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Regarding ‘Citizen-owned’ Artillery
Can private individuals own and possess artillery?
This question came up during the Ricochet podcast of the recent New Orleans meet-up (link here) attended by R> co-founder @roblong and R> owner @charlescwcooke; “Is it legal for private citizens to have cannons?” Charlie answered quite succinctly, and I’ll summarize here: Yes. The US Constitution protects the rights of private citizens to purchase ordnance and stores for heavy, crew-served weapons in addition to the individual small arms addressed in the Second Amendment.
My US Constitution students are always surprised to learn that it is 100% legal for them to own artillery…real, live “big boom-boom” guns. “Professor Hoplite, can we actually buy cannons?”
Sure, I reply…the catch is whether or not you have enough cash (or credit) to place the order.
Let’s consider a typical field artillery piece: an M777 howitzer, 155 millimeter in caliber (about 6″ or so in diameter). It is a towed gun, takes a crew of five “red legs” to fire it, and can hit targets from a range of 13 to 15 miles with simple high-explosive shells. There are four guns in a battery, fighting as a single unit (usually all four guns fire at the same target.) So, what does an M777 cost? $3.08 million USD, assuming you buy 37 of them in a single purchase order. Of course, that includes spare parts, but the total order price in 2008 was about $114 million. (here)
Then, you’ll need ammunition. Prior to the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the US Army standard production run was 14, 400 155mm artillery rounds a month. Exact numbers are difficult, but a good cost estimate (pre-Ukraine) is about $2200 ea. here. That means the Department of Defense spends an average of $31.7 million per month buying 155 artillery rounds (not counting the increased demand for supplying Ukraine*). A typical artillery fire mission includes three to five rounds to zero-in on the target, and then three volleys from the battery on the target, and then a report back from the forward observer: 15 to 17 rounds. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s about $35,000 to fire a simple single-point artillery mission.
So what can we glean from all these numbers? Well, to start with, cannons are not sold in single units; if you want to buy a cannon, you have to buy them in the Costco-size packages (35+ per order). Be ready to write a big check: $108.5 million at least. Typical combat load of rounds per gun is 2,222 (here) so buying ammunition for each of the cannon will add another $171 million ($2,200 per round x 2,222 rounds per gun x 35 guns). Total for the field artillery starter kit? $279.5 million.
My conclusions? Legal, yes. But there are few civilians who have the means to buy cannons (certainly not any cannons that are anything more than dangerous noisemakers). If and when the time comes that citizens need cannons, they had better have figured out what the “work-around” is going to be, because waiting to buy them won’t really be an option.
*Currently, the US defense industrial base doesn’t have the expansion capacity to meet this demand, regardless of how much money the Biden administration is chucking around. The backlog in production orders has to be measured in years.
Published in Military
Claymores along the edge of the patio.
I’d be happy with an even more vintage piece of artillery: WW2, WW1, even Civil War (with working barrel, etc.). Great welcome sign.
Just remember: they have to be command detonated. M-80s dipped in epoxy and rolled in BBs make a good field expedient antipersonnel mine. You can set them off using a model rocket igniter setup.
Have you field tested this? Asking for a friend.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s. When I was a teen we were planning how we were going to repulse the Soviets if they occupied Michigan. Further I won’t say.
Is that 3 Finger Jack?
You guys were much more innovative then we were in the 70s and 80s. Although one of my friends made a functional SAM, so I guess that was something.
This is me in 1993 pulling the lanyard on a Civil War 30-pounder Parrott Rifle at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. The cannon was privately owned by the Paulson Brothers of Paulson Brothers Ordnance. Our target was an old APC and we were firing shell with impact fuses.
Where are you going to get the ammunition for it?
It is legal to own a cannon, but is it legal to own high explosive ammunition? Most of the YouTube videos show the owners firing solid shot.
Fewer laws discouraging it. A friend of mine made an ammonium-nitrate/fuel oil bomb by soaking a 70lb bag of ammonium nitrate with diesel, and setting it off in the back 40 of his father’s farm. He said the result was spectacular. He got the instructions from a Dept of Agriculture flyer sent to farmers interested in blowing stumps cheaply.
Can you own ordinance? Yes. Can you own the shells that the ordinance fires? Yes. Is it cheap? Nope. Does it require extra clearance? Likely because it depends on the ordinance and the shells. You can own various forms of explosives depending on the use like demolitions for construction or mining.
There is a place out near San Antonio (in Uvalde) called the Ox Ranch where you can drive tanks and fire the 76mm of the Easy 8 Sherman and the massive 152mm Soviet D-20. Just a note, it costs about $1k for each round from the Sherman. The Slo Mo Guys went there and shot some high-speed videos of them firing the Sherman and the D-20, which is much more expensive. They are firing solid shot because it’s easier and cheaper.
(320) WWII Tanks Firing in Slow Motion – YouTube
It is so much fun to watch the video I go back to it at least once a year. Stick through to the end to see them fire the 152mm cannon at watermelons.
If you want to book some time with the tanks, a flamethrower (which is technically a weed control device and you can order them from the internet), or an M-2HB .50 cal machinegun you can do that as well.
Drive and Shoot Real Tanks – Drivetanks.com
They offer
Tanks – The Easy 8 is $1200/round and $2k to drive the course
Cannons – D-20 152mm is $2k/round, or a 105mm US for $950, or a German 7,5cm $1,400
Machine Guns – .50 cal $200/20 rounds, or a Minigun $400 for 100 rounds, flamethrower $350
High Explosives ~$500 to blow up a shaped charge and keep the steel disc you blow a hole through.
Archive.org has all sorts of fascinating documents:
https://archive.org/details/usa-tm-31-210-improvised-munitions-handbook
Wagner Group has armor, at least.
The cannon I was firing in my reply above was using explosive shell with impact fuses. We had to transport inert shells to Fort McCoy, and once there they had a designated area for us to use to insert the bursting charge and fuse into each shell.
Now I have to lose weight. I don’t think I could fit into either of those vehicles right now. Especially since I have the cash to blow on them for the first time in my life.
Go big or go home.
Excellent! (See? Amazing what one can learn in these discussion threads.)
Believe it or not, there is still ammo being made for these old 75mm pack howitzers (sort of). Most of the existing ones in firing condition are used at military ceremonies: 19- and 21-gun salutes, public performances of the “1812 Overture,” and evening Retreat. Cases and propellant only, no projectile.
That would have to be sourced separately…
Release the Claymore Roombas!
I’ve worked 3 overnight visits by US Presidents as a police officer. Two visits by George HW Bush, and one with Clinton. I was posted outside the stairwell door that accessed the floor reserved for Clinton’s overnight visit.
There was a Secret Service agent posted just below me on the half-landing. He would check White House passes, and then I would check the pass one more time before I would allow someone to pass into the hallway where Clinton would spend the night.
The Secret Service agent carried a 9mm HK-MP5. We spent the entire shift together and took breaks as a team. It has a selector that allows for semi-automatic fire, 3 round bursts to 5 round bursts, and fully automatic fire.
On a break he dropped the magazine, ejected the chambered round and let me handle his MP5. I was impressed and would love to own one.
What many people don’t think about, realistically, no one really needs 35 howitzers. Plus, where are you going to keep them? Before I got married, I’d park them in the driveway, and the extras I just put up on blocks in the front yard. Well, if any of you are married, you know how long that was going to last!
That’s why a couple years ago, the guys in our neighborhood association started started going in on a single order once a year, and then we divvy them up. The Amazon guy drops them off at my place, and believe me, it is a long day’s work to deliver them all one at a time behind a 1998 Nissan Sentra! Because the cannon literally exceeds the manufacturer’s recommended maximum tongue weight on that model (mine just has the base 1.2 liter four-banger) the front wheels, which are the all-important drive wheels on that particular rig– are a foot or so off the pavement, until all the guys sit on the hood, plus a few of their small children on their shoulders, which, like, totally blocks my view so I have to get Dave Farnsworth to radio instructions to me on his wife’s walkie-talkie that he got her for her 40th birthday.
Long story short, when the work is done we all get together at Dave’s for barbecue and beers, and there are always a lot of laughs and as the evening wears on, inevitably Jim van Barkel of course has to light off a few rounds of 155mm in the direction of our rival neighborhood, The Reserves at the Villages of Chathamsshireham Cross Manors. He makes sure he doesn’t hit anything, but the next day the stuck-up residents always come round with pieces of the taupe vinyl siding that the rounds blew off their houses, and threaten to sue us.
TL;DR but the point is that you can glean a LOT from all these numbers, would be my answer.
Can’t disagree more about Charlie’s 2nd amendment views. He is spot on I think, for instance it was perfectly fine to own a cannon as an individual or to arm a privately owned merchant ship with several of them. You didn’t need the government’s permission to do so either.
I had that flag hanging from my barn!
You have to wear very loose fitting clothing for that
It helps to get the special slim-line artillery so that it doesn’t stick out as much. Still, it’s going to require wearing a caftan.
Well said, @concretevol. Pre-constitutional arms and militia rights were an integral part of my doctoral research, so I feel pretty confident in my own knowledge of the subject. There wasn’t anything factually incorrect or mistaken in Charlie Cooke’s discussion in the podcast. Contemporary lawyers might not like this, but that doesn’t make the facts any less true.
You just have to be nonchalant about it.
True I’m sure, but the issuance of letters of marque, and the Constitutional authority for Congress to do that doesn’t necessarily imply the constitutional right to own a warship. It doesn’t mean that the terms “arms” in the 2nd Amendment was intended to include them.
The 2nd Amendment question isn’t “what can people own,” it is “what can the government regulate and to what extent.” What’s off limits for congressional regulation? In other words, you may not have a right to own a warship, but Congress can choose to let you own one anyway, in order to effectively issue letters of marque, or maybe they just haven’t addressed the question at all.
I’m not saying the 2nd amendment doesn’t cover those things, just that the fact they were allowed is not necessarily good evidence of that. It could be that Congress just chose to allow it. There may be other good arguments for it.
The First Amendment protects your right to be wrong about this topic.