People should be allowed to own anything short of weapons of mass destruction. If the person is rational, that person would have a rational reason for ownership; if that person is irrational there is likely no way to keep that person from ownership of an irrational object. Any time anything is banned, all that happens is that a black market springs up, providing the banned object to the public at an overpriced state. Evidence of that is legion, from liquor to porno, to automatic weapons.

these are O's disputing this fact. I have no proof to offer regarding Colonies and cannons on land protecting land. There are ample examples of privateers on the ocean with cannon. I guess it is a small thing to remove a cannon from the ship to mount on a movable base. There were two armories that were pre-revolutionary time. One in Mass, the other in RI. Basically, the governor of the Provence appointed people to a militia. later the British govt paid to train people from the armories in use of weaponry. but I couldn't get any facts on whether the militia itself was private.

This is a legal question: how the government should be structured and how citizens are expected to respond to rights violations.

The principle here is that the law puts the use of force under objective oversight. This could amount to nothing more than that any private use of force must submit to after-action adjudication by the courts.

what about nukes? Am I putting my neighbors at risk owning something that requires a huge amount of infrastructure and safety precautions? have I destroyed their property values? Is there a difference between an individual and a company. Are nuclear power plants owned privately or all of them govt owned and operated? I don't know the answer to this

this quote of Rand's (which I do not want to take out of context) "The use of physical force--even its retaliatory use--cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens." and the 2nd Amendment

Exactly.

If you seriously try to kill someone you can do so with no weapons beyond what you were born with.

What you use to do the killing is less meaningful than the desire to do so and initiating the attack.

People have been killing each other long before modern weapons were invented. Doubtless the weapons a few centuries from now will be much different than current ones.

Humans do the killing, the weapons are just tools.

Right. This becomes even more pointed when your hands, feet, or even your mind is considered a weapon.

could you address Rand's statements in ch 14 of TVOS, regarding proper govt vs. privately contracted police forces. The example specifically of someone whose wallet is stolen shouldn't go door to door to find the thief?

Hell no. If fully automatic weapons were easily available no doubt the bad guys would have them.
How about owning grenade launchers so if you live isolated and your dogs start barking you could fire away to deter or kill the intruder they would also be picked up by the bad guys.
i do believe that there are enough legal weapons that can be purchased that can be used by us private citizens for self defense at this time.
As an aside I personally would like to own a grenade launcher but it will never be.

Without defining "weaponry" this question is nonsensical at best, a rhetorical trap at worst. And once one attempts to define "weaponry" the sky is the limit - fire arms, axes, knives, hammers, hypodermic needles, knitting needles, plant extracts and an endless list of other items can and have been used as weaponry.

"Private citizens" suffers from similar lack of definition, as does "should be allowed" - allowed by whom?

This is not a philosophical question, it is a political one.

I appreciate that the principle of liberty leads to your conclusion. But as a moral issue, I wonder if the ability to cause the extinction of the human race ought to be allowed to any individual (or group of individuals). This could potentially be accomplished with several nukes, or certain biological weapons, etc. What do you think?

The underlying premise in the question is the word “allowed.” Exactly who is it who makes the decision to allow? More fundamentally, how can anyone prevent the ownership of anything without initiating the use of force?

Yes.This flows from the right of self-defense.

Civilization draws strength from numbers. Large numbers of armed citizens deter the would-be criminal or dictator. If a Japanese general really did say any invading army would find a gun behind any blade of grass, he would not have been kidding.

The Triumvirate of Atlantis was in fact a Committee of Safety, after the mold of similar Committees before and during the American War for Independence, before we had a genuine Continental Army. And even then, Committees of Safety handled police functions before the advent of organized police in America's largest cities.

The first police in the world were the rhabdouchoi, or literally, stick bearers, of ancient Athens. These were municipal slaves carrying sticks and detailed for crowd control. That stick survives today as a police officer's baton.

So right away you know: a policeman is a creature of the government. Rand recognizes the legitimacy of the police. But I don't think she ever imagined disarming ordinary citizens. Recall: even Henry Rearden, at his lowest point, still carried a gun, and the police never questioned his right so to carry.

I mention all the above, to say this: modern police are over-militarized and strike many as more army of occupation than protective force.

I think the fear of "what's the most dangerous thing someone can own" is a moot issue. Evil people will do evil things. Most people will not (well maybe how they vote) I think there are way more valid fears out there that should be addressed over any kind of weapon controls. and they involve the govt

the colonies had laws that addressed this. but I am not sure why a company is more legit to have high powered explosives, but an individual is not

That would be my position too.

Personally my position is that anyone should be able to have any weapon that they can afford to purchase or construct. And I mean ANY weapon up to and including nuclear weapons. Yes that is extreme however I do not see that the Government has any right to disallow this right.

Now is it reasonably possible for my next door neighbor to construct a nuke....hopefully not but it should be within their legal ability. Then again it should also be within my legal right to let's say defend myself against the imminent threat of a neighbor with a nuke.

My kind of law LOL +1

Social media has become the point of the spear for collectivism. Group think is busily pushing the spear home.

Some fight against it and are having to stand strong against the hordes.

I don't like any rules either.

I thought this was a well established difference between Libertarians and OBJ's.

Libs believe you have the right to own anything, OBJ's hold an "objective" limit to civilian application.

The argument I remember is that military arsenals are the most heavily fortified places on earth - fortification no civilian, however wealthy, could duplicate.

The fact you own a nuke makes you a danger to everyone around you. Not by your action necessarily, but by the actions of those who would steal it from you.

I believe the official OBJ stand is that just as gov't has a monopoly on the initiation of force - so too does it have a monopoly on national defense.

Can't remember which essay - but I know I remember this.

In the Objectivist view, you should deal with others by trading value for value and you have the right to take such actions as you judge best, so long as you do not initiate the use of force against others.

http://atlassociety.org/objectivism/a...

This implies that you have the right to own weaponry of all sorts.

Now, such a system would make it easier for a malevolent crazy to make some kind of horrible terrorist attack using weapons bought on the free market, up to and conceivably including nuclear weapons.

So how would a free society based on Objectivist premises deal with that? I think it is hard to know all the details in advance, because we don't live in that circumstance. But let me offer some thoughts:

Weapons makers might be held liable for (rights violating) damages caused with their weapons, in some circumstances. This might cause them to institute a licensing and oversight scheme (all private and contractual, of course). Think of Underwriters Laboratories' testing of electrical products.

Another thought: we currently own and operate many kinds of dangerous devices and chemicals, including cars, trucks, gasoline, natural gas, and airplanes (9/11 showed how dangerous an airplane can be). But we don't have much vehicular homicide (apart from car on car crashes). This is due to people being familiar with the technology and aware of its potential. Remember: not only the criminals or crazies will have access to weapons in a free society. So it may be harder for a crazy to put his plans into action in a free society than it would be in our controlled and mostly disarmed society.

There is also the doctrine of "clear and present danger." If you restrain an aggressive person before he assaults someone (say, in a bar fight), that's probably not a rights violation. And something similar would be true of restraining a crazy with big weapons.

A final thought: when people have freedom, they also have responsibility. So with greater arms freedom, we would expect (in time) for the vast majority of people to learn to use them responsibly. A free society would also incentivize productive living: people would be less tempted to lash out or dream of violent conquest. It's no accident that Middle-Easterners (with little freedom of any sort) dream of conquest and fight horrible wars, whereas people in the free world, even now much more able to make war as private citizens if we wanted to, live mostly at peace.

I hope these thoughts are helpful.

Absolutely! I wish we get everyone to understand this.

Government should have an Ebay site offering every weapon it has for sale to sovereign individuals.
(Especially those cool weapons that destroyed the WTC and the ones used in Tianjin, China.)
I really want one of those big saucers from Independence Day.

Any weaponry that could fall into the hands of a mad man should be completely legal in the hands of good men!
How many American tanks and sophisticated arms are currently in the hands of ISIS?