What Is a Militia, Anyway?

[mystery-ak]

April 6, 2018
What Is a Militia, Anyway?
By J.L. Woodruff

Among the signs carried by many of the half-educated demonstrators protesting the Bill of Rights in Washington, D.C. was one that read, "What part of 'well regulated' don't you understand?"  The reference is to the famous introductory phrase of the 2nd Amendment, which says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  It is safe to say the protester waving the sign meant it as a rebuke to those who think the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to own firearms.

As  a simple declarative sentence, despite the unnecessary use of commas typical of 18th-century writing, the amendment is perfectly clear to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of English.  Yet in recent decades, it has become the source of lies, distortion, and obfuscation by assorted opponents of the Bill of Rights who claim that only members of a militia may own guns.  They include federal judges, left-wing activists, the politicians they support, and assorted anti-gun nuts in academia and news organizations.  They pay homage to Michael Bloomberg and his Billionaires' Crusade to Disarm the Peons by smearing the National Rifle Association's 5 million members as a bunch of murderers and congressional puppet masters and spread demonstrable nonsense about the Bill of Rights.

more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/04/what_is_a_militia_anyway.html

[INVAR]

The militia is every able-bodied male aged 17-54 years of age who were to have their own military-grade weaponry and the martial skills to fix, clean and show proficiency in their use for such a time as they may be called up in defense of the state or the country.

That is just the definition of what pertains to the concern of the federal government.  And, it was told it may not infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear such weapons.

But like everything else, tyrants and the corrupt ignore and circumvent plain language to make slaves of the people and rob them blind and subjugate them to the power of the state.

[Smokin Joe]

It depends on when, where, and who is defining it.

One of my greatest garage sale 'scores' was a copy of Barclay's English Dictionary published in London, albeit in rough shape (front board loose, flyleaves missing in front), the succession of monarchs in the back only goes up to George III and his son acting as regent. That would put the date around 1820, and the type of paper, ink, and binding are similar to works of Dr. Johnathan Swift published in Dublin in the same era.

In that (actually, the first word I looked up when I realized what I had), "Militia" is defined as: "The Army, in its entirety." As the Founders spoke English English, not American English (which was in its infancy, as a language), it might be prudent to assume that in formal writing, at least, they would use the vernacular common to the day.

The Militia referenced by the 2nd Amendment is further revealed in the discussion of the Federal Standing Army, (although it could be applied equally to the armies of the several and sovereign states at the time of the composition of The Constitution), which is necessary for defense, but must be well regulated (controlled) in order to guarantee the security of a free state.

Later definitions would have required prescience beyond even the excellent insight of that group of men, and the threat of an internal Army spreading tyranny must have been at the forefront of those who had just rebelled against just that sort of arrangement, where they, at the time as Englishmen had been subject to the depredations of their own Army and the arbitrariness and caprice of its English Colonial Governorships.

Certainly, they would want the People, with whom the powers ceded to the new government had lain, and who retained, by compact, all else not ceded to their several States, to retain the ability and not merely the empty authority to alter or abolish any form of government hostile to their Rights, peace, and prosperity. Therefore, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms was to be sacrosanct, and unmolested: uninfringed.

Those Arms were the best one could afford in that time, and no less should be available today, at least within the scope of tactical individual weapons, the sort that might be carried by an infantryman today. Arms also included daggers, swords, a wide range of edged weapons including the venerable tomahawk, the multipurpose battle axe of the frontier, and a common weapon among irregular troops, much as a (large) knife was.

[Sanguine]

I don't think the enumerated right to keep and bear arms depends on the militia part:

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Whatever introductory clause is used, it is clear that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

[truth_seeker]

I think mutual defense against Indians played heavily into concepts of citizen militia forces in early days.

[Smokin Joe]

I don't think the enumerated right to keep and bear arms depends on the militia part:
Whatever introductory clause is used, it is clear that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Agreed. The explanation for that lack of infringement, once understood, (and spelled out in the Federalist no.29 --see below) precludes the very sort of equivocation we see today in regards to how absolute the Right was intended to remain. Confusion over that clause only indicates the wilful or uninformed misinterpretation by the confused.
From Federalist no. 29.: Concerning the Militia, Hamilton

"But though the scheme of disciplining the whole nation must be abandoned as mischievous or impracticable; yet it is a matter of the utmost importance that a well-digested plan should, as soon as possible, be adopted for the proper establishment of the militia. The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate extent, upon such principles as will really fit them for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.''

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp

Of course, that large body of citizens would be relatively helpless without arms, therefore, ...the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed.

[INVAR]

Agreed. The explanation for that lack of infringement, once understood, (and spelled out in the Federalist no.29 --see below) precludes the very sort of equivocation we see today in regards to how absolute the Right was intended to remain. Confusion over that clause only indicates the wilful or uninformed misinterpretation by the confused.
From Federalist no. 29.: Concerning the Militia, Hamilton
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp

Of course, that large body of citizens would be relatively helpless without arms, therefore, ...the Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms shall not be infringed.

It's enlightening to note that our resident tyranny-advocate has the penchant to get us to focus on DISSENTING opinions as those in Heller, but he vehemently ignores and dismisses such writings by the Founders in the Federalist Papers as totally irrelevant.   Insisting instead that the modern definitions and codifications he desires be accepted.

[oldno7]

 The Bill of Rights, was never written to define governments role,many documents for that. It was written to celebrate natural or God given rights, possessed by the "people".

It did not, or ever could, "grant" rights, as these rights are self evident.

So you could erase or destroy the wording of the 2nd Amendment and the natural right would still exist.

[Smokin Joe]

The Bill of Rights, was never written to define governments role,many documents for that. It was written to celebrate natural or God given rights, possessed by the "people".

It did not, or ever could, "grant" rights, as these rights are self evident.

So you could erase or destroy the wording of the 2nd Amendment and the natural right would still exist.

Precisely. It is written only to restrict the government from abridging or infringing those existing Rights. In a word, those Rights are unalienable.