Off the NET! From : BILL LIDDELL Number : 14 of 23 To : GARY PETRACCARO Date : 12/14/92 12:00am Subj : Re: nra et al Reference : NONE Read : [N/A] Private : NO Conf : 007 - RTKBA GP> BL> THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY GP> Ok. Then, why have the word "militia" in the 2nd Amendment GP> at all. Why not: "Congress shall have no right to infringe upon GP> the rights of everyone to bear arms", or maybe "Congress shall GP> pass no law limiting...". This is not a trick question, I've GP> just been curious about the actual meaning and keep meaning to GP> ask this one. Veddy, veddy simple. To the Framers the militia and the people were synonymous terms. The Second Amendment says basically that the best defense of a state or nation is a uniformly armed [regulated] population [militia] and therefor the right of those people to keep and bear arms is off limits. "Well-regulated" to the framers meant STANDARDIZED. "Militia" meant a universally armed body of citizens. The first militia act of the new Federal Congress was the Militia Act of 1792: "That the Militia of the United States shall consist of each and every free, able bodied male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who are or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as hereinafter excepted) who shall severally and respectively be enrolled by the captain or commanding officer of the company within whose bounds such citizen shall reside.... That every citizen so enrolled and notified shall within a Month thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock of a bore not smaller than seventeen balls to the pound, a sufficient bayonet and belt, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball, two spare flints, and a knapsack, and shall appear so armed, accoutered and provided, when called out to exercise or into service as is hereinafter directed..." Per: Charles Bickford and Helen Veit, ed., Documentary History of the First Federal Congress 1789-1791, Vol. 5, (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 1986), 1460-1461. That required list of arms and materials the citizen was required to keep was the "well-regulated" part of the universal militia. That requirement continued until about 1906 when the militia system of the states was replaced by the National Guard, which is NOT the militia of the constitution, but which is a third component of the national army of the United States [Regular Army, Reserves, and National Guard. Interestingly, you and I are still in the militia! By LAW much less. USC Title 10 (311 Militia: Composition and Classes) states, "The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States, and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard. The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia." So almost everybody is still in the "militia." Madison intended this be the situation, although while some favored only having a militia and no standing army, Madison favored having both. "A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace." - James Madison, The Federalist Papers (No. 46). He further stated that we need no fear his standing army as: "Let a regular army , fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed . . . of twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near a half a million citizens with arms in their hands . . ." - James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 46 Check what proportion of the population that 500,000 citizens with arms is in the Census for that period. You'll find it accounts for about every free, male of the "militia" eligible ages. So the hangup some have on Militia = National Guard is mistaken. One could ask in a similar vein to your question above: "Why did they not say 'the right of the state to keep a militia shall not be infringed ' rather than the right of the people to keep and bear arms? Because to them there was no difference between the two and the intent was to have a populace capable of meeting any threat to Liberty, foreign or domestic. "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." - Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787). === * OLX 2.1 TD * Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you. ================================ 'My father told me - if you let them do it to you you've got yourself to blame it's you who feels the pain it's you who takes the shame...' Pete Townsend, The Who ================================