[seanw444]

The well-regulated militia part is an example of why the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, not the sole reason for its existence. Also, well-regulated in the context of the time of its passing was "well-equipped and organized." Not our current usage of the word, which means "added layers of bureaucracy and restriction." It makes zero sense to have a militia capable of maintaining a free state that's entirely at the behest of the state it's trying to keep free. For the same reason we laugh at internal investigations: "we launched an internal investigation, and found we did nothing wrong." Otherwise, it's just a second military. Which wasn't the point of it.

It's been ruled this way in the courts, and it's also just kind of obvious if you're reading it with no anti-individual prejudice/bias.

[toss1]

Ummm, that's not the definition of a militia.

The definition of a militia is a body of non-professional (ordinary citizen) soldiers not part of the regular army, who stand ready to be called up in an emergency.

Notice the being called up part - the militia is to be SERVING IN and to be UNDER THE COMMAND of the ordinary military hierarchy.

A militia is NOT as you are implying, some kind of batch of citizens ready to raise an insurrection to fight against the army. That is the exact opposite of "being necessary to the security of a free State".

While I'm not for bureaucracy, even the Army has qualification standards of who can join. While militia standards should be lower, we cannot argue that they should be zero, enshrining some "right" for any mentally-incompetent and/or skilled-incompetent person to buy any armament and carry it in any situation.

If you are a sane, competent, and responsible citizen, no one is even proposing a law infringing your right.

(and FTR, I used to argue a "gun control is using two hands" approach. But accumulation of facts and a bit of thinking has changed my mind.)

[seanw444]

This country recognizes state-affiliated militias, and independent militias, both in law and court precedent. The state-affiliated militia would effectively be the national guard in modern times. That is not what I am talking about. Nor is it explicitly the kind mentioned in the 2A, which was clearly intentional.

The fall of nearly all great nations of this magnitude in history have been due to internal corruption and decay of the institutions. You don't protect against that with state-affiliated paramilitary organizations. You end up being the one protecting the decayed institutions and corruption. And if you refuse, and join a group of people trying to fight against it, then what? Oh interesting, an independent militia.

Your side's arguments really make the founders sound like idiots. They were not. They considered all of this. And they made a pretty simple and clear statement about it: it's a right of the people, to keep and bear arms. And it shall not be infringed.

If you don't like it, then amend the Constitution. That's how this place was supposed to work. But I guess society has decided we can forgo that step entirely.

[toss1]

Um, no.

"all 50 states have some provision in their state law, whether it's their state constitution or their state statutes, that prohibits private militia, private paramilitary activity. " [0]

"In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled in a major gun rights case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that citizens had a right to own a firearm for purposes other than being in a militia, namely for self-defense. The ruling affirmed the right of states to restrict militia-like activity." [1]

So, it is pretty much decided that independent militias, unaccountable to the state(s), can be illegal under the constitution, and are in fact illegal in all 50 states.

So, either the founders were either not actually interested in unregulated militias (hint: they did say "well regulated", not "unregulated, independent"), or SCOTUS has gotten it wrong — very possible, but it is very unlikely that a different SCOTUS would help, as this is the most right-wing SCOTUS in a century and it still upheld outlawing independent militias.

And again, there is nothing that says that independent militias would not, or could not have qualification standards. In fact, they'd be idiots not to.

Again, I do not see any right to buy arms & ammo as easily as a bunch of bananas, or that the right is enshrined for insane, incompetent, or irresponsible people. Being required to pass a background check, not have demonstrated inability to control your own violence, and demonstrate basic safety and skill with firearms is not infringement.

I live in Massachusetts, with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. It is a minor inconvenience, certainly nothing resembling infringement. We need to attend a 2-3 hour safety session and iirc get the cert signed off by the Chief Of Police in the town[2].

The results are clear [3]. While the nation has hundreds of mass shootings every year, there have been only 2 in MA in this century (the only one in the last two decades being in the Boston Marathon Bombing, an international terrorist act), and only 4 in the last 33 years.

Yet, if I want to, I can go get qualified and get a firearm next week.

Seriously, where is the infringement?

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/08/30/907720068/are-citizen-militia...

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-09-2...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Massachusetts

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_Mas...

[seanw444]

You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.

Also, I still find SCOTUS too milquetoast to represent me. They still ruled in favor of permitting, which is blatantly unconstitutional, and to argue otherwise is totally disingenuous.

I don't think you're worth my time, nor am I yours.

[toss1]

>>You can have a private militia, so long as you don't take your operations to the public realm. And if it gets to the point where your militia is useful, then I don't think that law matters anyways.

That sounds kind of self-contradictory. If your 'militia in the private realm' is doing nothing, it seems to be a meaningless organization, or at best a proto-organization, and if it is a useful militia, as in threatening the power of the state or federal govt, that's clearly illegal.

And if you believe that requiring a basic firearms permit to be unconstitutional, it seems that that standard might only apply to 18th-century weapons. An AR or even a good hunting rifle is more deadly than a cannon of those times (and also required more fiddly knowledge & skill to shoot effectively).

I've seen no law or proposal that is anything more than a modest inconvenience for any sane, competent, and responsible person. I don't see how any of the founders would be objecting to that at any level. And this society is both much more complex and the weapons orders of magnitudes more powerful.

And yeah, I agree SCOTUS has enough problems for everyone, about which we could commiserate until the cows come home, and then some.