The Constitution doesn't not guarantee automatic weapons.
As Leo noted, yeah, it kinda does. It guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. Arms is defined very broadly as anything used in defense or offense. More specifically, it is defined as anything that a man wears or takes in his hands for his defense, or uses in his anger, to cast at or strike at another. But that covers a lot, and the Constitution doesn't cover such a broad guarantee.
Every Founding Father conversation prior to and during the ratification of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was in the context of a militia. The Founding Fathers didn't provide for a standing army. They provided for a permanent navy, but not an army. Why? They feared the inevitable military coup. But they also knew that without a standing army, the only protection the people and the government had were militias.
The Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, explicitly states what militias do: they make sure the laws are followed, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions (lessons learned after Shays Rebellion of 1786-1787 and The Whiskey Rebellion 1791-1794). The Militia Act of 1792 detailed how the President can use militias. The same Militia Act of 1792 also made arms ownership and militia membership a requirement, and described in detail the arms of the infantry soldier, the cavalry and the artillery soldier. The word "arms" was always used in a military sense, which is why the Constitution doesn't prohibit laws restricting non-military weapons such as daggers, sling-shots, sword- canes, brass knuckles, etc.
But the Constitution absolutely protects the right of the People to keep and bear arms, in a military sense, meaning military arms. The same arms used by the soldier are the arms protected by the constitution for the People to keep and bear. So technically, the Constitution protects the right to keep and bear automatic weapons, since automatic weapons are the weapons of the infantry soldier.
But automatic weapons were severely restricted back in the 1920s (in a law that I don't particularly agree with, since what's good for the soldier should be good the the citizenry, but alas the citizenry proved not to be able to bear automatic weapons with responsibility), and were even more restricted in the 1980s. So with very few exceptions, the citizenry at large cannot own automatic weapons. The current cry du jour is to ban assault-looking weapons, because those are military weapons. But the emphasis should be on banning non-military weapons, weapons that cannot be used in a military conflict because they are useless in such a context, as per the Constitution itself.
Let's compare shall we..... vehicles = transportation people and goods..... smart phone = communication..... automatic weapons = mass killing of human beings...
Big difference!
Well, let's not get too carried away. The primary purpose of motor vehicles is the transportation of people and goods, but in the context of the earlier statement, they need not be more than 4 cylinders and 40 horsepower to accomplish that. More powerful vehicles can certainly be used to mow down people in a crowd. Smartphones are hand-held computing devices that can also use various apps for the purpose of communications. They can also be used as a cyber weapon, and you can even put someone's eye out with that thing. Automatic weapons simply fire many rounds of ammunition in a short period of time. They can certainly be used to kill massive numbers of people, but only if you point them at people while firing. They can also be used as a defensive deterrent and in actual defense of life and property.
I have no problem with rifles, shot guns, etc.... my issue is with automatic.
I'm grudgingly OK with the banning of automatic weapons in society. But only if the government (mainly the police) are also banned from using them on citizens.
