And then we had to underline the point in 1812!
I had to look up militias vs. regular Army.
One quick reference made it sound like the War of 1812 was made up of militia. Some guy on answer.com said the Spanish American War of 1898 was the last time militias were used, with the National Guard created in 1903 to solve some of the logistical problems with the militia.
That is the one thing that concerns me - is there are very few organized private militias. Back during the Powder Alarm (1775?) when the British seized a store of powder from a town’s militia, at the end of the day, 20,000 men were marching towards Boston!
Now the Feds or police can take a guy’s 1,000 gun collection, or storm into some militia camp and we all sit on our butts. Me included. And the media portray them as criminals or nutcases.
I suppose at some point we will make the sacrifices needed to join and train as a unit. I just hope it isn’t too late. Of course we can all train individually.
Their is a group called Action Shooting International that is good practice for the recreational shooter. It is a “move and shoot” thing with pistols. Another group uses rifles and pistols. It is timed, you move through a simple course and hit man-sized targets, have to switch out magazines, etc. It is really fun and a relaxed atmosphere. Very safe, but the guys I’ve had enforce the rules with a nice reminder. There are some things that they say they will tell you to stop and leave the course. But I haven’t ever seen that happen.