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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 22, 2026

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Well, if it helps, I am not on of those who believe in the right to own McNukes. I believe a reasonable argument could be made that at our founding we the people were generally expected to own and operate man portable rifles and pistols generally. Yes, I know warships were privately owned in the distant past, so one could make that argument and I don't have a truly principled reason to restrict them but I accept they are and don't advocate to own one.

How I believe the 2A should be looked at is what constitutes an "arm" in regards to the 2nd Amendment. Even before the US was a country, repeating rifles did exist even if in a rudimentary form so I would argue AR-15s style performance could be reasonably foreseen by our founders. Now I'd argue automatic weapons should be allowed, but I know that just isn't feasible, so you work with the world you have now - and people being allowed to own sporting rifles and pistols should be pretty uncontroversial for being covered under the 2A. The problem is many federal judges and state governments would immediately strip people of being able to own any arm if they had the chance - and we're fighting for even the basics of keeping the 2A available in many states.

When we look at other amendments for new tech, we look for analogs: the internet is just the printing press, but way better. AR-15s are just better repeating rifles. Drones are allowed to be owned, so are some explosives - so I will not be surprised if we see drone based terror attacks in the US very soon - and I'm not sure what can be done to stop it. The technology exists, isn't difficult to make, can't be easily restricted (compared to controlling Uranium and its enrichment), etc. it is only a matter of time. Some people already tried for the UFC event during flag day but got caught before they were able to do it.

The exceptions for the 1A, especially in regards to political and religious speech are darn near unlimited - and I can cause much more damage to many more people by advocating terrible forms of government (fascism, socialism) than I could as one man with a machine gun; but attenuated causes are harder for us humans to truly take the full weight of.