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Why haven’t militias in the U.S. been disbanded by the government?

I recently answered this question on Quora, and thought I would share it with you, my friends…

First, you have to understand what the “militia” is. According to the Founders, who left us a blue million quotations telling us exactly what they thought the militia was, the Founders all agreed that the the militia was every citizen who was capable of bearing arms. In the Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 & 16, empower the federal government to call forth the militia. But not the whole militia; only those who Congress authorizes. This is the conscript militia. Today, that would be anyone with a draft card. That is the extent of the federal, militia authority.

Before we discuss the Second Amendment, we must first understand the Bill of Rights, as a whole. All ten of the amendments in the Bill of rights have but one purpose… that is to guarantee that certain rights of the People are inviolable by the government. Even the much misunderstood Tenth Amendment, guarantees the unenumerated rights of the People.

As I mentioned earlier, the entire militia authority of the federal government resides in two clauses of the Constitution, and that authority is very circumscribed. The Second Amendment is not referring to the conscript militia. The National Guard are not the Second Amendment militia either. The NG’s are part-time employees of the federal government who signed a contract, and swore a service oath, requiring them to render service for finacial remuneration. The National Guard was created by the Militia Act of 1903, as an auxillary element of the Army, and even though they are a volunteer force, that act charters them under the same two clauses that govern the conscript militia.

The militia of the Second Amendment is still the militia of the People, that is, every citizen who is able to bear arms. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al, did not start the Revolution (though I grant that many of the Founders were members of The Sons), an ad hoc militia, The Sons of Liberty did. It was The Sons of Liberty who threw the Boston Tea Party. It was The Sons of Liberty who defeated the British at Concord. The Sons of Liberty were a militia of the People. From this, surely you must understand, it was militias like The Sons of Liberty, to which the Second Amendment refers.

The federal, and under the Fourteenth Amendment, the State government’s only have powers to act against citizen militias if they are violating constitutionally predicated laws, or are fomenting rebellion.

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