The infrastructure didn't exist until it did, of course; same as the government, motivation and the history behind all of it. What's to say in a "Libertopia" a similar scenario or provision couldn't come about?
It may well come about, but the problem is you advocate a person's liberty above all else - and that's liberty for everyone, including the crackpots. Your suggestion would probably prevent nukes getting into my hands, and your hands and Hawker's hands - we might go to WalMart, you know, for groceries and a nuke, and they'd say "Oh, Mr. X said I couldn't sell nukes" and we'd go "Aww, shucks, I really just wanted to spend my life's savings so as to send one into the sun, you know, just for kicks" and that'd be the end of that. (caveat: I still haven't understood who, exactly, would fulfil the role of Mr X).
And, you know, in a certain sense, you probably wouldn't even need the regulations for the likes of us. We'd be self-regulating. Damn,
I sure don't want a nuclear weapon in my back yard, how about
you?
But the crackpots might be a little more determined. They might travel far and wide. Just in the hope of winning out, they might be willing to meet with unsavoury people in unsavoury places - you know, the kind of places where children slave under the watchful eye of an armed guard to mine the right ore. The regulation exists for the crackpots.
Now you might well convince the whole world that libertarianism would be a good thing, and the whole world might well convert. But just one crackpot, with one nuke, in one city, and the whole world will string you up on its way to the polls to elect a new government, and all your noble ideas will end up as vulture shit. You might stop some crackpots, or even most, but you'll never stop them all.
