As the debates over gun control and the 2nd Amendment cycle through the same talking points, one attempt to show the apparent lunacy of loosening restrictions on gun ownership is to present the question of whether an individual has the right to own nuclear weapons. It’s an appeal to the argumentum ad absurdum, which is a perfectly legitimate method of argument. It’s meant to be the “Gotcha!” questions since it is assumed that no one would ever be so crazy to support that.
But for the argument in favor of gun rights to be consistent, then it must be true that the government must not infringe upon a person’s right to own nuclear weapons. This is the correct libertarian position.
The first thing to consider is that the idea of “gun rights” clouds the argument. In fact, any reference to the Constitution and Bill of Rights clouds the discussion of any rights. You have no “right” to free speech and you have no “right” to a gun. What we have are property rights. The property owner sets the rules of your behavior on or with his property. Most people would not allow you to enter their homes and shout profanities at them. You would be kicked out. This should be a noncontroversial statement.
It would then follow that the owner of the house would have the authority to speak however he decides in his own home. Who would have a greater claim of that authority? It doesn’t matter how vile or disgusting his words are. He gets to set the rules. Those who do not like the way he runs his home are free to turn down any invitations to it.
These rules for speech are derived from property rights. The rightful owner of the property is the rule maker of the property.
It is easy to imagine fashioning a spear out of raw materials. It could be possible to make with a stick and rock or two. Every physical good must be made from some raw materials, so it is conceivable to imagine a person building a gun from raw materials. How could it be that he would not have the right to own that gun if he used only his labor and only previously unused and unclaimed materials to make it? Since trade is a legitimate method of transferring property, then buying and selling the intermediate goods to make the gun (or simply the gun itself) would not render the gun as not property.
Although it is much more complex and much more expensive, the same must apply to nuclear weapons.
We know, however, that the only restriction on how property may be used is that it does not infringe upon the property rights of someone else whether intentional or otherwise. While you have the right to your property, you are also responsible for it. It would be a violation of property rights to use your house to hurt someone else. Likewise, you may not use your weapon, whether it be a spear, gun, or nuclear bomb, to inflict harm on an innocent person. If you fired your gun randomly and hit someone’s home, you would be liable for the damages. If the septic system for your home leaked and contaminated your neighbor’s property, you would also be held liable for those damages.
The septic system leak is obviously an unplanned and unforeseen event like many potentially costly problems that could exist for a homeowner, which is why insurance is a vitally important industry. A home with a terrible septic system would have a very high likelihood of causing damage and thus having a claim made for it. This high likelihood of cost to the insurer would either cause them to refuse a policy on it or they would make the cost exceedingly high. Either way, it would make the owner bear all of the cost of the incident and so the cheaper route would be to repair the septic system.
Why is this relevant or important? Nuclear weapons create extremely widespread damage. It is extraordinarily difficult to prevent collateral damage. But even if the owner were extremely careful with its use and would only use it when “justified” with a virtual guarantee that only the target would be affected, the consequence of an inadvertent and unintentional detonation is so high that it would create a massive risk even owning one. Because of this, only those who could adequately demonstrate to the insurance company that proper safety measures have been taken would ever be able to afford an insurance policy to cover wherever the nuclear weapon would be stored. And it would still be expensive.
Ignoring the huge costs of purchasing the nuclear weapon itself, this rules out just about everyone. Unless your goal is Armageddon, it would steer any sane person to seek much cheaper—and much less risky—options.
A counterpoint might be this: But how would an insurance company know that you purchased a nuclear weapon if you decide not to report it?
Given the risk of even possessing a nuclear weapon, there would be an incentive for insurance companies to know exactly where any nuclear weapons were and who controlled them. No one would want to pay to insure nuclear weapons that they no longer controlled, so there would be an incentive to report transfers by the owners. And no insurer would want to be insuring someone who possessed a nuclear weapon without their knowledge, so insurance companies would be motivated to work together to manage the weapons.
While you may be technically within your rights to own a nuclear weapon, it would be unbelievably impractical to actually do it. Furthermore, the obstacles and checks and balances created by the insurance companies would be much more complicated than the simplified version I presented here. Nuclear weapons in individual private hands may be a good thought experiment, but that’s all that it would ever be.