The problem with specific patents is they're specific. This is great for innovation, because it means that the patentor can't sue to stop competitors, but it means the patentor can't sue to stop competitors.
As for Apple's patent's validity, you don;t have to like that design patents exist, you don't have to agree with the patent office for issuing them, but you do have to acknowledge that they DO EXIST and they HAVE BEEN ISSUED, which means they can be violated.
In practical terms it is not. Especially in a country the size of the US.
It's possible that most people in a County could go crazy anti-freedom at a time. In fact it's quite common for that to happen. State-wide is rarer, multiple states is very rare, but nationally? Getting a majority of people in every state to all agree "hey we should totally oppress these guys" at once just doesn't happen very often.
Protecting freedom is a lot more complicated then simply limiting Federal power, because a limited Federal government can't stop the Sheriff of Jackass County from giving the local Synagogue a hard time just because 1,500 of the 2,500 people who voted in the local Sheriff's race decided Judenfrei was the way to go. Yeah in theory a state government could intervene (all County-level officials are technically empowered by their states), but in practice the US Army is a lot more dependable.
At a very fundamental level Libertarians really, really, really do not get this. Therefore the most of them basically ignored the Trayvon Martin incident, or support the shooter because he's a gun guy and they like self-defense; despite the fact that it had troubling parallels with the rise of Jim Crow.
Your argument would make a lot more sense to me if it was based on the reality of what actually happens in free countries, as opposed to basing it solely on theories Thomas Jefferson believed would apply to free countries decades before any actual "free countries" existed. And in numerous free countries there are strong restrictions on corporate speech and no gulags.
But I'll humor you because reality does not seem to matter to you.
First off as a newspaper you were fine before Citizens United. Your Editor had free speech rights. Which you already knew, but you chose to ignore because it made you sound bad.
Secondly as a corporation you gain numerous rights that you did not have before. Rights to specific forms of contract, special tax treatment, etc. Why in the world would you think that you could GAIN all those rights without GIVING something up in exchange?
This is what is so wrong with the US. Corporations were originally granted limited liability for investors in return for limited rights.
Corporations were not "granted" to anybody and certainly not in exchange for anything.
Corporate organization is done at the state level. Each state has different laws (though they typically have to accept 'foreign' entities, e.g. companies/corps from other states, if they want to do business in their state).
The federal government did not have some secret corporation power that it decided to bestow on people in exchange for something. States enabled people to form companies and corporations to further commerce. If everybody were personally liable for everything their company did (as opposed to, perhaps, limited/i> liability), nobody would run companies.
You're missing a lot of history here.
Originally a Corporate Charter was granted by the King for a very, very, very specific purpose. The East India Company, the 108 "Livery Companies" of London, etc. are examples. This tradition actually predates the existence of any English-speaking government in the Americas, and certainly has nothing to do with modern US states.
Since these groups were granted charters for specific policy reasons (ie: Richard II wants to regulate merchants in London, and as a feudal lord cannot just tell them what to do), which granted specific political rights (full members of the Worshipful Company of Mercers got to vote for Lord Mayor of London), economic rights (you couldn't sell things in London if you weren't in the company), in exchange for specific concessions (Mercers had to obey the rules of the Charter).
Early in the days of the Republic this was still the norm. Early canals and railroads, for example, were usually chartered by Acts of their state legislatures. While these were more flexible then early corporations, they were not anywhere near as flexible as modern companies. The Erie Canal Corporation, for example, could not have sold the actual Canal to another corporation and used the money to open a Bank. They could have sold their shares to another group of shareholders, and used the money to open a Bank; but they couldn't have used the Canal company for that purpose. In many ways it was more like a private-public-partnership between the State of New York and the shareholders then a modern corporation.
Nowadays every state has a bevy of corporate options. You pick one simply by filing a form. Your state government can't force you to do what you said you'd do when you started the company. They don't know whether you follow your by-laws unless somebody sues. It's a lot more flexible.
As a white boy I'm allowed to use the term white boy. It's the only term I am allowed to use solely due to my race, therefore I use it liberally. Therefore the only possible racist element of my post was that I assumed the OP's race from the content of his post. Considering that you just did that (by assuming that, as a non-white, it is racist for me to use the phrase "white boy") you just called yourself racist. Congratulations. I have said some stupid shit on the internet, but I've never proved myself racist. I now have a challenge to work towards.
As for your criticisms of my argument, it is rather difficult to address them if you don't say them. I mean I could just take your word for it that the Federal government did not end the oppression of every black person in the United States by their neighbors twice, but given the whole reality thing I ain't gonna do that.
Considering that the OP called US law "odd Constitutional fetishism" it is 100% relevant that other countries do it differently. That's prima facia evidence that US Constitutional fetishism is, indeed, odd.
Moreover your defense of said fetishism is based on the idea that without it all kinds of crazy shit, presumably mostly anti-freedom crazy shit, would happen. It is trivial to find examples of countries that don;t have this particular fetish yet remain politically stable.
Standardization of weapons depends on the period. It wasn't really bothered with until after the Whiskey Rebellion, when the Mass Militia turned out to be a) armed with a mish-mash of craptacular weapons or b) rebels. After that there was a specific caliber ("18 gauge, or.673" diameter" according to another guy on this thread, but they are in the 1792 Militia regs) of weapon everyone was supposed to have.
Check out State Defense Forces. Most of them aren't armed, and they typically have noncombat roles (Texas runs Hurricane shelters, for example), but if serving your community in a paramilitary setting appeals to you they might be a good fit.
Can you imagine what would happen if one of these printers existed in a town Joseph Kony could raid?
Heck, the Congo war involved militias armed with bows.
Gun-rights guys have a point when they say gun laws don't affect American crime much, but there's this whole world full of people who aren't American, yet still have human rights, and you enjoying the ability to print your own gun means an awful lot of them will get raped the next time Kabila offers sanctuary to a bunch of Hutus, and Rwanda has to invade...
I'm not too worried about the US, here. But imagine if all a Mexican cartel had to do to have an untraceable gun was spend $1,500 on a printer and supplies. Hell Al Qaeda in the Meghreb could use this technique to murder thousands and it would never appear on the news.
Even if you lived in area with violent crime your calculation would probably be the same.
The thing gun-nuts forget is the bad guy chooses the time of engagement. As an armed man you have a chance at killing him, but that chance is 50-50 at best because he's not gonna pull out his weapon if the situation would allow you to react. And if he doesn't pull out his weapon how you gonna know to pull out yours?
Meanwhile you've had a loaded weapon on your person for years, which means you've had literally thousands of chances to pull a Plexico Burres, and your kids have had thousands of chances to shoot each-other.
I've lived in tough areas. I've been stuck up. I had the computer I am typing this on ripped from my hands, and I managed to get it back. But I have never been in a situation where I thought "Geeze, if only I'd had a firearm" as I was filing the police report.
Many people who get guns do not need them. You are an exception.
Do not get a Makerbot gun, tho. I suspect you need something with a tough frame, which won't care that it's been dropped on hard rock, and Makerbot plastic ain't that tough.
Government itself holds Monopoly on Violence. Your statement is null, Government IS violence, and ignoring that aspect is plainly stupid.
White people are so god-damned naive.
The main threat to freedom is never the government. It's your neighbors.
Slavery? Done by your neighbors, to your other neighbors. Stopped by the Feds. Particularly one jack-booted thug named Bill Sherman.
The imposition of Jim Crow? Done by your neighbors (you think the KKK appeared from thin air?), to your other neighbors. Stopped by the US Army.
The conquest of the Indians? Done by the government but a) the Indians weren't citizens, and b) the government was usually protecting some of your neighbors, who'd decided to set up shop in land that they technically didn't own. After the conquests the Army was typically very good at protesting when whites violated the various treaties, because that is their job.
The Holocaust? Done by the government, but preceded by a period in which the Brownshirts (aka: a local militia, made up of the neighbors or ordinary Germans, and having nothing to do with the government), fought vicious street-fights with similar Communist militias. When they got control of the government they did not immediately start murdering people. They had a Constitution they followed. There was a whole period where they were private citizens leading riots, rather then jack-booted thugs with orders from Berlin.
Communism? You think the Red Army was officially commissioned by the Czar, and only then did it dare to oppress anyone? Hell no. It was ordinary, working Russians who killed anyone who thought that murdering the Czar was abad idea.
And what soldier do you expect is going to obey the orders to nuke or smart-bomb NYC, for example? I think police would be a bigger problem than the military in such a situation -- not that they don't have some damn large weaponry of their own. But hell, look at the recent situations in the Middle East if you have any doubt of that...specifically Egypt.
Historically the more Federal a government employee is the less likely he to oppress people. What happens is simple: when some crackpot convinces Tinyass County that [insert group] needs to be oppressed the Sheriff and local cops go along with it, because their job is to enact the will of Tinyass County. The Feds will be called upon to protect [insert group], and if the crackpot only owns Tinyass and the Federal government is controlled by people who don't care for State's Rights the oppression stops. OTOH if Tinyass Oppressors have the Feds, or the Feds are dominated by the State's Rights/pro-gun crowd, then everyone from [Insert group] is extremely fucked.
This is why no black militia unit was able to prevent the imposition of Jim Crow, but Federal troops ignoring the protests of State Rights/pro-gun people were.
That is a myth. The Chinese were making weapons that used gunpowder centuries before the Europeans figured it out. In fact, at one point in the 17th century Japan was the largest manufacturer of firearms in the world, but it was curtailed by the Shogunate for fear it would destabilize the country? That is until Commodore Perry shot some cannons in Tokyo Bay.
Their problem was that the Europeans of the day were improving things at an unprecedented rate, so that the smelly hairy barbarians actually had the most advanced weapons in the world by 1600ish. By 1750 virtually no non-European state could defend itself militarily against Europeans who really wanted to conquer it. It just took the Euros awhile to realize "Hey, we could own everything..."
This would seem pretty obvious to anybody who has rockets and is oppressed. The next obvious step is to fire it through a length of hollowed bamboo to give it aim. Then to separate the charge from the payload (as many aerial fireworks do).
Why would you think using a hollow tube would "give it aim?" Wouldn't it just act like a rocket with it's nozzle plugged and blow everyone up?
Many ancient ideas are like that. In hindsight steam engines as a power source are obvious, etc. But IRL the ancient Greeks had toys powered by steam engines, and nobody thought of using them as anything but toys for roughly 1500 years. The wheel is another "well duh" idea today, but nobody this side of the pond thought of them. In the old world the tech is 6000-6500 years old, which means that for 2,000-2,500 years we were capable of understanding agriculture but not making a wheel.
Did you happen to see the clause where it even allows for private ownership or guns in the first place that don't have any connection to a well-regulated militia?
Well-regulated == properly functioning
militia == armed force of regular civilians, not employed by the government (such as cops and soldiers)
Essentially, every private citizen is a member of their respective state militia, and thus is allowed private armament ownership.
And how is a militia supposed to function as a unit if Captain Black's company only practices volley-fire, and stands in ranks six men deep; whereas Captain Johnson's company only fires by file and stands in ranks three men deep?
Answer: It isn't.
Therefore Congress passes regulations forcing both Captain Black and Captain Johnson to fight the same way.
Note that by imagining a total separation between state and federal functions you are confusing yourself. That's pretty much your entire problem. The founders set up a system which gave the states a role in regulating a Federal Army. As a result during the Civil War Abe Lincoln appointed all officers above the rank of Colonel, but local state-governors appointed officers below that rank. The draft was overseen by states. There were moves away from this system, particularly in the cases of black troops (who usually served as "United States Colored Troops," in regiments officered by Federal appointees); but it's still the case that a National Guard Officer has one set of commission papers signed by the President, and another set signed by the Governor, and the state's top NG officer is still a state official. South Carolina actually elects the Maj. Gen. who runs their national guard, but most everywhere else he's a political appointee.
The Confederate side, which was more states-rights then the US Army; included other examples. Louisiana had an entire black regiment (the "Louisiana Native Guard") that they had to disband because the Confederate Congress passed a regulation banning blacks from state militias. Louisiana obediently amended it's regulations to exclude those guys, and none of them saw action until the Feds revived the unit in the US Colored Troops. Tennessee also threw men out of it's militia due to that particular regulation.
It was a system of shared sovereignty, with legal pre-eminence going to the Feds largely because Massachusetts state-regulated militia had royally screwed President Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion. The idea was the Federal legal superiority would give us a military capable of fighting off the Brits at low cost (and thus low taxes), while state control of most day-to-day operations would allow the states to keep their militia's loyalty in war-time.
And who determines what drill they use? Do they adopt Gustavus Adolphus's drill of the early 17th century, or current Federal Army procedures?
The answer is Congress, whose enumerated powers include passing militia regulations.
The reason they would have considered this pro-gun freedom, even tho it meant they had to spend one weekend a month doing exactly what Congress said; is that if they ever decided to tell Congress to fuck itself Congress would have no practical ability to stop them. Remember these were people who'd just gotten rid of one set of laws by doing things completely illegal under those laws (namely: shooting at the King's Army). They were convinced they might have to do the same to DC. Therefore they gave DC the power to have an Army they thought could beat the Brits, but they restricted DC's power over that Army by ensuring there was a counter-balance.
In general I agree with you, but in the late 18th quite a few battles were won with only personal firearms. Saratoga in the Revolution, for example. Artillery wasn't common (even Sherman's troops only had one cannon per 1,000 rifle-armed troops), and things like tanks had not been invented.
Obviously today anyone claiming he'll resist the Feds with a gun collection is an idiot. Rockets are worthless, too. Very easy to back-trace so you only get one shot off. And it's hard to learn to aim those things. IEDs could do the job, but there's no Constitutional right for explosives.
You have read the law, but failed to understand it.
As an official in the Organized Militia of a state who can be called into Federal Service the local militia captain is a Federal official. His job is regulated by Congress in the enumerated powers.
As the guy responsible for ensuring every able-bodied man in your Company shows up, with a gun, to fight the British, you know who has what. You may have records (and, as several people have pointed out; most states would not appoint you a Captain in their Militia if you did not keep such records), but you definitely know whether Sam Brown has a Shotgun or he has a Musket.
So this isn't something formally called "National Register of Firearms," but if Thomas Jefferson wanted to know whether any individual in the country had a gun, and what kind, he could have found that information out at literally any time.
You know the most interesting element of this argument?
It ignores the entire history of every non-American country.
The UK has no formal Constitution. It's "Constitution" consists of unwritten customs everyone periodically decides to amend, and Parliamentary Acts that can be amended by simple majority in Parliament. Canada's Constitution is very light on the details that make up most of our Constitution. The phrase "government in the British style" is the only clue that they have a Prime Minister. Yet neither country experiences frequent Constitutional re-arrangments due to fad. Until the 80s the Canadians had no Bill of Rights, yet they still managed to be a free country.
What seems to happen in non-American countries when they adopt our rigorous, fully explained Constitutions is that they flip between legalistic formalism and outright dictatorship. In fact in many countries adopting US Constitutional formalism is precisely the clue that the great leader a) wants to be a dictator and b) has enough troops to pull it off.
I'd have a lot more respect for your argument if I thought there was any chance whatsoever you would accept the kind of restrictions on your firearms militiamen did.
For example it was illegal to own a non-standard firearm. It was illegal to say "I like my weekends" and not appear at drill. If one had multiple firearms one was required to take them all to drill and give the extra to poor neighbors. You were not compensated for any of this.
Note that for this to work there was an actual Federal Official who inspected your entire gun collection every year. Your weapon may not have had a serial number on it, but it was registered.
The Constitution's weapon requirements worked OK for a few decades. Then the British started impressing our seamen, some Jingoistic southerners noticed most of Canada had been born in America (Jefferson literally said conquering canada would be "a mere matter of marching").
Then our militias met Canadian militias in battle, and got their asses kicked (turns out you don't move to Canada if you hate the King). The British counter-assault kicked the ass of every militia we sent against it, so DC got burned.
You do realize that George Washington not only required every gun to be registered, he also had a guy in every county in the country who would physically inspect your weapon and write down how serviceable it was?
At the time the country was defended by militias who used their own guns, or the guns of their neighbors, so the local militia officers had to know that Bob Jenkins whose farm is by the creek has two muskets suitable for militia service, but his neighbor John Thompson is too poor to afford one. Therefore when the Indians and/or British attack the County Bob has to come to the militia drill ground with both muskets.
If you substitute "happy customer" with "growing his ego, personal fortune, and celebrity status" then I would agree. I do not buy that he devoted his lived to making strangers happy when he was notorious for not caring about others, like you yourself claimed.
When your entire business is taking ideas from Academia and under-capitalized companies, re-packaging them for the mass consumer market, and selling the hell out of it there isn't a lot of practical difference between what you said ("growing his ego, increasing his celebrity, getting rich") and what I said ("happy consumers").
And that's what Steve Jobs did. He wasn't nice about it, in fact he was frequently a major jackass, but the claim that he isn't letting consumers like Bruce Willie mention their iTunes music collections in their wills out of pure spite is just silly. He didn't do it because the RIAA didn't want it done, he needed them to get his iTunes store off the ground, and consumers didn't really demand that right.
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The problem with specific patents is they're specific. This is great for innovation, because it means that the patentor can't sue to stop competitors, but it means the patentor can't sue to stop competitors.
As for Apple's patent's validity, you don;t have to like that design patents exist, you don't have to agree with the patent office for issuing them, but you do have to acknowledge that they DO EXIST and they HAVE BEEN ISSUED, which means they can be violated.
Logically this is true.
In practical terms it is not. Especially in a country the size of the US.
It's possible that most people in a County could go crazy anti-freedom at a time. In fact it's quite common for that to happen. State-wide is rarer, multiple states is very rare, but nationally? Getting a majority of people in every state to all agree "hey we should totally oppress these guys" at once just doesn't happen very often.
Protecting freedom is a lot more complicated then simply limiting Federal power, because a limited Federal government can't stop the Sheriff of Jackass County from giving the local Synagogue a hard time just because 1,500 of the 2,500 people who voted in the local Sheriff's race decided Judenfrei was the way to go. Yeah in theory a state government could intervene (all County-level officials are technically empowered by their states), but in practice the US Army is a lot more dependable.
At a very fundamental level Libertarians really, really, really do not get this. Therefore the most of them basically ignored the Trayvon Martin incident, or support the shooter because he's a gun guy and they like self-defense; despite the fact that it had troubling parallels with the rise of Jim Crow.
Your argument would make a lot more sense to me if it was based on the reality of what actually happens in free countries, as opposed to basing it solely on theories Thomas Jefferson believed would apply to free countries decades before any actual "free countries" existed. And in numerous free countries there are strong restrictions on corporate speech and no gulags.
But I'll humor you because reality does not seem to matter to you.
First off as a newspaper you were fine before Citizens United. Your Editor had free speech rights. Which you already knew, but you chose to ignore because it made you sound bad.
Secondly as a corporation you gain numerous rights that you did not have before. Rights to specific forms of contract, special tax treatment, etc. Why in the world would you think that you could GAIN all those rights without GIVING something up in exchange?
This is what is so wrong with the US. Corporations were originally granted limited liability for investors in return for limited rights.
Corporations were not "granted" to anybody and certainly not in exchange for anything.
Corporate organization is done at the state level. Each state has different laws (though they typically have to accept 'foreign' entities, e.g. companies/corps from other states, if they want to do business in their state).
The federal government did not have some secret corporation power that it decided to bestow on people in exchange for something. States enabled people to form companies and corporations to further commerce. If everybody were personally liable for everything their company did (as opposed to, perhaps, limited/i> liability), nobody would run companies.
You're missing a lot of history here.
Originally a Corporate Charter was granted by the King for a very, very, very specific purpose. The East India Company, the 108 "Livery Companies" of London, etc. are examples. This tradition actually predates the existence of any English-speaking government in the Americas, and certainly has nothing to do with modern US states.
Since these groups were granted charters for specific policy reasons (ie: Richard II wants to regulate merchants in London, and as a feudal lord cannot just tell them what to do), which granted specific political rights (full members of the Worshipful Company of Mercers got to vote for Lord Mayor of London), economic rights (you couldn't sell things in London if you weren't in the company), in exchange for specific concessions (Mercers had to obey the rules of the Charter).
Early in the days of the Republic this was still the norm. Early canals and railroads, for example, were usually chartered by Acts of their state legislatures. While these were more flexible then early corporations, they were not anywhere near as flexible as modern companies. The Erie Canal Corporation, for example, could not have sold the actual Canal to another corporation and used the money to open a Bank. They could have sold their shares to another group of shareholders, and used the money to open a Bank; but they couldn't have used the Canal company for that purpose. In many ways it was more like a private-public-partnership between the State of New York and the shareholders then a modern corporation.
Nowadays every state has a bevy of corporate options. You pick one simply by filing a form. Your state government can't force you to do what you said you'd do when you started the company. They don't know whether you follow your by-laws unless somebody sues. It's a lot more flexible.
As a white boy I'm allowed to use the term white boy. It's the only term I am allowed to use solely due to my race, therefore I use it liberally. Therefore the only possible racist element of my post was that I assumed the OP's race from the content of his post. Considering that you just did that (by assuming that, as a non-white, it is racist for me to use the phrase "white boy") you just called yourself racist. Congratulations. I have said some stupid shit on the internet, but I've never proved myself racist. I now have a challenge to work towards.
As for your criticisms of my argument, it is rather difficult to address them if you don't say them. I mean I could just take your word for it that the Federal government did not end the oppression of every black person in the United States by their neighbors twice, but given the whole reality thing I ain't gonna do that.
Considering that the OP called US law "odd Constitutional fetishism" it is 100% relevant that other countries do it differently. That's prima facia evidence that US Constitutional fetishism is, indeed, odd.
Moreover your defense of said fetishism is based on the idea that without it all kinds of crazy shit, presumably mostly anti-freedom crazy shit, would happen. It is trivial to find examples of countries that don;t have this particular fetish yet remain politically stable.
Standardization of weapons depends on the period. It wasn't really bothered with until after the Whiskey Rebellion, when the Mass Militia turned out to be a) armed with a mish-mash of craptacular weapons or b) rebels. After that there was a specific caliber ("18 gauge, or .673" diameter" according to another guy on this thread, but they are in the 1792 Militia regs) of weapon everyone was supposed to have.
Check out State Defense Forces. Most of them aren't armed, and they typically have noncombat roles (Texas runs Hurricane shelters, for example), but if serving your community in a paramilitary setting appeals to you they might be a good fit.
That's my worry.
Can you imagine what would happen if one of these printers existed in a town Joseph Kony could raid?
Heck, the Congo war involved militias armed with bows.
Gun-rights guys have a point when they say gun laws don't affect American crime much, but there's this whole world full of people who aren't American, yet still have human rights, and you enjoying the ability to print your own gun means an awful lot of them will get raped the next time Kabila offers sanctuary to a bunch of Hutus, and Rwanda has to invade...
You're probably right.
But that would be a lot cool then saying "yeah, I made this myself."
And it also does not give you the opportunity to wax poetic about how pro-freedom you are for standing up for the Second Amendment.
What about drug lords?
I'm not too worried about the US, here. But imagine if all a Mexican cartel had to do to have an untraceable gun was spend $1,500 on a printer and supplies. Hell Al Qaeda in the Meghreb could use this technique to murder thousands and it would never appear on the news.
Even if you lived in area with violent crime your calculation would probably be the same.
The thing gun-nuts forget is the bad guy chooses the time of engagement. As an armed man you have a chance at killing him, but that chance is 50-50 at best because he's not gonna pull out his weapon if the situation would allow you to react. And if he doesn't pull out his weapon how you gonna know to pull out yours?
Meanwhile you've had a loaded weapon on your person for years, which means you've had literally thousands of chances to pull a Plexico Burres, and your kids have had thousands of chances to shoot each-other.
I've lived in tough areas. I've been stuck up. I had the computer I am typing this on ripped from my hands, and I managed to get it back. But I have never been in a situation where I thought "Geeze, if only I'd had a firearm" as I was filing the police report.
Many people who get guns do not need them. You are an exception.
Do not get a Makerbot gun, tho. I suspect you need something with a tough frame, which won't care that it's been dropped on hard rock, and Makerbot plastic ain't that tough.
Government itself holds Monopoly on Violence. Your statement is null, Government IS violence, and ignoring that aspect is plainly stupid.
White people are so god-damned naive.
The main threat to freedom is never the government. It's your neighbors.
Slavery? Done by your neighbors, to your other neighbors. Stopped by the Feds. Particularly one jack-booted thug named Bill Sherman.
The imposition of Jim Crow? Done by your neighbors (you think the KKK appeared from thin air?), to your other neighbors. Stopped by the US Army.
The conquest of the Indians? Done by the government but a) the Indians weren't citizens, and b) the government was usually protecting some of your neighbors, who'd decided to set up shop in land that they technically didn't own. After the conquests the Army was typically very good at protesting when whites violated the various treaties, because that is their job.
The Holocaust? Done by the government, but preceded by a period in which the Brownshirts (aka: a local militia, made up of the neighbors or ordinary Germans, and having nothing to do with the government), fought vicious street-fights with similar Communist militias. When they got control of the government they did not immediately start murdering people. They had a Constitution they followed. There was a whole period where they were private citizens leading riots, rather then jack-booted thugs with orders from Berlin.
Communism? You think the Red Army was officially commissioned by the Czar, and only then did it dare to oppress anyone? Hell no. It was ordinary, working Russians who killed anyone who thought that murdering the Czar was abad idea.
And what soldier do you expect is going to obey the orders to nuke or smart-bomb NYC, for example? I think police would be a bigger problem than the military in such a situation -- not that they don't have some damn large weaponry of their own. But hell, look at the recent situations in the Middle East if you have any doubt of that...specifically Egypt.
Historically the more Federal a government employee is the less likely he to oppress people. What happens is simple: when some crackpot convinces Tinyass County that [insert group] needs to be oppressed the Sheriff and local cops go along with it, because their job is to enact the will of Tinyass County. The Feds will be called upon to protect [insert group], and if the crackpot only owns Tinyass and the Federal government is controlled by people who don't care for State's Rights the oppression stops. OTOH if Tinyass Oppressors have the Feds, or the Feds are dominated by the State's Rights/pro-gun crowd, then everyone from [Insert group] is extremely fucked.
This is why no black militia unit was able to prevent the imposition of Jim Crow, but Federal troops ignoring the protests of State Rights/pro-gun people were.
That is a myth. The Chinese were making weapons that used gunpowder centuries before the Europeans figured it out. In fact, at one point in the 17th century Japan was the largest manufacturer of firearms in the world, but it was curtailed by the Shogunate for fear it would destabilize the country? That is until Commodore Perry shot some cannons in Tokyo Bay.
Their problem was that the Europeans of the day were improving things at an unprecedented rate, so that the smelly hairy barbarians actually had the most advanced weapons in the world by 1600ish. By 1750 virtually no non-European state could defend itself militarily against Europeans who really wanted to conquer it. It just took the Euros awhile to realize "Hey, we could own everything..."
This would seem pretty obvious to anybody who has rockets and is oppressed. The next obvious step is to fire it through a length of hollowed bamboo to give it aim. Then to separate the charge from the payload (as many aerial fireworks do).
Why would you think using a hollow tube would "give it aim?" Wouldn't it just act like a rocket with it's nozzle plugged and blow everyone up?
Many ancient ideas are like that. In hindsight steam engines as a power source are obvious, etc. But IRL the ancient Greeks had toys powered by steam engines, and nobody thought of using them as anything but toys for roughly 1500 years. The wheel is another "well duh" idea today, but nobody this side of the pond thought of them. In the old world the tech is 6000-6500 years old, which means that for 2,000-2,500 years we were capable of understanding agriculture but not making a wheel.
Did you happen to see the clause where it even allows for private ownership or guns in the first place that don't have any connection to a well-regulated militia?
Well-regulated == properly functioning
militia == armed force of regular civilians, not employed by the government (such as cops and soldiers)
Essentially, every private citizen is a member of their respective state militia, and thus is allowed private armament ownership.
And how is a militia supposed to function as a unit if Captain Black's company only practices volley-fire, and stands in ranks six men deep; whereas Captain Johnson's company only fires by file and stands in ranks three men deep?
Answer: It isn't.
Therefore Congress passes regulations forcing both Captain Black and Captain Johnson to fight the same way.
Note that by imagining a total separation between state and federal functions you are confusing yourself. That's pretty much your entire problem. The founders set up a system which gave the states a role in regulating a Federal Army. As a result during the Civil War Abe Lincoln appointed all officers above the rank of Colonel, but local state-governors appointed officers below that rank. The draft was overseen by states. There were moves away from this system, particularly in the cases of black troops (who usually served as "United States Colored Troops," in regiments officered by Federal appointees); but it's still the case that a National Guard Officer has one set of commission papers signed by the President, and another set signed by the Governor, and the state's top NG officer is still a state official. South Carolina actually elects the Maj. Gen. who runs their national guard, but most everywhere else he's a political appointee.
The Confederate side, which was more states-rights then the US Army; included other examples. Louisiana had an entire black regiment (the "Louisiana Native Guard") that they had to disband because the Confederate Congress passed a regulation banning blacks from state militias. Louisiana obediently amended it's regulations to exclude those guys, and none of them saw action until the Feds revived the unit in the US Colored Troops. Tennessee also threw men out of it's militia due to that particular regulation.
It was a system of shared sovereignty, with legal pre-eminence going to the Feds largely because Massachusetts state-regulated militia had royally screwed President Washington during the Whiskey Rebellion. The idea was the Federal legal superiority would give us a military capable of fighting off the Brits at low cost (and thus low taxes), while state control of most day-to-day operations would allow the states to keep their militia's loyalty in war-time.
And who determines what drill they use? Do they adopt Gustavus Adolphus's drill of the early 17th century, or current Federal Army procedures?
The answer is Congress, whose enumerated powers include passing militia regulations.
The reason they would have considered this pro-gun freedom, even tho it meant they had to spend one weekend a month doing exactly what Congress said; is that if they ever decided to tell Congress to fuck itself Congress would have no practical ability to stop them. Remember these were people who'd just gotten rid of one set of laws by doing things completely illegal under those laws (namely: shooting at the King's Army). They were convinced they might have to do the same to DC. Therefore they gave DC the power to have an Army they thought could beat the Brits, but they restricted DC's power over that Army by ensuring there was a counter-balance.
In general I agree with you, but in the late 18th quite a few battles were won with only personal firearms. Saratoga in the Revolution, for example. Artillery wasn't common (even Sherman's troops only had one cannon per 1,000 rifle-armed troops), and things like tanks had not been invented.
Obviously today anyone claiming he'll resist the Feds with a gun collection is an idiot. Rockets are worthless, too. Very easy to back-trace so you only get one shot off. And it's hard to learn to aim those things. IEDs could do the job, but there's no Constitutional right for explosives.
You have read the law, but failed to understand it.
As an official in the Organized Militia of a state who can be called into Federal Service the local militia captain is a Federal official. His job is regulated by Congress in the enumerated powers.
As the guy responsible for ensuring every able-bodied man in your Company shows up, with a gun, to fight the British, you know who has what. You may have records (and, as several people have pointed out; most states would not appoint you a Captain in their Militia if you did not keep such records), but you definitely know whether Sam Brown has a Shotgun or he has a Musket.
So this isn't something formally called "National Register of Firearms," but if Thomas Jefferson wanted to know whether any individual in the country had a gun, and what kind, he could have found that information out at literally any time.
You know the most interesting element of this argument?
It ignores the entire history of every non-American country.
The UK has no formal Constitution. It's "Constitution" consists of unwritten customs everyone periodically decides to amend, and Parliamentary Acts that can be amended by simple majority in Parliament. Canada's Constitution is very light on the details that make up most of our Constitution. The phrase "government in the British style" is the only clue that they have a Prime Minister. Yet neither country experiences frequent Constitutional re-arrangments due to fad. Until the 80s the Canadians had no Bill of Rights, yet they still managed to be a free country.
What seems to happen in non-American countries when they adopt our rigorous, fully explained Constitutions is that they flip between legalistic formalism and outright dictatorship. In fact in many countries adopting US Constitutional formalism is precisely the clue that the great leader a) wants to be a dictator and b) has enough troops to pull it off.
I'd have a lot more respect for your argument if I thought there was any chance whatsoever you would accept the kind of restrictions on your firearms militiamen did.
For example it was illegal to own a non-standard firearm. It was illegal to say "I like my weekends" and not appear at drill. If one had multiple firearms one was required to take them all to drill and give the extra to poor neighbors. You were not compensated for any of this.
Note that for this to work there was an actual Federal Official who inspected your entire gun collection every year. Your weapon may not have had a serial number on it, but it was registered.
The Constitution's weapon requirements worked OK for a few decades. Then the British started impressing our seamen, some Jingoistic southerners noticed most of Canada had been born in America (Jefferson literally said conquering canada would be "a mere matter of marching").
Then our militias met Canadian militias in battle, and got their asses kicked (turns out you don't move to Canada if you hate the King). The British counter-assault kicked the ass of every militia we sent against it, so DC got burned.
You do realize that George Washington not only required every gun to be registered, he also had a guy in every county in the country who would physically inspect your weapon and write down how serviceable it was?
At the time the country was defended by militias who used their own guns, or the guns of their neighbors, so the local militia officers had to know that Bob Jenkins whose farm is by the creek has two muskets suitable for militia service, but his neighbor John Thompson is too poor to afford one. Therefore when the Indians and/or British attack the County Bob has to come to the militia drill ground with both muskets.
If you substitute "happy customer" with "growing his ego, personal fortune, and celebrity status" then I would agree.
I do not buy that he devoted his lived to making strangers happy when he was notorious for not caring about others, like you yourself claimed.
When your entire business is taking ideas from Academia and under-capitalized companies, re-packaging them for the mass consumer market, and selling the hell out of it there isn't a lot of practical difference between what you said ("growing his ego, increasing his celebrity, getting rich") and what I said ("happy consumers").
And that's what Steve Jobs did. He wasn't nice about it, in fact he was frequently a major jackass, but the claim that he isn't letting consumers like Bruce Willie mention their iTunes music collections in their wills out of pure spite is just silly. He didn't do it because the RIAA didn't want it done, he needed them to get his iTunes store off the ground, and consumers didn't really demand that right.