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To: Smokin' Joe
"A well Regulated Militia..." was a well-controlled Army. (Think of what a regulator or regulations do--they control.)

Incorrect. It means that the object being referred to is in good working order. In that time a clock would be referred to as "well regulated" because it worked properly. A well-regulated militia is a militia that has modern working weapons, good training and lots of practice. A well-regulated militia requires comms and coordination, not so much command and control.

70 posted on 01/05/2013 7:41:25 AM PST by palmer (Obama = Carter + affirmative action)
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To: palmer
The control isn't as in "command and control".

Keeping in mind that the definition of “Militia” in the day was : “The Army, in its entirety.” (That definition taken from an English Dictionary (as in printed in England) ca 1814.

The control sought was not training, not command, not regimentation.

All of that could be obtained by martial training after someone was recruited. So, too, could the use of arms be taught recruits.

The Right of the People was not necessary to any of those ends, as armies all over Europe had already proven.

If you read the discussion of whether to have a standing Federal Army in the Federalist Papers, the concern was that such a force might be misused to impose upon the Rights and Liberty of the citizenry (after all, that is what the British had done).

A well controlled army in this sense is necessary to the security of a free state, not from military forces outside the state but from the possibility of tyranny imposed from within by the Army itself.

The security of any form of government depends on its ability to impose force to stop threats from outside its borders, so why specify "free"?

Why else even mention “a free state"? The control of the Army was to keep it subservient to the civilian government, and the rule of law, to keep it from being used as a device to impose tyranny.

The control exerted on the Federal Standing Army would be done so by the forces of the several State Militias (armies), and those in turn or together controlled by the sheer overwhelming force of arms in private hands, so that none of those organized military forces could be used to deprive the population of their Liberty.

These were the very arguments put forth in the Federalist Papers to ensure that a standing Federal Army would pose no threat to Liberty, a concern because the Founders had recently finished a long war to secure that freedom from a military government imposed by the English Crown.

Why else would personal arms matter, and why else secure the Right of the People?

To keep a Free State secure, you control the Military by having the right of the people to keep and bear arms protected.

Those who enter the military service need not bring their own arms, and can be trained there in the manner most fitting to the purpose of the service, and no such Right is necessary for that.

Read the Federalist Papers and that is made plain.

74 posted on 01/05/2013 7:42:57 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: palmer

Well, I found a dictionary printed in England when King George III’s son had become regent, which puts it about 1814 or shortly thereafter. In that volume, “regulated” meant “controlled”. Well controlled (no hyphen) means just that. I recall no hyphen in the Second Amendment.


75 posted on 01/05/2013 7:50:58 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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