Reply #22: Civilian-legal small arms have changed a LOT less [View All]

than the technology affected by the First and Fourth Amendments. If NFA Title 2 restricted arms were freely available to civilians (automatic weapons, military AK-47's, grenades, whatever) you might have more of a point, but the fact is they're not.

If I could go back in time, I could hand George Washington my civilian AK lookalike, give him 60 seconds of explanation, and he could not only understand it, but use it competently with no further instruction. It's capabilities are not THAT far beyond the rifles available in 1791, and the technology it represents is only a short jump from that era (you could have made one in 1840 or so had anyone though of it).

But could you have explained podcasting to George Washington? The Internet? Broadcast television? email? Could he have understood and used a PC with 60 seconds worth of instruction? Does that mean the First Amendment only applies to quill pens, hand-cranked presses, and face-to-face speech?

The Patriot Act types are constantly saying that the technology available to criminals/terrorists makes the Fourth Amendment obsolete, often invoking the nuclear terrorist bogeyman. If you are going to try to revoke the 2ndA based on the relatively small advancements in technology that have occurred in civilian firearms since 1791--most of which occurred before 1860, never mind 1930--then you place yourself on a slippery slope indeed, because the 1st and 4th Amendments are FAR more vulnerable to that kind of argument than the 2ndA is.