So, I was sitting at home earlier this week sipping a little fine Scotch and admiring my impressive gun collection. It occurred to me that maybe I should be using my guns to help the community rather than treating them as a fetish object, so I called my sister and asked her what she thought. She told me that the reason that we are allowed to have guns is that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state. I asked her what I should do, and she told me, “Why not join the militia? You can improve your skill and discipline and meet new friends while protecting the community! Wouldn’t that be great!”.
So I figured that this was a good idea, so I went around town asking where the militia met. I dreamt of standing watch on them thar hills making sure that those pot-smoking islamofacist commie pinko hippie cheerleaders with bazookas that live over Martin’s Ridge don’t cause trouble again, and lost myself in the fantasy of keeping my gun next to the door ready to hear the battle cry at 4 am, “The Canadian Forces crossed the border 3 hours ago! Grab your gun and ammo and rally at the First Baptist Church, we must protect the road to the south. If the Canadians can take the water tower at Glendale the Tri-County Area will fall. THEY SHALL NOT PASS!” It turns out that we don’t seem to have a local militia at all! I logged in to Al Gore’s fancy electronic communications system that my son said was called the “Internet” for some reason and searched around, but it seems many of the “militias” active in the US are anti-government revolutionary fundie survivalist groups of questionable legality. I want to join a well regulated, loyal, law abiding militia that cooperates with local police and other civil authorities.
Have I misunderstood the reality of “the militia” today? Is my local police department the actual militia that the Constitution speaks of?
I’m clearly embellishing this story a little bit, but the question remains. Can I “join the militia” today in a meaningful way? Nothing in this question involves how to commit or get away with a firearms or sedition offense.
Yes. Every state has both an army and air national guard. Many have “state defense forces.” And if you’re a man between the age of 18 and 45, you’re already a member of the unorganized militia of the United States (although that’s probably so unorganized that it’s not well-regulated). Congratulations. And in some states, you stay in your state’s unorganized militia for life. Woohoo.
Not closely following gun threads, what is the current sate of Constitutional jurisprudence that avoids the logical implications of posts 2 and 3? That is, those posts (on their own) eviscerate the notion that a private citizen has a right to bear arms.
One question I have is whether the historic militias in the US and British North America were always organized by governmental power e.g. a “Territorial Militia of Kansas” organized by the territorial government, or a “Manhattan and Brooklyn Combined Militia” organized by the City of New York, or whether there were militias organized by private community groups such as churches, nonprofits, or even local for-profit companies, such as a “St. John’s Lutheran Church Community Defense Force” or a “Elks Lodge #322 Armed Citizen Patrol Militia of the Tri-County Area”.
So, its’ only happenstance that the only people who tend to gather together and stockpile weapons with the intent of guarding the watchtowers re loonies. That if a group wanted to get together and form an armed citizens’ watch group (no intent to reference the current debacle), they could only do so if they first had the right to private gun ownership secured.
This seems at odds with the previous answers; the weapons of the national guard are not the soldier’s to keep, nor, I presume, are soldiers allowed to bring in their own weapons to training (are they really called soldiers? Or is that only when they’ve been called up to do something in a combat zone?).
Back to the citizen’s watch group–if you wanted to form one, do any states have regulations on the books for doing so? If a state passed a law that said “any gathering of people in possession of firearms with the intent to act as a coordinated body with a modicum of reliance on said weapons, must follow these Very Restrictive Guidelines,” would that pass Constitutional muster under the ‘well regulated’ bit? I presume not, but don’t know why–I hope Dopers more familiar with the case law can summarize and cite.
ETA: had not read Friedo’s post before hitting submit. Apologies if this was answered.
So, in a sense those who are members of the unorganized militia are bona-fide militia members who are not issued a firearm or ammo by the State, right? So where do they get a gun and ammo? Maybe the local gun shop?
Historically the state militias have become the individual state national guards, which can all be called up to federal military service. If you meet the relatively generous criteria you can join them, and you’ll get a lot cooler weapons to practice on than you can keep at home.
Many States (Virginia is one) also have “State Defense Forces” which are state military forces outside the NG system that can’t be Federalized. You could join that if you wished.
Finally, in martial-speak of the 18th and 19th century (more historic/legal speak afterward) the “militia” just referred to the male citizenry within fighting age who were not part of the regular standing army. The idea with them being allowed to own private firearms is the United States Government in 1789 wasn’t exactly high rolling, so if called up militia didn’t BYOG they would have been fielding a fighting force without modern weaponry since stockpiling and buying enough weapons to field a hypothetical militia call up was beyond the government’s ability at that time.
Yeah, where do you think militia in the revolutionary war got weapons? They could barely equip the Continental Army properly, some purchased weapons may have made it into militia units, but by and large they needed to bring their own or they would have had problems.
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I would think that any militia outside the purvey of the government does not have the constitutional right to organize a unit of armed citizens for whatever reason.
By the same token, all citizens have the right to keep and bear arms for any reason. That’s what it says: “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Citizens have the right to own arms, but only the government has the right to organize them for purposes of a militia.
The unorganized militia is just everybody able to fight; aka, adult men who aren’t disabled or too old. It’s the militia in potentia; the people who can be drafted if the government needs to do it.
When in this thread did we switch the topic from “well-regulated militia” to “unorganized militia”? I’m not finding the latter term in the Constitution, so what’s up(besides an attempt to loosen the parameters just a mite)?
Ignoring all recent case law about militia membership being necessary, couldn’t the unorganized militia be called up in an emergency, be drilled and well regulated in a few days, and therefore need to previously have possessed arms?
Possibly. But if that were the purpose of registration, there would be no need for names, gun serial numbers, or fees. Just that X number of people own Y type of guns.