2nd Amendment - "Miltia" - US Constitution - Mentioned How Times

[Dante]

[MENTION=30141]Abatis[/MENTION] clue: Anti right wing does not equate left wing or progressivism. Dante is often anti left too. Imagine that?

 

[bendog]

All states today have a militia. It's called the National Guard. Where does it say that all citizens, including youth with mental health issues, should be armed?

At best the National Guard is the FEDERALIZED portion of a State militia. It is not the entire Militia allowed by the Constitution.

As for mentally ill they are barred from having firearms if properly adjudged to be incompetent or a threat.

The militia is all physically fit persons age 18 to 46 as defined by law. With the age increase to 55 for the military one can assume the militia may also increase to 55.

As for it being a personal right, the Supreme Court so ruled, and it does not have to have any connection to a militia.

There is no other authorized "militia", or than the National Guard, or similar armed forces configurations. There is no militia based on the fact of citizenship, or age, or other factors, other than in the minds of some crazies in Idaho, or similar dens of dysfunction.

As for the mentally ill, I don't doubt that with a little googling, you could find some sort of sanction. But what is the real situation here? Think those young lads at Columbine or Sandy Hook had a hard time getting weapons? They didn't because they lived in a country in which violence is glorified, and in which guns are everywhere.

The second amendment is, in today's terms, vague on the idea of gun ownership. Any realistic interpretation of history makes this clear. Of course, in a sparsely populated, farmer society, facing wild animals and hostile aboriginal groups, a flintlock over the fireplace is not a bad idea. There is absolutely no way the framers of such law could could have foreseen the sociological and demographic realities of today. This is as absurd as suggesting that that we can clearly foresee the society of 2213, and hence make laws appropriate to those times. Those that cower behind the supposed intent of laws made 200 years ago really have different motives, those that are (not suprisingly) rooted in today's issues, and in, particularly, their own personal anxieties.

Largely, I agree. And to Dante's point of numbers, I think one needs to bear in mind that the BOR's authors were very concerned with counterweights to the possibility of a federally raised army, and the notion that an unscrupulous person could reconstitute the Continental Army was not totally an unrealistic fear.

BUT, it wasn't just a flintlock in an agrarian, westward looking society. The Southern planters feared slave revolts, which was one reason for state militias, but to not find a private right, you'd have to think the Southern plantars would have been ok waiting for the milita to get there. And that is not logical.

However, there isn't anyone sanely contending the right to ownership is not subject to regulation. The failure to enact background checks and even outlaw "sporting" rifles is political, not judicial.

 

[Dante]

not bad...


it can be done...


Thank you all