I wonder what our Founding Fathers would think regarding the country that the USA has become if they were alive today?

#commasmatter

Yep, you'll get nowhere arguing with Bill O'Reilly.

Shotguns, pistols, and bolt action rifles are also "weapons of war".  Does he want those firearms banned too?

Probally

correct, get to the range and practice at a minimum.

They would have advocated armed rebellion decades ago, at the least. They rebelled and seceded over far less than what our government does today.

They'd commit suicide.

They'd be surprised it has lasted as long as it has.

Mike, well said, now if somebody would just explain it to that gum ball machine Bill O'reilly on Fox news.

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials"-George Mason

Militias were bodies of the states, hence the 2nd provides a means for the states to oppose a tyrannical federal government.

Ben Frankin yes, but I doubt that otherwise: They literally paid dearly for it with that "pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor...". It would've been a much easier life for most if they stayed British.


 

Right.  And that is why an AR15 needs to be thought of as.........



Aloha, Mark

A LONGGGGG TIME AGO...

they were men with very short fuses.

I don't believe they had short fuses. If they had, they would not have written

 

Yep, and because militias are not regular forces, you are much more likely to have a militia that can shoot and be organized quickly if the people are armed and can freely engage in marksmanship activities (this is also why the Swiss militiamen get to take their weapons home and ranges are ubiquitous).  It was expected that State military forces combined would outweigh Federal military forces.  

It's a laughable notion now, as the State militias are all tiny and pathetic, even the few decent ones, and a good chunk of the States don't have one at all except on paper.  Any State forced would be denigrated and have its recruitment drawn away by the Federal military, and no State would be willing to fund a properly sized and equipped militia today (you need vehicles, boats, combat aircraft, artillery, etc., not just small arms), anyways, especially without the Federal funds that would almost certainly not be provided (and could be used as a weapon by the Feds like other funding to the States).  I doubt any State would be willing to use conscription, which is the only way to deal with the obvious recruitment issues and get a militia to be a decent size (which is why the States originally used the concept of universal obligation in the first place; the "unorganized militia" concept is basically the legal basis for conscription into an organized State military force).

The thing is, the protections against tyranny afforded by the RKBA require the existence of the militia that doesn't exist today. It's not enough to have private arms.  Armed men need to be organized, trained, led, equipped, etc., and in sufficient numbers to accomplish things, and the States need to have the guts to use them.  That's why the prefatory clause states that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, because ultimately it is.  It's also why the Anti-Federalists, plus certain Federalists, fought hard to prevent the militia from being a national force or being done away with altogether, and insisted on RKBA protections despite no power being granted to infringe upon the RKBA, because having recently dealt with it on the part of Parliament, they knew that the usurpation of powers not held was a real risk.  The RKBA is only one part of the whole.  It is vital, but is not sufficient by itself.

And ultimately, in this context, it is clear that martial arms are the most protected of all.  Personal self-defence, while important, is not the most important component of the purpose of the Second Amendment's protections, despite the Heller ruling to the contrary.  It is the military purpose that is first and foremost, to be wielded in defence of a free state, whether from threats within or without.

It took almost a decade of abuses to get them to act, and they were pleading as loyal subjects to the Crown to the very last minute, and even for some time after the fighting had begun.  But the impetus as very minor compared to what the Feds, and even most State governments, do today.

The militia is not the Army.  It is a separate military force (at the time, 13 or 14 separate military forces, actually) with a very different character from regular or reserve military forces based on much broader conscription.  In the constitution it is made distinct from the national military forces, including the armies Congress was granted the power to raise, with armies of regular troops being prohibited, separately from the militias preserved to them, to the States without the consent of Congress.  Not even the National Guard qualifies as the militia described in the Constitution.

Here's an article I wrote over 20 years ago on talk.politics.guns...



http://xring.com/2013/12/02/an-old-post-resurrected-on-the-usage-of-the-term-well-regulated-in-early-congressional-debates/

i like this one the best

 

Probably been said, but in that day well regulated meant practiced or proficient.  The militia in that day was every able bodied male.

Meaning every bodied male had to have an weapon of some type equivalent to any expected foe and had to be proficient in its use at any time if they were called into action.

And led.

Why does everyone speculate wildly about this all the time, instead of looking at all the correspondence George Washington wrote at the time that was specifically context around the phrase "well regulated militia"?

The fact that 1/4 of the nation would vote for a socialst lets you know how dire things are. The ony solution I see is if a few remaining conservative individual states could secede from the insanity before they too are hoplessly sucked into the liberal black hole.

OP, you have to approach leftists as you do toddlers.



They live in a pretend world, make up new words, ascribe new or inverse meanings to old words, and throw tantrums when their little worlds are intruded upon by reality.



They believe 2+2=5 because they want their world to work that way.

Correct. The "well regulated militia" was there to let folks know that everyone was supposed to have the weapons of war, so that they could be available to protect their state in time of need.



 

They have managed to redfine that as well to "freedom from religion".    
And very few people see the utility of rights flowing from God, and not men.
But they are better people than you, because they don't believe in some sky being.   They will tell you so.
And then they will tell you how upset they are that other men are restricting their harmless activities with laws and regulations whipped up at the whim of other men.