I’m looking forward to hearing from the Penis Grabbing Neanderthals, what with the weekend coming up and all.
Regards,
Shodan
Popular Front for the Liberation of Judea
The 2nd Amendment has been violated so much because we have so many gun nuts who are apparently too cowardly to go to eat a burger or shopping in a department store without carrying enough ammo to stop George Washington’s entire army
If “militia” means any and all random males with guns then how can any sense of the term “well regulated” apply to it?
More likely, it is because we have so many antis who suffer from both impaired risk-assessment and a crippling fear of inanimate objects. All they know is that they want to “feel safe.”
And note that even with the handgun {regulation that amounts to a ban for most people} that many cities have, long guns aren’t affected. So you can have your hunting rifle. And if you have to fight off the redcoats, a hunting rifle is a lot more use than pistol.
My life experience has generally been that the people that carry guns are either rural like hunters, farmers, ‘hicks’ or in the city it’s criminals. (Yes I know, broad generalization there) Having lived in both environments, I can only base that on what I’ve seen myself.
For people like me, it’s just not that important to be able to have a gun.
Local militia were a part of the US until the feds basically decided they didn’t want them around any longer in WWI. Since then, any attempt to form such is greeted with hostility by the government. Thanks to a long and effective campaign through the mass media, the general public will always presume any modern militia to be inherently and automatically wrong, too.
It is true that many crank movements have styled themselves as militia, but they are the result of government hostility towards militia, not the reason for it.
Has my right to buy an M249 light machine gun been infringed?
Not to be mean about it, but the guns we are allowed to buy are guns that no soldier in a contemporary military force would be satisfied with. Non-Automatic rifles, shotguns and pistols. Unless you’re a sniper or a soldier who’s not expected to actually fight, you’re getting equipped with something different than what we are allowed to buy.
This post ought to be a sticky. All of it.
I’d guess that at the very least it would require that your town (or county or state) would have a policy in place stating who was designated to call out the militia, who kept a list of qualified members, how they would be called out, whether guns and munition would be supplied or everyone would bring their own (or both), whether a demonstration of basic competence was required to join, and whether regular practices would be held.
There could also be regulations on how long they could be kept in the field, whether they’d be fed, whether they’d be paid, whether medical care or burial would be provided, whether there could be fines for not showing up when called . . . there could be all kinds of regulations. Not that they’d have to be written down, necessarily, just that the policies had to be there. A well regulated militia doesn’t just happen. If no one has been assigned to be in charge, you don’t have a militia, you have an argument.
You just listed several of the reasons why the US government essentially did away with militia. It fit in better with their idea of a modern military to be able to just conscript for the duration and not be dealing with “foolishness” like the men electing their own officers. IMPO, what with Bolshevism in the air at the time, the power elite probably weren’t the least bit enthusiastic about groups of citizens arming and training themselves. Why, such groups of men might actually provide effective resistance against the Pinks, Coal and Iron Cops, and other government-approved groups of armed men. We absolutely couldn’t have that.
Well, you’re not wrong. The interpretation I was referring to was crystallized somewhat in U.S. v. Miller back in 1939, in which the Supreme Court essentially said that the second amendment guarantees the right to own weapons having a “reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.” It is for this and other reasons that I think the Hughes amendment to the 1986 FOPA really ought to be challenged on constitutional grounds. So yes, you ought to be able to buy an M249 – though probably still subject to the machine gun registration requirements of the NFA, which jurisprudence has held (annoyingly, perhaps) to be non-violative of the constitution for quite a long time.
That said, I don’t think a modern infantry soldier would find, e.g., a good AR-15 rifle to be strictly inadequate. The lack of a giggle switch would represent a reduced capability, but in most engagements probably not a critical one. Suppressive fire is, after all, what the M249 is for. 
Though I don’t necessarily agree with your interpretation of the 18th century definitions, I’d certainly be willing to stipulate to them provided we also stipulated that “arms” was defined to mean those things that a militia man might be carrying at the time of the Bill of Rights – nothing automatic, semiautomatic, no revolvers, no armor piercing bullets, etc.
This one just never gets old.
Electronic communications.
Mass media.
You really sure you want to go here?
I think his point is that you want to use an archaic definition of “militia” but a modern definition of “arms”. Doing so favors your argument but beyond that there’s not logical reason to do it. In other words, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t just pick and choose definitions to fit your argument.
Nice straw men you have there. The “crippling fear of inanimate objects” remark is so over the top that it hardly bears mention. And you’ve got the risk assessment thing backwards. It’s the people who are afraid to eat in a Sonic without a firearm that have a problem with risk assessment.
You know, you have brought so many new ideas and fresh perspectives to this thread that you have changed my whole view of guns and their place in modern life.
Well aren’t we clever.
Thank you. That was exactly my point.
Since you used the word “logical,” please explain the logic error that you believe you have caught me in.