Catching Fire?

I was leafing through George Carlin's Napalm and Silly Putty and found a brief discussion about flamethrowers.    His main point is the remarkable fact that "there are even such things as flamethrowers in the first place. ... at some point, some person, Phil perhaps, said to himself, 'Look at all those people across the road. What I wouldn't give to set them on fire. But I'm much too far away. If only I had some device that would shoot flames on them.' ... Phil happened to mention it to his friend, Dwayne, one of those people who's good with tools..."

But here's the food for thought, for those thinking about gun rights and protecting ourselves from our own government if/when it becomes too tyrannical: "the army has all the flamethrowers. I'd say we're jolly well fucked if we have to go up against the army, wouldn't you?"

And there ya have it, kids.   You can think you're going to take a stand against the U.S. military, but the truth is, they will outgun you.  You can scream Second Amendment all you want.   When the framers wrote the Constitution, they didn't envision that the army would use flamethrowers.  Not sure if they would have specifically said "the right of the people to carry things that throw fire shall not be infringed," but technically, it's a weapon.  Why can't we get one at Wal-Mart?   Because they are illegal for private citizens to own.   Just like you can't have a nuclear bomb.  and the men and women in uniform have access to all the really cool stuff.   Now, you can make your own design of one if you have the right stuff handy, and pull a Rorschach in Watchmen when the police are about to bust him.  But barring that, you might as well be prepared to face the cold facts of catching fire.