Also in NY it's illegal to make an unserialized firearm. I have no idea what the serialization requirements are there, but what California did was require you report them to DROS.
Also, federally, not legal advice -- but I'm not aware there's any law against selling it. You just can't manufacture it for the purpose of sale or transfer. If it is incidentally sold later it's just like any other firearm without a serial number that's also legal (namely those manufactured commercially before the GCA, or those manufactured non-commercially by private persons after the GCA). I've seen the claim "can't transfer or sell it" over and over on all kind of gun forums etc but no one has ever been able to point where that is blanket illegal.
A large fraction of the harm from firearms comes from their ability to fire rapidly which didn’t exist when the constitution was written. As such it was making a very different balance of risk between the general public and individuals.
One can always expect the "don't thread on me" country to have some of the craziest, most intrusive rules at the most random places.
For example[0]:
> Filburn was penalized under the Act. He argued that the extra wheat that he had produced in violation of the law had been used for his own use and thus had no effect on interstate commerce, since it never had been on the market. In his view, this meant that he had not violated the law because the additional wheat was not subject to regulation under the Commerce Clause.
…
> The Court reasoned that Congress could regulate activity within a single state under the Commerce Clause, even if each individual activity had a trivial effect on interstate commerce, as long as the intrastate activity viewed in the aggregate would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
So don’t assume that just because it never crosses state lines that it escapes federal law, however utterly freaking ridiculous that may be.
> But the answer to misuse isn’t surveillance built into the tool itself. We don’t require table saws to scan wood for weapon shapes. We don’t require lathes to phone home before turning metal. We prosecute people who make illegal things, not people who own tools.
They tend to lean on whether it is reasonable that the Founders might have had access to such a weapon with their technology. Machine gun is just a rifle with automatic rechamber. Not an unreasonable upgrade for 1700s technology. Maybe, I dunno; political people don't have to actually care about the details.
There are limits. And if cases like this made it there they might rule that no Founder was smelting the materials. That they would have had to collaborate, in some "market dictates options" ruling to limit hermits going in a rampage. Also everyone a weapons assembly line in their home is anti-corporate capitalism.
"George Washington understood the value of civic life and sound economics! He would not have tolerated such insular selfishness! He did not make his own weapons! He engaged in trade!"
Not saying it's realistic but politics is not never controlled by people living in reality. Making shit up seems as reasonable as anything.
Very obviously individuals were expected to be part of the militia, which was the military at the time (c.f. the Militia Acts 2 years after ratification requiring individual gun ownership and very clearly laying out that all able-bodied white male citizens aged 18-45 were part of the militia), but also states could regulate weapons if they wanted.
This is largely machine guns and explosives. Pistols, rifles, etc are ordinary weapons in common use*
*NYC authorities may not agree
Basically everything else can be owned with an NFA tax stamp. Nuclear weapons my understanding is the difficulty is more with laws on handling the material than specifically owning one as a weapon, so I'm unsure those are even outright illegal either.
Explosives are actually one of the ones with looser restrictions. Even felons can own and re-instate their explosives rights, because bafflingly when congress de-funded the firearms rights restoration process for felons they forgot to do the one for explosives. Felons can also own and manufacture explosive black powder without scrutiny or paperwork, even ones intended to go in a black powder gun.
"No person, firm or corporation shall sell or deliver any three-dimensional printer in the state of New York unless such printer is equipped with blocking technology," https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2025/S9005
They don't like firearms in the hands of the public.
The goal is to be an indirect ban that's hard to challenge. California has had significant success with strategies such as requiring "microstamping technology" (but it could be anything - it's just a limiting mechanism) in conjunction with an approved handgun roster to limit handgun sales in the state. This is almost certain to be a similar strategy.
Not a firearm.
I didn’t say we could ban compressed air powered guns, I specifically said percussion caps. The Girardoni was way less dangerous than a modern handgun.
There’s a whole community of folks building semi-automatic auto-return triggers that are “technically” semi automatic, but with just a gentle squeeze, fire off another. If you maintain that grip, the return mechanism engages, returning the trigger to firing position, where your pressure causes it to fire again… it’s called a Forced Reset Trigger.
2. As someone else pointed out, early repeating rifles did exist then.
3. If the meaning of the constitution is only to be evaluated against the technology available at the time -- what does that say about the validity of the 1st or 4th amendments with modern technology?
In the 230 intervening years, we've vastly increased the scope of the federal government and developed a formal military, so one might argue we ought to amend the constitution to change exactly what's allowed under 2A (e.g. it should be straightforward to have a nuclear weapons ban added with unanimous agreement), but as it stands, 2A (+14A) clearly gives individuals the right to own the arms necessary to run a functioning ("well-regulated") militia, which in 2026 means at least semi-automatic firearms.
Sawed off shotguns seems arbitrary and that was ultimately my (pre-coffee) point; government is fine with coming up with an arbitrary restriction when they want.
They could outlaw the means of production. Gen pop is not allowed to own that.
My point overall was government is fine with arbitrary exceptions that would get Stan's dad going all "Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was America."
Thrown stones are a fast firing deadly weapon. They, compressed air guns, and ball musket etc aren’t used by modern military forces in combat because they are less dangerous.
A rule that allows compressed air weapons yet bans percussion caps is quite reasonable and could pass constitutional scrutiny.
Banding heavy machine guns yet another invention after the constitution was written didn’t, so there’s clear present this wouldn’t either.
But again, in historical context, the point of the 2A was to permit people to own the most deadly weapons of war that existed at that time.
So are a pile of stones, it’s the degree of risk to the public that matters not some arbitrary classification.
Ignoring differences is degree here isn’t enough to win the argument.
Supreme court rulings are arbitrary as they regularly reverse or update standards, sometimes multiple times.
Where was that part of the decision making process in 1789?
But obviously we don’t have direct knowledge of every conversation.
Saying what arguments are right doesn’t make sense in these contexts only what is the current precedent.
Where? The constitution says neither. It says "Arms"
Regardless, the constitution specifically makes reference to the private ownership of cannons and warships.
> To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Just posted about firearms so many times used the wrong word here.
Both the use of Arms being man portable weapons and militia makes a very clear distinction.
The right to a jury trial is another example of favoring the individual instead of say, the Star Chamber: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber
I don’t think we even disagree per se, but it’s hard to argue the constitution wasn’t written primarily with the thought of what England and how it exercised authority in mind. Individual roadmen and ruffians, let’s say, existed but weren’t existential threats to shape the tone of the new nation’s foundation, were they?
The degree of importance they place on individual factors here is obviously debatable, but they just had two governments fail. England and the articles of confederation didn’t work so there was a larger emphasis on practicality over idealism.
From Heller v. DC:
“Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment. We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
A few years after that ruling, the Massachusetts state supreme court upheld a conviction for a woman who had carried a taser for self defense. The Supreme Court accepted her challenge, allowed it to go forward without paying court costs, and unanimously overturned that ruling without asking for oral arguments ( https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/411/ ):
“The court offered three explanations to support its holding that the Second Amendment does not extend to stun guns. First, the court explained that stun guns are not protected because they ‘were not in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment.’ This is inconsistent with Heller’s clear statement that the Second Amendment ‘extends . . . to . . . arms . . . that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’
“The court next asked whether stun guns are ‘dangerous per se at common law and unusual,’ in an attempt to apply one ‘important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms.’ ... In so doing, the court concluded that stun guns are ‘unusual’ because they are ‘a thoroughly modern invention.’ By equating ‘unusual’ with ‘in common use at the time of the Second Amendment’s enactment,’ the court’s second explanation is the same as the first; it is inconsistent with Heller for the same reason.
“Finally, the court used ‘a contemporary lens’ and found ‘nothing in the record to suggest that [stun guns] are readily adaptable to use in the military.’ But Heller rejected the proposition ‘that only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.’
“For these three reasons, the explanation the Massachusetts court offered for upholding the law contradicts this Court’s precedent.”
The fact that Caetano was a unanimous and thorough ruling says a lot to me. Perhaps you’re holding out hope that Heller will be overturned soon, but the chances for that are very slim ( https://youtu.be/nFTRwD85AQ4 ).
Since, the BATF decided to interpret the prohibition as a thought-crime, enforcing a prohibition making such sales illegal, since like The Shadow, they know what lurks in the hearts of men.
The one transfer which has not yet been tested in the courts to my knowledge is an individual having made firearms, passing away, then leaving them in their will to their heirs....
Obviously there’s a bunch of exceptions, including as you point out the federal option of going through a background check and paying 200$/grenade. But that’s only at the federal level it doesn’t necessarily meet state requirements.
The rules on those background checks are as capricious as banning people who were dishonorably discharged from the military.
Not only did jews have guns, but Polish jews had an entire military and state and that did not protect them.
Because guns do not protect you, other people willing to die for you protect you.
Sure but drivers licenses exist when no similar requirements existed for horse drawn buggies because the clear increase in relative danger to the public. When comparing newspapers with radio, the limited spectrum on radio was accepted as justification for more restricted speech etc.
Really citing when the court ruled one way vs another is less important than recognizing which kinds of arguments tend to resonate with the court as in the end specific cases are arbitrary decisions influenced by the specifics of the case.
“Repeating” here ignores the actual rate of fire of a Kalthoff or the even worse Cookson design. Especially when you consider how slow reloading is vs modern firearms.
How many lives would have been saved at the Las Vegas massacre if Paddock has been limited to these designs? I’d say 30 is a safe bet but that’s probably a low estimate.
State laws are another matter entirely, but even many states with stringent gun laws don't ban DDs specifically (probably because many lawmakers are not aware that such things are legal).
As for the background checks, I own over a dozen NFA-regulated items including a destructive device (a 40mm grenade launcher), and I can't say that the rules aren't really any more onerous than they are for regular firearms. This particular bit about "banning people who were dishonorably discharged from the military" applies equally to any firearm transfer under federal jurisdiction, for example (e.g. buying across state lines, or within states that mandate a federal check for anything). As I recall, the only thing that stood out in NFA forms compared to the regular stuff was the need to submit fingerprints. That aside, it was smooth sailing even back when I wasn't a citizen. So really the only barrier is affordability, and AFAIK this is exactly how the NFA was intended to work back when it was designed ($200 was about 4x the price of a full auto gun like Thompson back then, so it basically made them outlandishly expensive, only available to the rich).
A far looser restriction.
> doing the associated paperwork for the feds.
That implies that it’s guaranteed you will pass, which is false.
That said, the ability for some states to totally ban ownership outside of military or police rests on them not receiving constitutional protection.