JP171 wrote:
Actually no they aren't engaged in a constitutionally protected Militia, there are laws that define what is and what is NOT a legally established Militia and they ain't it
Well, Webster's has its definition regarding able-bodied citizens, and I have my own favorite clarification. For some reason, I feel a need to take a whack at the horse this morning.
I think the Second Amendment does a pretty good job of defining the militia, at least to the well regulated reader if I may borrow terminology from past times. The Second draws an equivalency between the militia and the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, [in other words] the right of the people [not just the army] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. You government dweebs need to keep yer mitts off my guns, because my state (yours too) of being free is more dependent on the general and enforceable will of the people than your office.
The status of being free is dependent on a well regulated militia, which is the right of you and I and everyone else who hasn't forfeited that right through due process. Any regulation, in the modern bureaucratic sense, has to be done with the purpose of promoting rights, not infringing them.
Sometimes words mean different things, too. For example, when a printer carefully adjusts his press to properly align the different passes of a four color process he is said to be registering his colors. Color registration has nothing to do with filling out government paperwork.
Regulated probably meant any one of several things to colonists, but the phrase "well regulated" had its own meaning, too. Well running, or well equipped. In fact, the word "well" has it's own archaic use. Listen to sailors working a tall ship and using traditional commands. it's not uncommon for one sailor to indicate to another he can stop hauling a line with the phrase, "That's well."
It sounds jarring to hear "well" serve as a general use adjective, but it's one use of the term, as in "All is well."
Unfortunately, it's risky to claim to be part of the militia. I quietly consider myself to be, just as I consider every other law abiding citizen I encounter, but I keep that to myself. The word has baggage brought aboard by the fringe - and the real militia is not the fringe and it is not a threat to freedom.
The militia is necessary for what mainstream America cherishes. You might not like oxygen, but you need to breathe it. You might not like guns, but you need your neighbor armed.
