Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you largely, at the same time this is designed to avoid a civil war. Aka if the federal government over reaches the states can reduce the central authority. All that said, to call a convention, you’ll need a super majority of states. Theoretically, that super majority would also be the ones deciding what goes into the changes. For one, you’d probably get that much needed clarification on the second amend…
> (ie the original 2nd amendment was owning any kind of weapon for any purpose, including equivalent of battle ships today) Citation? As it originally reads, the purpose as written is for the people to keep and bear arms for use within a well-regulated militia. The supreme court has ruled (almost 100 years later) that it does mean people can own guns, generally for the purpose of state defense [1]. This is the first…
How it worked was that during the (rare) intervals of peace, you'd keep a stockpile of guns on shore, and run your ship as a more or less ordinary merchant vessel (virtually all of which were armed at the time, though not as heavily armed as a naval vessel or a kitted-out privateer).
When war broke out, as it always did eventually, you'd cram your ship to the gills with guns and crew and get a license from some government (not necessarily your own!) to cruise against that government's enemy. This was called a "letter of marque". It was entirely possible for a (say) Dutch privateer to get a letter of marque from the (say) British government to attack (say) French vessels.
Normally privateers would limit themselves to attacking enemy merchant ships, or occasionally looting enemy ports, as their primary motivation was profit. They typically did not want to tangle with full-blown naval vessels.
Privateers were outlawed in the 19th Century by an international treaty signed by most countries. Interestingly, the United States has never signed that treaty.
The relevant constitutional authority in the United States is Article I Section 8, which explicitly grants Congress the authority to "grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal".
The advantage to the government was that it effectively had a secondary navy it could hot-swap in without having to pay to support it during peacetime.
The advantage to the privateers was that they got to keep the lion's share of the value of any ship, and any ship's cargo, they captured (the government did take a rakeoff, of course, because that is what governments do). It was essentially legalized piracy.
Figure out how much an entire container ship would be worth if you were allowed to just go out and grab one, and you'll be in the right ballpark, except back then it was expensive spices, precious metals, silk, etc. rather than electronic trinkets.
Though it was obviously a high-risk business, some privateer owners (and even crews) became incredibly wealthy from this practice.