• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Should Tony Stark Hand His Suit Over To The US Government?

Should Tony Stark Hand Over The Iron Man Suit?


  • Total voters
    30
The suit is his. If he does something illegal with it they can try and convict him, and if successful, impound his suit (for public safety).

Such as flying across international borders with advanced weaponry? Entering no-fly zones patrolled by the U.S. airforce? Or perhaps flying drunk as **** to a donuts shop in the desert?

But they may not use it themselves, nor may they copy the tech without his permission. The tech is fully his as well.

The suit was designed while Stark Enterprises was under government contract, anything designed during that time was built with taxpayer dollars and belongs to the government.
 
Didn't the government end up being infiltrated by an occult nazi group? There's terrible choices all around.

Was just going to say, considering the guy spearheading the confiscation was a nazi fascist seeing world domination turning it over in the Marvel a Cinematic Universes version if government would probably not be ideal
 
Didn't the government end up being infiltrated by an occult nazi group? There's terrible choices all around.

Ya but Iron Man succeeded where Hydra failed IE when he murdered Captain America during the Civil War series.
 
Was just going to say, considering the guy spearheading the confiscation was a nazi fascist seeing world domination turning it over in the Marvel a Cinematic Universes version if government would probably not be ideal

Good counterpoint, here's another, when the military did get their hands on one it was stolen and used to kidnap the President.
 
The suit was originally powered by his heart power source or whatever it is called and could not be worn by anyone else. I would rather return to that than continue to abandon a rule they made in the first movie.

No the Arc Reactor he built in the cave was to act as an electro magnet to keep shrapnel from entering his heart, if you remember before he built it he had a car battery wired to his chest.
 
Tough question, actually, with two sides.

The one I think this poll is focused on is whether or not he had some civic duty to share the technology with the government. To that I would say no. There's nothing in our law that requires inventors to share their technology with the government. And the belief that such technology wouldn't be in others' hands for a while took care of any felt obligation on Tony's part to share it for the common good.

Notice that once the technology is found with someone else, Tony pretty much lets Rhodey take the War Machine suit to the government without objection or reprisal. I think it becomes evident that Tony then feels its his patriotic duty to share the technology.

The other side is one of regulation.
Should the government allow Tony to be Iron Man, a private civilian with firepower so advanced that a tiny projectile can blow up a tank? To that side I'd say it's a matter of responsibility. Like pretty much all regulations, they're reactive when someone abuses freedoms to the detriment of other people. So long as Stark acts responsibly with the technology, the government should leave him be. And clearly they seem to give him quite a bit of leeway, as well, since they clearly didn't hold him accountable for damage done in New York, or flying into no-fly zones, etc.
 
Yes it did, the original Arc Reactor upon which the suits power source is designed was funded under government contract, everything developed under Stark Enterprises at that time prior to Tony cancelling all of his government contracts was government property including the suit because Stark Enterprises was a government defense contractor prior to his return from the kidnapping and press conference, hell the parts used to build the original suit in the cave came from weapons specifically designed for the military.

IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! lol
 

Stark Industries was a major government weapons contractor. Tony might have built the suit himself, but he used a lot of Stark Industries inventions and technology to do it. I'm pretty sure it's not legal to use things developed for government use for your own personal benefit without the government's approval.

IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS! lol

The one he built in the cave wasn't the original one. The original was the big one we see towards the end of the first movie. That was developed not by Tony personally, but by Stark Industries.

And even if you ignore that part, the suit was armed. The weapons were developed by Stark Industries for the government.
 
Last edited:
I don't find much merit in the idea that the government just assumes ownership of peoples inventions. For that reason I don't see anything wrong with Stark using his own inventions to make the iron man suit.
 
Stark Industries was a major government weapons contractor. Tony might have built the suit himself, but he used a lot of Stark Industries inventions and technology to do it. I'm pretty sure it's not legal to use things developed for government use for your own personal benefit without the government's approval.

That only applies to the NASA, DOE and the NRC. You could do work for the government and maintain ownership.
 
I saw this question in another debate forum I'm on and thought it'd be interesting to ask it here. It's a fun one, good for a friendly late-night debate. This question is based off of a scene in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark is asked to hand his Iron Man suit over to the US Government.

Where should be done here? Should Tony be able to keep his suit? Can he be trusted to be responsible with it? Will the US Government be any more responsible with it than Mr. Stark would be? Should there be limits to what he can do with the suit?

Discuss. :)

Yes.

Let's say that Tony's integrity is unshakable - he never ever uses it for ill purposes. That's great. Thing is, Tony's mortal. Even if - and it's a big 'if' - he's able to live out his life without anyone else getting access to that technology, it's probably not going to go *poof* and disappear when he dies...and when he does, who gets the armor? Probably not just one person...but whether it's one person or a whole corporate board, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all of a sudden this company is effectively more powerful than the government and is thus effectively no longer under government oversight or even effectively subject to oversight by the press.

And bad things happen when very rich men (who, like generals, tend to have outsized egos) get hold of very powerful weapons.

Of course this is no guarantee that if the U.S. military was given the suits, that some within the military wouldn't cross the line...but generally speaking, until the rise of the American military-industrial complex, the civilian oversight of the military in first-world democracies has been quite effective. But now that mega-corporate weapons producers have so much power with our government and our military, I'm not sure that even if the Iron Man suit was given only to the government, that they'd be able to keep the suit out of the hands of the corporate overlords.
 
I saw this question in another debate forum I'm on and thought it'd be interesting to ask it here. It's a fun one, good for a friendly late-night debate. This question is based off of a scene in Iron Man 2 where Tony Stark is asked to hand his Iron Man suit over to the US Government.

Where should be done here? Should Tony be able to keep his suit? Can he be trusted to be responsible with it? Will the US Government be any more responsible with it than Mr. Stark would be? Should there be limits to what he can do with the suit?

Discuss. :)
Of course he should be 'allowed' to keep the suits. He owns the patents and Stark Industries holds a Type-10 Federal Firearms License (maker & dealer of firearms & distructive devices).

As for Mr.Stark's actions in forign countries, he may have broken a few Federal laws and international treaties there. It's my understanding that Stark Industries is based in, and that the "IronMan" suit manufactured in, the US. No US citizen has the authority to engage in agressive warfair on forign soil. Governors can't even deploy their National Guard to forign contries. Was Mr.Stark secretly conscripted and deployed under Title-10 USC, and the whole Congressional 'investigation' was just for show?

Speaking of that, I'm pretty sure using back-doors to comendeer Congressional computers violates some part of the Patriot Act. Even Mr.Stark's impressive legal team can't save him from feloney charges on that one. It would take nothing short of some kind of clandestine supreme headquarters international espionage law-enforcement division to pull that off. But what a conspiracy that would be, such nonsense. Next thing you know people will report big green monsters or Norse gods amung us. Let's keep our heads out of the clouds, please.
 
He built it, it's his property, and the government has no goddamned right to demand he allow them to use it or to copy it.

On the other hand, his suit is subject to licensing and regulation for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with the right to keep and bear arms, so they're within their authority to demand that he shut it down. The government doesn't issue a license that would allow a civilian-- even a Defense contractor-- to carry armed missile launchers in public, and the arc reactor itself would be subject to Department of Energy regulations. The government has no lawful authority to demand anything pertaining to repulsor beams, but could theoretically pass laws restricting their maximum power output for civilian use as long as those regulations were consistent with legitimate militia functions; I don't recall any scenes that showed the repulsor beams to be much more powerful than legitimate militia anti-materiel weapons.
 
Tony Stark wasn't more careful with it. If you recall he was a crippling alcoholic and did in fact get smashed at one party, got into Iron Man and started firing at all his completely defenseless guests with his three billion dollar murder suit.

If you want to make a libertarian argument, Tony Stark isn't going to be your best poster boy.

While Iron Man (and all its sequels) were really just multi-hour commercials for Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand's captains of industry weren't irresponsible alcoholic ten year olds in mens' bodies.
Exelent points. What we need is common-sense assult-suit regulation to keep weapons of war off the street. Think of the children.
 
If I was Tony Stark I would use the suit and force the US into a libertarian style government. But thats just me. :2razz:
 
If I was Tony Stark I would use the suit and force the US into a libertarian style government. But thats just me. :2razz:

So you want to throw democracy and self-determination out the window. Got it.
 
Yes, he should hand it over. I don't think advanced technology that's decades beyond what the military has is covered by the 2nd amendment. Especially since the government funded its development.

Tony used his own fortune to build his suit, so no, it's not government funded.

Not in the films, it didn't.

Not in the films or the comics, or any interpretation of Iron Man.
 
Last edited:
Yes it did, the original Arc Reactor upon which the suits power source is designed was funded under government contract, everything developed under Stark Enterprises at that time prior to Tony cancelling all of his government contracts was government property including the suit because Stark Enterprises was a government defense contractor prior to his return from the kidnapping and press conference, hell the parts used to build the original suit in the cave came from weapons specifically designed for the military.

Actually, no, it wasn't. Tony's father was the original arms dealer to the US. He built the company on selling advanced arms to the US. He wanted to use the profits to build something for humanity - the ARC reactor. That's what got him killed.
 
Such as flying across international borders with advanced weaponry? Entering no-fly zones patrolled by the U.S. airforce? Or perhaps flying drunk as **** to a donuts shop in the desert?



The suit was designed while Stark Enterprises was under government contract, anything designed during that time was built with taxpayer dollars and belongs to the government.

No, the government contracts were purchase type for specified Stark weaponry (the suit wasn't even developed yet). Not for development. What Tony made on the side was all his to patent, keep and sell if he wished.
 
In fact, in the comics, Tony figures out Extremis and uses it to go one step further - the suit lives within him and is expressed at thought command.
 
In fact, in the comics, Tony figures out Extremis and uses it to go one step further - the suit lives within him and is expressed at thought command.

Which was a really stupid idea, the real strength of Iron Man is that Tony Stark chooses to put it on, he's not a mutant, he's not blue, he doesn't have wings, he's a normal person who chooses to put on the armor and be a hero. By using Extremis, which I hate with a passion, he's essentially taken away all of the things that made him a great character to begin with.
 
Nope, he should be allowed to keep it but he should be held accountable for anything he might do in it. Destroy property = restitution and charges. Unlawfully kill someone = murder.
 
That only applies to the NASA, DOE and the NRC. You could do work for the government and maintain ownership.

No it applies to defense contractors; such as, Lockheed Martin, now he may have been able to claim ownership of the Arc Reactor itself. however, any weapons systems that were designed while Stark Enterprises was under government military contract would be government property, as I already stated the prototype itself was built from the parts of weapons systems specifically designed for the military. Think about it, Lockheed Martin can't designed an advanced multi-role fighter, claim proprietary ownership and refuse to give it to the government and instead put it on the open market.
 
If I was Tony Stark I would use the suit and force the US into a libertarian style government. But thats just me. :2razz:

What a contradiction.... have you NEVER heard of the Non-Aggression Principle?
 
No, the government contracts were purchase type for specified Stark weaponry (the suit wasn't even developed yet). Not for development. What Tony made on the side was all his to patent, keep and sell if he wished.

It absolutely was for development, in the opening scene he is showing the military a weapons system that he developed for them under contract that they had never seen before and then made them a sales pitch, government contracts would have included R&D and any advanced weapons system developed when under said defense contract would be property of the government, Stark Enterprises didn't have free reign to just go around willy nilly building weapons of mass destruction and then withhold them from the government. Stark would probably have been able to keep the Arc Reactor itself because it had not military applications but the suit itself would have been government property.
 
Back
Top Bottom