You read that right! The Second Amendment right not only supposedly protects your right to bear arms, but theoretically, it also supports your right to own a weapon of mass destruction all of your own!
To explore this bold claim, we must investigate the working reasoning of the Second Amendment. The founding fathers set out to establish a democratic government model where the power is vested in the people. However, despite the checks and balances set in place, the ultimate power comes from opting in or out of the social contract that the government presents you with. This social contract, established by Hobbes and Locke, was one of the many philosophies followed by and subscribed to by most founding fathers, which is where many of your rights come from!
The precipice of the social contract is the agreement that the arrangement can be broken if the people decide to leave it, ultimately allowing the public to opt in or out of the power suture, motivating the government to remain accountable to the people. However, within the American governmental model, there is no purity of social contract, largely because the founding fathers wanted to protect against “factions.” or small, inflammatory groups of inevitable contrarians. These contrarians are a symptom of being free, but by nature, they are disruptors, which is antithetical to peace. They could convince people to join the revolution without purpose. So we have a few regulations against this. Despite this, the Second Amendment allows people to keep their weapons–just in case! In an authoritarian government, weaponry is restricted because it can be used to organize an uprising against the government, precisely the power the founding fathers wished to protect.
However, the Second Amendment is subject to linguistic changes that skew its exact intentions to the modern eye. We are still determining its exact intentions, though much is implied in language, which is what powers like the Supreme Court use to decide. The Second Amendment includes an implied “against’ that instigates the people’s right to bear arms and mentions the right to form a militia against said government.
Therefore, the Second Amendment seeks to equip the people with the ability to attack and overthrow the government, particularly to have the same executive power as they do. This consistent balance ensures that the government’s executive power is never invincible. The Second Amendment, as written, is totally fine with citizens who own tanks, missiles and, yes, even nukes!
Furthermore, this part of the Second Amendment was clarified in United States v. Miller, where the argument for citizens’ possession of certain kinds of guns established criteria: weapons used by the military were protected by the amendment, and those that weren’t were not.
So why can’t you?
Like all parts of the Constitution, the Second Amendment is not immune to limitations. The laws we have passed have mandated that a nuclear weapon, in the hands of citizens, would be too dangerous, despite allowing private citizens to own fighter jets and tanks. Furthermore, the content outlined within the U.S. Legal Codes is legally enforceable, and it explicitly bans the use of nuclear and radiological weapons in the use of enacting damage or death to property or person. It’s important to note that these codes have yet to be changed against the Second Amendment, meaning they are illegal, but their constitutional value has not been weighed. So you can stop searching Samsung military department for a nuke (yes, they have one of those; they’re a full-time weapons manufacturer on top of selling you fridges and DVD players).
Banning nuclear weapons in any capacity while still having them available immediately creates a paradox. The way weaponry has developed and the role of government today, in tandem with the overall amount of democratic backsliding, have made the Second Amendment an increasingly archaic addition. Applying the logic of the original intention of the Second Amendment shows us quickly how this could violate the Second Amendment and citizens’ rights. Yet, understanding the court’s logic as to why we cannot all possess nukes begs the question of why we continuously see tighter gun control restrictions as a violation of our Second Amendment rights.
The Second Amendment’s purpose quickly dissolves under this scenario when we consider the question of whether the average civilian should be given a nuke. This proposition seems ridiculous in disarmament conversations, but considering that is what the Second Amendment truly aims to protect, it’s one we must consider. How can the government be a power we supposedly could rebel against when its weaponry surpasses our wielding ability? In this case–and my professional, undergraduate opinion–the government infringes upon the Second Amendment’s intention by suppressing a certain threshold of weaponry from reaching the masses. Any weapons the government possesses that are not accessible to the public violates the main function of the Second Amendment.
Furthermore, in our current state, the Second Amendment is rendered useless because, in the case of political instability, there cannot be any legitimate attempt at a takeover in the case of legitimate revolution (not treason, not insurrection; January 6th is actually a great example of the concept of faction!). After all, the executive power of the government is so vastly beyond the people that we would be decimated in seconds.
A deconstruction of the Second Amendment’s purpose is an apt example of why the Constitution was supposed to be a moving, living document, and our current treatment of it is contradictory to the climate it inhabits in the modern day. Looking deeper into it, the Second Amendment is not a right to bear arms to allow citizens to protect their property, but instead, a balancing act of the executive power of the government, placing the power back in the hands of the people. If it cannot stand on its own, and we must write legislation to prop it up, then what purpose does it multiply serve? It’s a product of its time that is antithetical to the world we live in now and does nothing but create a paradox for anyone who may debate.
So go ahead. If you can cough up enough money to buy a Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jet, feel free to park it in your backyard. But remember, if you somehow get your hands on a weapon of mass destruction, your Second Amendment rights won’t save you if you press the big red button!
