UAVs

A co-worker asks, "Is there a second amendment right to UAVs? Cuz I want my own UAV!"

My answer: I dunno.

Well, military hardware larger than rifles are owned by civilians.  Lots of people bought surplus East German armored cars after the Cold War ended.  There are folks with their own Sherman Tank.  Tom Clancy owns a tank.

Is the Sherman's gun demilled?  Can it fire?  Presumably if you own your own M2 Browning or .30 cal coax machine guns you could mount them on your Sherman.  If the main gun worked, and you could FIND 75mm shells, you'd have to have a $200 tax stamp on each round.  And there aren't a lot of ranges you get to to try it out.  Out west, maybe.  But you'd need your own freight train flat bed car, prolly, to move that thing economically.  It weighs 30 tons.  But if you could afford the tank, and the maintenance upkeep, buying tax stamps for a half dozen armor piercing rounds shouldn't be too big a deal for you.

I imaging the same would go for UAV.  Finding a AGM-65 Maverick missile to mount on your robut plane might be hard.  Same with buying your own F-16.  I'll wager it is easier to buy MiG 25 Foxbats or F-86 Sabres than it is to get an F-16.