[Safrguns]

>>> If this is insane than so was George Washington and the first congress who passed a law requiring every male citizen between 18 and 45 to own a gun with at least so much amo.

Hey... now THAT is a good point.

But wasn’t that more like conscription into the military?
Is it accurate (not saying it isn’t) to equate the Nelson Ordinance and Washington’s law?

If that is the spirit in which this town council passed the ordinance, then far be it from me to disagree.

[Monorprise]

No it was part of the milita clause.

Washington and the first congress considered us all members of the militia and wanted us armed to provided for the defence of our state and federation.

Read about it if you like:
http://www.militaryheritage.org/MilitiaAct1792.html

insolently they didn’t want to pay for the arms themselves so they told us to.

This law was often sighted by liberals as an example of an individual mandate. But of course it has nothing to do with healthcare, or even women for that matter who are to this day still excluded from the milita unless their part of the national guard.

[AnAmericanMother]

1. Respect for the rule of law varies from place to place. Where legislators are thoughtful and do not enact oppressive or encroaching laws, there is more respect. When legislators pass unenforceable and encroaching, oppressive laws, there is less. It depends. Nelson's a nice little North Georgia town (it's very near a friend's summer cabin and my grandfather-in-law's former church) and I doubt there's much trouble there with disrespect for the rule of law. Nor has there ever been a problem in Kennesaw, and I'm up there almost every week training dogs. The only excitement we have ever had was when somebody called the police about "shots fired", and they came down to the field where we were training . . . and wound up staying to watch the dogs run (although they declined an offer to run my "pushbutton" dog on a couple of marks, I think they enjoyed themselves).

2. The law regarding all adult males to have a firearm and ammunition had nothing to do with federal conscription (which didn't exist at that time - they were very naturally suspicious of a large standing national army). If you read your Founding Fathers, you'll find that the militia was "the whole of the people" - every adult male. Georgia is still divided up into militia districts, which used to be run by justices of the peace (that office has now been replaced by magistrate judges). If some emergency or enemy action occurred, the JPs had the authority to call out the militia, which was basically anybody who could handle a rifle. But it was a strictly local, neighbors-defending-neighbors proposition.