> The 2nd amendment was written when muskets were state of the art and assault weapons like AR-15s were almost beyond belief.

I am not sure why everyone believes this, because it is completely untrue.

During the time that the constitution was written, 30 round semi automatic assault rifles had existed for around ~100 years.

Yes they did. Really.

Check out the Kalthoff repeater: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater

It was an up to 30 round semi automatic assault rifle, invented in the 1600s.

Now, it wasn't used a whole lot, because it was fairly expensive and also wasn't mass produced (Although it WAS actually used in a couple conflicts, by specialized forces!). But to claim that such things were "almost beyond belief" is ridiculous.

I hadn't heard about the Kalthoff repeater (thanks for the link), read more and also found out about the Cookson repeater, which was also released in the 17th century.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookson_repeater

I didn't know about those weapons and they're impressive (though very rare). But, there's still a huge leap between a Kalthoff/Cookson repeater and an AR-15. According to that weapon's manufacturer, an AR-15 has a 30 round magazine and can shoot 45 rounds a minute up to 1/3 of a mile!

IMO, the most important innovations around guns have mostly been because of changes in bullet technology.

The modern day bullets are the things that have caused the massive increase in accuracy, energy, and range.

And I guess, also decreasing prices, and reliability.

It is perhaps possible to make a reasoned argument around THAT, but the arguments around guns rarely reach the point beyond "ban the guns that look scary".

I don't think it has much to do with "looking scary", rather it has to do with raw power. Very few ardent gun activists would argue that citizens should have access to fully armed m-1 tanks or nuclear weapons because they're too powerful. There's an implicit understanding that certain kinds of arms are too powerful, so the right to bear them can be infringed.

I'd argue that the same kind of logic should apply to weapons like the AR-15. An accessible, reliable, fully dangerous weapon like the AR-15 is so far beyond the 'arms' of the 1790s that the right to bear it could be infringed.

A gun in the hands of a qualified, reasonable person is a legitimate means of self defence, but I can't think of why that should apply to something like an AR-15, which is built to kill as many people as quickly as possible. Qualified, reasonable people have many, better options to protect themselves from the threats they'd reasonably face that can't so easily be perverted by deranged fucks.

> A gun in the hands of a qualified, reasonable person is a legitimate means of self defence, but I can't think of why that should apply to something like an AR-15, which is built to kill as many people as quickly as possible.

If AR-15 style weapons, which use .223 cartridges, were banned, that would still leave sporting rifles, which use the larger and more powerful .308 cartridge. That cartridge was the size used in the battle rifles of the WWI / WWII era that were standard before the evolution of the assault rifle. (Assault rifles have smaller cartridges because the range and power of the standard battle rifle cartridge was found to be unnecessary and the smaller cartridges allowed soldiers to carry a larger quantity.)

Given that, it's hard to see how an AR-15 ban is anything other than a cosmetic ban.

The round of an AR-15 is very much smaller and with much less power than those used for hunting medium or large game. In fact they're so much less powerful that it is generally considered unethical to hunt deer with them.

Yeah it’s completely untrue. There were lots of very powerful weapons available in those days that rival today’s assault weaponry (even from medieval times) and the 2nd amendment makes no mention of that.

The 2nd amendment is a principle, not a law. It’s a universal, in time and space, foundation upon which we base our laws. The Founders were well aware of this and it actually was their intention.

These were highly educated enlightenment thinkers, to assume they didn’t foresee weapon innovation is just silly.

> Within one or two seconds, it was ready to fire again.

That's not comparable.

I'm not sure this OP's analogy is the most apt.

If I understand correctly, the legal controversy behind the 2nd amendment has more to do with the bit about "well regulated militias" than with gun technology.

So, the logical conclusion would be that every citizen has the right to privately own state of the art nuclear missiles?

Yes, absolutely.

The internet gives the average person the ability to mass disseminate information. If you want to try and use that as a metaphor then we should be allowed to own weapons of mass destruction.

> The 2nd amendment was written when muskets were state of the art and assault weapons like AR-15s were almost beyond belief.

Well, there is no definition for the term "assault weapon", and semi-automatic (edit: not semi-automatic, but self-cocking repeating, similar operation and results) weapons were well known (and not that far away from being popularized) by the time the second amendment was drafted, and by the people who were drafting it. "Arms" also encompassed things like cannons and explosive charges, which could be fitted freely to ships/properties and stored (though the latter could create a tort, if you don't take necessary precautions) by private persons, as proven in case law.

It also applied to bladed, blunt, or more unconventional arms. The word "arms" is used instead of "muskets" because the right being protected is the right of the people to own arms sufficient to feasibly defend themselves (or, with a militia, defend their community), and to do so unmolested.

My research might be wrong here, but I thought the 2nd amendment was passed in 1791, whereas Mannlicher didn't design the first successful semi-automatic rifle until 1885.

There was also the Kalthoff repeater[0], which is thought to have been used in two conflicts in the mid 1600s, and designed/manufactured around that time. These were demonstrated and documented at least a hundred years before the second amendment was drafted, along with copies and demonstrations of similar mechanisms. The only question might be whether they could be considered "semi-automatic". In that sense I guess they're about as automatic as double-action revolvers.

I think I'm wrong in calling them semi-automatic then, but there is little practical difference between DA revolvers and semi-automatic firearms, except that one has a chamber for each cartridge. The Kalthoff mechanism is a bit more confusing with these definitions, since it uses a single chamber, but has separate magazines for charge and bullet, but reloads, cocks, and fires through a single manual action. I should probably have said self-cocking repeaters.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater