True they might and that could be an assumed part of ownership of said plane. But I would still be a civilian. And if I joined the Guard or Reserve I don't actually own the equipment, the government does. Not to mention I would be subject to the whims of the military because I would be a part of the military.

Correct. But there are regulations regarding this that these warbirds as they're called be demiled. Which would defeat the purpose of having it in the first place.

Depends on what you mean by "demiled". One might say that the lack of automatic fire "demils" my AR-15.

All true. Something that gets lost in that exact discussion is the Letter of Marque. During the Revolution and the war of 1812 Civilian owners of armed merchant ships (read 'cannons') were given official authorization to attack British Shipping, for the very reason that they had exactly the same cannons U.S. warships had. This left official warships free to act like warships, while armed citizens became privateers.

That implies they were armed in response to the authorization but in those days merchant ships already had cannons and other armaments for self protection. Letters of Marque were just authorization to use their arms in an offensive role.

Usually any weapons and mounts for weapons are removed along with possibly the avionics. Pretty much anything the military can use on another aircraft they strip out before selling.

A good example. But who owned the cannon? It's clear that the merchants were privately owned, but it's the ownership of the cannon that makes the difference.

Ship, crew and armaments are all provided by the owner. The government just writes the letter.

So the question remains. If I can afford it, why not?

I thought the question was whether you could own such things. As far as I know legally you can.

August cleared that up. I just wanted to add that the American Revolution had many causes, but the shooting started when the Colonial Governor of Massachussetts sent regular troops to confiscate a private armory, including cannons. Yes, the actual war started over a gun control issue.

So what was Justice Antonin Scalia referring to?

Something else than what I was referring to?

You asked:
There are no limits to what the government can and will impose if they can get away with it. If semi-autos are banned then handguns will become the new target for restrictions. If they are banned then hunting rifles will be next after that.

Like a friend of mine just posted recently:

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...39723451_n.jpg

What things, I don't want to read every post. If it's weapons, yea, if you can afford the class stamp and license, you can about buy anything you want.

If I could afford it why couldn't I own it was the question. Although I am still interested in others opinions on the matter.

This leads to another question in my mind. Would it be possible if I were in possession of my own fighter aircraft (keeping with the same platform here) to be issued a Letter of Marque?

I posed the question that if I could afford an F/A-18 complete with all the trimmings why shouldn't I be able to have one.

There was a protection act in 1986 that prohibited the sale of new machine guns to the public. You can still buy one if you go through all the costly licenses, fees and approval process, but about the only ones that do are gun dealers. Course laws vary state to state. The same with explosives. I think they're about 300,000 registered fully auto guns in the US, more owned by the public than police.

If you could find a F/A-18 for sale, you could own one, many private pilots own figher aircraft, use them at airshows. However, you couldn't purchase the missles, etc. Course, you could always go to another country and buy any weapon you want or have it shipped here. Just search online, you can buy about any type weapon or plane you want at auction. However, weapon systems have to be decommisioned if you want it shipped to the US.

To be fair, most hunting these days is done by barbarians, with full fridges/freezers, who just want to go out and kill a living thing for fun and pleasure. :nope: