Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: What did the Founders mean... [View all]jimmy the one
(2,717 posts)jmg: Did you also note that 'everyone' else who isn't in the NG, is also a member of the militia?
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males....
(b) The classes of the militia are
. .(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
.. (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Dunno which side you argue for; Ostensibly you're contending the US code endorses the 'ghost' sedentary militia called the UNorganized militia, but the UNorganized Militia fails the litmus test of the 2ndA in that it's not well regulated - indeed the opposite according to the definition of unorganized.
The unorganized militia is a JOKE, & never intended by the founding fathers. It is a malignant aberration from 2ndA. It never meets, has no officers, no pay grades, no mobilization points, has only been activated once during wwII with only ~5,000 men showing up due to west coast invasion hysteria. A good portion of people are over 45 before they even realize they were in it. Governors are wary to activate their Unorg'd militias for fear that more harm than good could ever prevail with large groups of sparsely trained gun nuts running about, ditto with the presidents.
As well, dunno how you define 'everyone', when percentage wise it would be perhaps 30 - 40% of all americans who might belong to either B1 or B2 above (either ng or unorg'd militia). Update for jmg, 'everyone' means 100%, accd'g to my oxford lexicon.
jmg: And of course {in} more exact details of what the militias of the several states were, who they were and how they were arm themselves, and be organized, disciplined & regulated:
Militia Acts of 1792 "...That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is {18}, and under {45} shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia,
Dunno what you argue here. You cite the militia act(s) of 1792, which pertained closely to the contemporary view of the 2nd amendment of 1791, shortly after you posted that teddy roosevelt's subsequent militia act of early 1900 included 'everyone' else not in the national guards. There was no 'unorganized militia' in america in 1792, the term unorg'd militia didn't even appear until circa 1830.
The militia act of 1792 was enacted 5 months after the 2nd amendment was enacted in bor, and the militia act of 1792 was kind of obviously a more detailed definition of the well regulated militia as described in the 2nd amendment.
The founding fathers never had any intention of creating an 'unorganized militia', it was clearly desirous of a 'well regulated militia'. The unorg'd militia is what developed after the 2ndA was subverted into the two schisms of individual vs militia rkbas, in the following decades.