require all 11 keys (one from each State represented there, and one for the Federal representatives).
Next article in this series: Reinstating the Militia
Citations
This entire Constitution series was written as a single big document over the course of several years; so, all the citations are mixed up together. When I went back to break it up into pieces, I wasn’t confident that I could redistribute all the citations & their reference numbers without screwing something up. So, I decided to leave all the citations together, and post them as the final article in the series.
