[Steel Wolf]

The Founding Fathers, by their numerous writings on the subject, clearly meant 'the militia' to mean average citizens with their own firearms, who would band together in time of need for mutual protection.

To that end, the Democrats, if they really wanted to stop our foriegn adventuring, should press to disband the current standing military, which the Founding Fathers were strongly against, and concede the 2nd Amdendment point once and for all. That would leave us with a system exactly as was intended. They'll never be able to stop both, so what if they simply went 'strictly by the intent of our Founders' to get half?

(I'm not necessarily advocating that point, but I think it would be an interesting world if we had no military organization stronger than the National Guard and Reserves, and a universally armed population.)

[the OlLine Rebel]

Not all were against a "standing army"; that was basically an anti-Federalist stance (albeit admittedly too many were scared to death because of their experiences w/British usage of troops). Washington wasn't - he knew how dreadful it was trying to conduct a war w/o it.