Alot of the gun control advocates think that the word milita means what we call the National Guard today.
There is also the issue of “organized militia” and
the unorganized militia. The unorganized militia consists of all able-bodied men (now probably women too) who can bear arms.
The concept of the militia goes back as least as far as the Anglo-Saxon fyrd - all able-men capable of bearing arms who were subject to call up by the Anglo-Saxon Kings in case of war or invasion. Their first line of defense was the Housecarls or personal retainers, followed by their theigns and earls with THEIR personal retainers and then by the local fyrd.
Liberals and anti-gunners in general either know nothing about our genesis as a people or choose to ignore the facts with which they disagree.
Here’s the short version.
It’s the “Bill of Rights.”
Rights for whom?
People — not militias.
Period.
I cannot remember the exact year, but it was in the 18th Century not long before independence from England.
Shubal Stearns had a rather large church not far from current-day Asheboro, North Carolina. The Anglicans pretty much ran NC at that time and would use British militia to pester non-Anglicans, especially Baptists.
The Anglican clergy arranged for a contingent of British Militia to go to the Piedmont and put the Baptists out of buisness. Stearns himself, and many of his members were actually pacifists, but some of the Baptist men did take up arms to protect against the British, and were called, “The Regulators.”
The British troops did show up near Asheboro and were engaged by the Baptist “Regulators.” The Baptists lost the skirmish, but put a sufficient enough hurtin’ on the British that British Militia raids were never again carried out against Stearns’ people.
The incident is covered in a book by Dr. James Beller called AMERICA IN CRIMSON RED, published by Prairie Fire Press in Arnold, Missouri.
John Leland and the Baptists in Virginia had a lot to do with Madison and the writing of the Bill of Rights. I dare say that those men were well aware of the NC Baptist “Regulators” of Stearns’ mountain church when the Second Amendment was worded.
I don't like that MEN thing. And the age....well, I plan to keep growing older.
The "men" who are going to "speak" on this issue aren't the ones who wrote it. They're long dead and buried.
But rather, the ones who WILL determine what the language of the Second Amendment means will be the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court, when the Palmer case comes before them... as it must.
This should happen within 3-5 years, perhaps sooner, depending on how hard the principals of the case push the issue.
I will NOT predict how the Court will decide. Frankly, could go one way or the other.
I WILL predict that the decision will become one of the most important of the twenty-first century.
- John
Without reading the whole thread, let me add:
Another reason not to bar any adult citizen from possessing arms is to maintain the tradition of arms so that the militia is a large, experienced population.
Youth should learn the lore, rules, and use of arms from parents and grandparents.
it’s interesting that the american leftist media translates
al sadr’s armed thugs as “militia”.