# Does this definition of "well-regulated militia" wash? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 28, 2008, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566 "2008-06-28T13:44:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566/1 "2008-06-28T13:44:33Z")
(I know there must be a score of threads on this subject, but I didn’t want to reopen a non-recent one. Anyway:) As has been debated before, there are grounds to believe that “well-regulated” was not intended to mean “under the iron-fisted oversight of the government”. Cecil himself said it could be construed to mean something closer to “subject to the lawful civil authority”, while others have claimed that contempory documents use it to mean something like “functional, effective, in working order”. I was wondering if the following interpretation is supportable: If you accept that the meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment was that the federal government was forbidden to disarm the citizenry, then in context it means something like the opposite of “paper militia”- a militia in name only, a militia that doesn’t have any firearms. In other words, a modern paraphrase might be "A militia that actually has arms to bear being necessary to…"etc. A cute idea but does it hold water? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566/2 "2008-06-29T08:25:56Z")
Welcome back from wherever you were. It now means nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566/3 "2008-06-29T14:13:34Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Welcome back from wherever you were. It now means nothing. [/QUOTE] Precisely. The majority position in the DC Pistol Ban Case appears to mean that the militia clause is a simple gratuity with no significance. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566/4 "2008-06-29T14:41:57Z")
Granted that legally it’s a moot point; I was wondering if it was plausible that the interpretation I gave in the OP was what the framers had in mind. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2008, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-this-definition-of-well-regulated-militia-wash/454566/5 "2008-06-29T19:43:42Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy] \ I was wondering if the following interpretation is supportable: If you accept that the meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment was that the federal government was forbidden to disarm the citizenry, then in context it means something like the opposite of “paper militia”- a militia in name only, a militia that doesn’t have any firearms. In other words, a modern paraphrase might be "A militia that actually has arms to bear being necessary to…"etc. A cute idea but does it hold water? [/QUOTE] Don’t know about fluid retention, but yes, that would be exactly my own reading of the original text. (Well, actually, I _do_ know rather more than I wanted to know about fluid retention. But that story belongs in MPSIMS filed under T.U.R.P.)