Firearms are by no means perfect and I have no idea how you get from "human beings have a right to defend themselves" to "human beings must have access to any technology that allows them to defend themselves, regardless of external costs to society as a whole". Your argument is an excellent argument in favour of the right to own a nuclear weapon.
Except that guns are
capable of being precise, while nukes (like hand grenades) are indiscriminate weapons. Every concealed carry license holder knows, due to the training requirements of their license, that they are legally responsible for what happens to every bullet that leaves their firearm, regardless of whether or not their use of force was justifiable under law or not. Said another way, if a CC holder were to ever draw their weapon in self-defense, and then fire said weapon, if it does *not* hit their attacker, they are responsible for any harm it causes. Period. Additionally, when I'm carrying concealed, I'm not legally alllowed to mention that fact unprompted, lest it be considered a threat. There is no condition that a nuke or a grenade can be discriminating. That said, hand grenades & automatic firearms are legal & licensed in this country as well, and beyond the purview of states. It's called a Class III license, and they are more common than you might imagine. The ATF makes a point to check every time this event happens...
http://www.knobcreekrange.com/events/featured-events/machine-gun-shootIt's held very close to where I live, and it's very loud. The GE Minigun rental is particularly cool, but the ammunition costs about $20 per second. And yes, there are explosives traded there, under the watchful eye of the ATF. When was the last time you heard of a legally owned bomb killing anyone? Never?
This event is also very popular with men at my workplace; which is all union and nearly all Democrat. Good luck getting those Southern liberals to tow that gun control line.
Guns are fine for your run of the mill rapist but they won't do shit against a drone strike. They won't help you when criminals on Wall Street decide to repossess your house. They certainly won't protect you from Kremlin Joe. What will protect you is the threat of MAD, those fuckers won't touch you if they know you'll just burn it all down at the first sign of trouble.
The run of the mill rapist is the greater threat, as far as I'm concerned.
Now obviously I'm being absurd and you can't have a nuclear weapon, even if the threats to your existence are far more likely to come from Wall Street or Washington than they are to be a rapist after your family and even if it'd be a much more useful deterrent for either of those. You can't have a nuclear weapon because if I let you have one then I have to let other people have one and some dumb fuck would sell it to a terrorist and another would get confused in the night and accidentally use it on his neighbour, someone's kid would obliterate a state playing with one and those suicidal people, well, they're gonna take a lot of innocents with them. So even though it is indisputably the most effective tool for dealing with the real threats to your liberty and property on a day to day basis I can't let you have one. And I can't let you have a gun either.
It never was up to you. I think you might have a coronary if I actually told you what I do own. I'm listed on a federal register. For similar reasons, cops in my state don't do 'no knock' swat raids. Too dangerous.
Your right to self defence does not come without limitations. And you know that, or else you'd want your tactical nuke. It's not some natural, God-given thing that you're born with, it's a negotiation that you make with the people who you share the world with.
It does come with limitations, but not of your choosing. And yes, my right to self-defense is, most certainly, a natural right. A God-given one, even. It is not negotiatable at all, your disagreement does not alter that in any way. You are free to choose not to own a gun, but you are not free to impose such decisions upon others. If you think otherwise, you don't understand what natural rights actually are.
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If we agree that tactical nukes aren't a good idea then we agree that there is no basic right to self that means you can own any weapon you like. From there on we only disagree on where the tradeoff between personal freedom and societal good should be. And that's fine by me honestly.
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That's not fine by me, honestly. And no, just because we can agree that nukes are a bad idea; it does not follow that there is not a basic right to self defense. Nor did I claim that I can own any weapon I like, but certainly any weapon that I can actually use in a discrimatory (and thus, defensive) manner. (I actually own some, legally, that don't qualify under the above rule) As far as I'm concerned, the above argument against nukes applies almost as well to whole governments, but particularly the only one that has actually used some to kill civilians during a state of war.