thoughts?

i think it should be considered as one, whether they're armed or not.

No!  They are usually unarmed unmotivated sheeple.

Amendment II 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.

but does the militia have a responsibility to bear arms, as long as it is working to preserve the security of the community?

never thought of it like that, but i see where you may be comming from.  i disagree though.  from my experience, a neighborhood watch consists of putting up signs in a neighborhood and nobody doing shit about it.  a militia would have to meet regularly and have a common strategy or at least a common action.

Quoted: but does the militia have a responsibility to bear arms, as long as it is working to preserve the security of the community?

Responsibility, YES!  Legal authority under current systems, odds are not allowed or outright illegal.  

Quoted: but does the militia have a responsibility to bear arms, as long as it is working to preserve the security of the community?

The wholeidea of the second amendment is that every man be armed, they are not high speed low drag types, but they make up for it with numbers.

The militia must be armed.

If done right, it works along similar themes. I wouldn't say it's exactly the same, but similar.

i.e. the community coming together for common defense.

If  a group of nosy busybodies that wet their pants and call the police are your definition of a militia, then sure.

My last neiborhood watch was weak. I was the only one who owned a gun. pooooothetic!

This book is about neighborhood crime watches. Takes a militia approach. A very good book.

Armed Citizen: A solution to crime in the streets

from: www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode10/usc_sec_10_00000311----000-.html


USC Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 13, Section 311 (Militia Composition and Classes)
(a) 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 a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) 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 the Naval Militia

By Legal Definition: a Neighborhood Watch is a Militia. albeit an "unorganized" one. Section 1 and (a.) go to great detail defining a smaller subset of what constitutes an Organized Militia.

But then instead of leaving it there and having it completely exclusive to the National Guard, the law includes everyone else as part of the Unorganized Militia who do not fall into the first category.

This is like Set Theory: Define some Set A, then define Set B as the set of all objects NOT in A. Then define the Universal Set (or Militia Set) as {A U B}