People in good standing, registered with their town/county/state militia, and subject to the regulations thereof.
The idea that every farmer was a minutemen and that was our defense plan is a Hollywood level simplification of history. The Federalist and Anti Federalist papers make this very clear. Furthermore the founding fathers wanted a standing Army eventually. They knew a militia would not work forever. The idea was always for a standing Army to take over in the future, with the State militias to balance out any shenanigans by the federal army.
And again the state militias were not every Tom, Dick, and Harry. They were regulated affairs much closer to a national guard unit than a shooting club.
Every Tom, Dick, and Harry was part of the militia, and still are today. Title 10 outlines that all able bodies men not enlisted in the military or national guard is part of the unorganized militia. The founders feared a standing army, while knowing it was inevitable and useful, and the militia was one of the balances of power between State and Federal power.
Hamilton layed out clearly that intention in Federalist 29. “To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.” … “Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.”…“if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens.”
The intent of the 2nd amendment was to preserve the existence of an armed populace that would protect themselves and their neighbors from any threats.
Right and when’s the last time you reported for drill?
It was 2013 for me.
You looked right past the part where he talks about an actual militia, not just every citizen. Maybe critically read that instead of just using bits to confirm your bias.
Yeah, I made sure to capture the entire sentence so I wouldn’t be cherry picking/quote mining to skew it to my “side” of the debate. In 1776, planning a yearly exercise/drill for a town or city was something that would happen when everyone got together for traveling judges, organizing fire brigades, and all kinds of civic tasks.
If you want to start planning a yearly get together for people to have a training day with the national guard or reserves like CERT does for disaster drills, it would probably be a huge hit with the tacticool dads and gravy seals. Would probably get better turnout than the CERT drills that serve critical importance to first responders and make the civilians better at how to respond to disasters too.
You are glossing over that the Federal Government to this day considers every (male) citizen to be the militia. Your saying the equivalent of “Nader’s talking about specifically the Pinto, not cars in general when he says our roads are unsafe.” I’ll even conceed that your right that Title 10 does need to be adjusted to include women, because they already serve in the military and are fully capable to fighting in wars. You are also glossing over Hamilton saying that requiring everyone to be a well-regulated militia was unreasonable, so they would just need to rely on “the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens” being armed and equipped. That right there is the definition of “every Tom, Dick, and Harry”. He wanted to make sure that they didn’t neglect to be armed and equipped by checking every year or so. I would like to direct the request for critically reading Federalist 29 instead of just using bits to confirm your bias" right back your way.
If “expecting them to be trained as a military is unreasonable, but we can still rely on them to bring their guns and fight with the professionals with just a little training once a year” doesn’t rely on the right of all classes of citizens having a right to be armed, I don’t know what else it means. The Militia Acts say the same thing; every able bodied citizen is considered part of the militia, and as such can be conscripted at any time of need. When conscripted, the “every able bodied citizen” needed to show up with a gun, initial ammunition, bayonet, and field equipment.
We have the same system now, except it’s called Selective Service instead of reporting to your town hall when you move, except you do that too by establishing residency for local voting and tax purposes.
