Here is Joe Biden repeating one of his well-worn talking points about the Second Amendment:
BIDEN: “This doesn’t doesn’t violate anybody’s Second Amendment right…You couldn’t buy a cannon when this amendment was passed. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to buy certain assault weapons.” pic.twitter.com/M7hoVi84UQ
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 3, 2022
You absolutely could buy a cannon. There is zero historical evidence that Americans were barred from purchasing or constructing any type of weapon they pleased. Not only are there numerous accounts of the American military using, or purchasing, private cannons; privateers — as the name strongly suggests — relied on their own cannons, as well. (For their expedition, Lewis and Clark bought a privately owned small-bore cannon and Girardoni air rifle, which could shoot 30 or more times without reloading.)
Moreover, the notion that contemporary gun ownership is “absolute” — or anything near absolute — is laughable. (Though we can easily test this theory out by making it as easy to buy a gun as it is to vote, which is allegedly quite restrictive.) There were some towns that attempted to ban the carrying of concealed weapons in the 1800s, but the idea of federal government could make “gun policy” would have been alien to anyone before the 1930s. Even then, no specific types of guns were banned. Not until 1986, when fully automatic guns were effectively banned, did that change. Today, there tens of thousands of laws governing gun ownership in the United States. There are more laws restricting this constitutional right than any other in the document. But no matter how many times you say the phrase “assault weapon,” the Heller decision found that the Second Amendment protected weapons “in common use by law-abiding citizens.” The AR-15 — a semi-automatic rifle that is rarely used in crimes but remains the obsession of gun restrictionists — clearly meets the criteria.