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To: ctdonath2
"The plain point of the Militia Act of 1792 ... is to ensure the general population is armed, from which a subset thereof may be assembled into a unit."

Then why does the Militia Act of 1792 say you have six months to arm yourself after being notified? Seems to me that if the plain point of the Militia Act of 1792 was to ensure the general population is armed, there'd be no need to allow six months -- the population would already be armed.

41 posted on 08/10/2007 5:47:20 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: robertpaulsen

The enrollment was automatic, based on simply being found of age & gender and within jurisdiction.

The notification was fair warning that the coming-of-age (or moving-in) youth was subject to such requirement.

It wasn’t that you were called up, it was notification that you, as a citizen, have an obligatory duty regardless of callup. All were generally expected to be armed; this notification made it clear a subset were _required_ to be armed to minimum standards.

And again (a point you keep resisting): there was NO punishment for one outside the defined militia membership being armed, nor for anyone having arms exceeding a minimum. The idea that those within a legal line could be punished for being inadequately armed, and those outside the line punished for being armed at all, is absurd.


47 posted on 08/10/2007 10:55:23 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (The color blue tastes like the square root of 0?)
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