Speaking of possum has anyone heard from him? I haven’t seen anything from him for a while.

Jeff
Thats been my thought also. Just because Podunk had a no guns in the city law does not mean it was constitutional.
Most people didn’t even realize they could fight city hall in court and maybe win.

I’m very familiar with high powered airguns; indeed, my preferred tool for eliminating fruit/veggie stealing squirrels and rabbits is an internally-suppressed, tuned .22 PCP with a sub-4oz two-stage trigger. With the right pellet, it’ll shoot a ragged one hole pattern all day at 25 yards or less.

But the FA BB gun that the court and the poster identified are nowhere near that powerful, and thus I suspect most rational courts would treat them more like airsoft or paintball guns (i.e., toys) rather than actual weapons.

But in some states (e.g., NJ), all of those are considered “guns” under state law, and thus YMMV . . . .

Ignores context.

As a ‘privateer’ one had to get the blessing of Congress to act as a ‘privateer’ under color of the U.S. (American) authority. Although the term ‘privateer’ is no longer used but rather, mostly, ‘contractor’.

But, as a private person there were no restrictions on if one could have a cannon and some private people back then did have cannons. And its still the same today.

And still today a private person can own a cannon and there are people who do. They are ‘bearable arms’. The term ‘bearable arms’ in context with Bruin (and other past SCOTUS decisions) and history and text means the same as it did way back then in the days of the ‘privateer’ and even before … which is basically ANYTHING a person can use for defense (or offense) – it doesn’t matter how impractical it may seem or how big or heavy it its, and it makes no distinction between, the old ‘privateer’ or todays ‘contractor’ or a private person or the government.

“I think most courts would likely exclude the BB gun (not a “weapon” as that term is commonly understood)…”

If spring-powered like the venerable Daisy ‘Red Ryder’, I’d agree.

However, there are air rifles easily capable of developing the foot-pounds roughly equivalent to modern rimfire rounds like .22lr, if not greater. Plenty of lethal energy.

Hell, there are even .50 caliber air rifles available :

https://www.airgundepot.com/big-bore-airguns.html

The ‘Lewis and Clark’ expedition used a potent repeating air rifle :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girardoni_air_rifle

You have to ask permission from Congress to be a privateer

There is no right to be a privateer therefore there is no right to cannons in order to be a privateer

Now you may have a right to cannons outright under the 9A using Tench Coxe’s “every terrible implement of war” quote as support for that

But the 2A covers only bearable arms and the privateer clauses does not change that

“To keep and bear cannons” doesn’t work as English grammar and the Founders certainly would have been able to write an amendment protecting arms to big to “bear” if they wanted to

So, no, the 2A is about bearable arms

Now you may have a right to cannons etc but if so I would look for that under the 9A. You could use Tench Coxe’s “every terrible implement of war” quote as support for such a right