The American Tradition Of Self-Made Arms

BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 4 months ago

Joseph Greenlee.

Since the earliest colonial days, Americans have been busily manufacturing and repairing arms. In the colonies, the ability to defend one’s home and community, hunt, fight wars, and ultimately win American independence depended largely on the ability to produce arms. For the newly independent nation, arms production was critical to repel invasions and insurrections, and eventually, to western expansion. The skill was always valued and in demand, and many Americans made their own arms rather than depend on others. Americans continued producing their own arms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to some of the greatest technological breakthroughs in the history of firearms and ammunition. The freedom to build personal arms enabled innovations that allowed Americans to better defend themselves and their country than ever before. Meanwhile, restrictions on self-made arms have been rare throughout American history. All restrictions on arms built for personal use have emerged within the last decade, and from only a few states. While still uncommon, legislatures are increasingly targeting homemade arms due to the growing popularity of unfinished receivers and 3D-printed firearms.

[ … ]

Heller established several principles that support the right to build arms for personal use. First, under Heller, any analysis must start with the Second Amendment’s text, which protects the right to keep and bear arms and provides no reason to believe that people must buy the arms they wish to keep and bear. Second, Heller held that the Second Amendment protects the types of weapons that are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, regardless of how those arms are acquired. Third, Heller suggested, as lower courts have recognized, that the Second Amendment also protects the right to acquire arms, which includes building them personally. Fourth, history and tradition—which is used to inform the Amendment’s text under Heller—reveals that Americans have long enjoyed and depended on the unregulated right to build arms since the colonial days. In sum, the right to build arms for personal use is a right protected by the Second Amendment.

There’s a lot between the introduction and the conclusion statements and you’re welcome to read it at your leisure.  The founders would be appalled at the notion that the federal government has the right to regulate the making of arms.  They fought and some perished for the sake of living as free men, and that included the right to lack of interference in things that occupied them daily.

They would be even more appalled at the notion that unaccountable bureaucracies would have the authority to regulate such matters.  They said something about that, yes?  “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

They only have that authority based on police powers, the power of confiscation, and the power of taxation, also all things the founder opposed for the federal authority, and things they do not because they have that right, but because no one has stopped them.


Comments

  1. On June 16, 2023 at 11:28 am, dad29 said:

    “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”

    There’s a good reason that the Progressives would have us forget the Declaration instead of reading it as a lengthy prologue to the Constitution. The main reason? That stuff about “Nture’s God.”

    Can’t have Him around.

  2. On June 16, 2023 at 8:55 pm, Forged In Hellfire said:

    Self-Made arms are a construct of the white male patriarchy. (honk!)
    Read about one in Minnesota where some home brew weapons had no serial numbers and now the maker is in court.
    I’ll have to research more to see if homemade has to have numbers.
    My best weapon has my birthdate in the serial!

  3. On June 18, 2023 at 6:59 am, Latigo Morgan said:

    @Forged In Hellfire –

    Home brew firearms don’t have to have serial numbers unless you intend to sell them. But then that puts you into a different class as a commercial manufacturer and not a hobbiest.

    That’s federal regs. Your state regs may have added the requirement for serialization. But if the home manufacturer is making stuff for his own, personal collection and use, no serial number is necessary if he’s being prosecuted under federal law.

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This article is filed under the category(s) Second Amendment and was published June 15th, 2023 by Herschel Smith.

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