While everyone talks about defending the 2A rights Obama is a step ahead with his people discouraging any organized militia efforts.
The culmination of the 2A is to have a well trained and equipped militia, so far people have yet to be well trained.
Its one thing to stand your ground based upon 2A, its another to follow through with the full interpretation. And so far Obama is making a big show with one hand while the other is searching out start up militias, infiltrating them and then planting bogus evidence to bust them open with the goal of creating negative propaganda.
Being a knight meant you could also BEAR ARMS against anyone you pleased ~ or on behalf of your liege lord ~
The full expression "keep and bear arms" means that you are a knight ~ a noble ~ entitled to all the privileges and rights of nobility.
Having a pistol or a rifle is a tiny part of that body of rights and privileges ~
It's somewhat interesting that the old Kingdom of Sweden ~ under the First Vasa king and his immediate successors ~ got into the habit of referring to all of the children of a 'knight' or nobleman with his same rank. Eventually just about everyone there became, literally a noble ~ if not in wealth or power, at least in name ~ that's why your Scandinavian genealogy is so difficult to work out BTW
Also, the Vasa king could look around and see that the Danes had made a major hit on Swedish power by murdering a good number of nobles, including the other members of his family ~ men, women and children according to the records.
He then began acquiring a new nobility from other lands ~ and for some really obscure reasons he obtained men who knew how to take the Kingdom to the status of Swedish Empire ~ and the Defender of Protestantism in Europe.
Our Founders knew Swedish history! The second amendment is not just the embodiement of the French Huguenot belief about the place of personal firearms in the body politic, but also the embodiment of the Vasa king's idea of how to throw off foreign tyranny ~ bring in good people and give them 'the right to keep and bear arms' and you will prevail, not so much because they have arms, but because they are smart and instantly have a stake in the land, their and its fortune, and, of course, their sacred honor.
These are ancient principles which should not so easily be overthrown. We know the Democrats would like to reduce us to tribalism, so we will simply have to fight all the harder, and in the end ~ maybe there won't be any more Democrats.
The key to victory is to ignore any regulation that requires registration of guns as an infringement of the 2A and therefor illegal. If they don't know where the guns are, they cannot carry out mass confiscations, which is what would trigger a violent response.
Civil disobedience is a powerful tool that pushed the Brits out of India and gained civil rights for blacks in the South.
That's where to make the stand -- let registration fizzlw out like it did in Canada.
What I've been posting over the past few weeks (and over the years) is this: it's time to turn the regulating of the militia into a weekend convention for gun enthusiasts, sanctioned by state national guards.
In Federalist #29, Alexander Hamilton writes:
The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
Hamilton expected that the "militia" gather once or twice a year for inspection by officers of the state, or they cannot consider themselves to be "well-regulated." Inspection would include demonstrating that their arms are kept in good working order, and that they are proficient in its use.
One way for gun owners to turn the debate would be to suggest that the states offer "militia inspections" once or twice a year. If a state were serious about doing this, it could be practical to have a unit of a state's national guard travel from region to region and hold weekend "boot-camps" at a reserve army base for volunteers to attend.
I'm sure there are many bitter-clingers who would love to sign up for a weekend getaway to practice being a militia once or twice a year.
This would be a way to make the "militia" argument real and practical, not some archaic term-of-art from a time-gone-by.
-PJ