What Exactly Is... The Militia?

The Tea Party Tribune ^ | 2/21/13 | Jim Funkhouser

[HMS Surprise]

Certainly the militia is the people, for what else could it possibly be? Here’s the definitive quote from one of our founding fathers: ”I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.” — George Mason, in Debates in the Virginia Convention.

Consider the question: Does combining the right of free speech with the right to assemble diminish either? Of course not. And the same is true when you combine the right to assemble with the right to be armed. Meeting with rifles in hand for the purpose of training in their proper use is exactly what “well-regulated” means.

In fact, the Supreme Court supercedes Joe Biden on this issue. In U.S. v Miller the Supremes decided that a sawed-off shotgun is not a military weapon, so it is therefore not protected by the 2nd amendment. The clear implication is that only military-style weapons are protected. The very weapons politicians are trying to ban, are the only weapons that the founders thought worth defending with a constitutional amendment.

[philman_36]

Nice post, bunkerhill7.

My favorite quote in this area...
Tench Coxe and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, 1787-1823

"The powers of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress have no right to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American.... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

[bunkerhill7]

wow greater!

[MileHi]

Thanks