Technically, You Can Own a Warship

Not because you're a taxpayer and that those warships were all paid for with your money. We doubt that would fly if you tried to gain access to a naval base and take off with a warship circa Jack Sparrow in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie. In fact, that's a great way to get shot. We'd be surprised if they didn't turn the CIWS on you and aerate you like a well maintained front yard.Rather, Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution states that Congress has the authority to...

"To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water"

Granting Letters of Marque, that's the part you should focus on. For those of you who don't know what a Letter of Marque is...

"a license to fit out an armed vessel and use it in the capture of enemy merchant shipping and to commit acts which would otherwise have constituted piracy."

So, unless you have a letter of marque, you can't use your ship, but you can theoretically own one. The alphabet bois may not be super stoked about you having one though, that's where this theory kind of loses steam. FBI, CIA, DEA, ATF, NSA...all of them...they might have a problem with you owning a warship.But theoretically, we could have the ship, moored up in like Corpus Christi, and if war broke out between say like...Venezuela and the United States, you could petition Congress to give you a Letter of Marque and start pillaging the everliving dog shit out of Venezuela's naval and merchant ships. You and your salty crew could be causing absolute havoc for the enemies of the United States with your own personal warship.We're thinking like...a reinforced battle cruiser...upgrade the armor and engines, get some state of the art weaponry that the Alphabet bois would allow and go hard like Commander Ernest E.Evans...So...see, technically you can own a warship, you just can't do anything with it until war breaks out and you get a Letter of Marque...but technically...you can own one.