What did the founding fathers had in mind when they said "well regulated militia"?

>What did the founding fathers had in mind

That they wish that that future generations wouldn't treat them like a fucking monolith who always agreed on every single topic, and would stop pretending that the Constitution was some perfectly thought-out document and not a heavy compromise forged from many disparate factions.

The vagueness is a feature.

Non-arguments don't require refutation.

Lots of guns, lots of ammo, open and easy access to both. Regulated used to mean "well equipped".

>open and easy access to both.

It does not mean that.

Considering private armies and private wars were a thing well into the civil war, i'd say they meant to guarantee all types of weapons to the people.

See the filibuster expeditions, or Andrew Jackson removing the indians from Alabama/Mississippi against orders from congress.

Honestly, I think they meant that the people should be armed.

Imagine that you live on a farm in 1780, some 20 miles from any civilization, and some bandits are trying to rob you. How will you defend yourself? There's no police to speak of yet.

Literally had nothing to do with personal self defense.

The purpose of the militia was to make up the actual army in case the country were attacked.

The US had a tiny standing army even up to the civil war, making up only a fraction of the nation's fighting force. The idea being that the States would provide their militias to bolster the army, allowing a modular army that can be adapted as needed.

If I'm not mistaken it mainly comes from the idea that States shouldn't need to pay for a standing army that would effect other States more than themselves. "Why should South Carolina pay for an army that was needed in Pennsylvania?"

>in case the country were attacked.

Attacked by whom?

The only one they even had problems with were Natives.

Natives, British, or any other foreign agent.

I don't understand why Americans have so much trouble understanding their own Constitution. Not only does the militia part not even matter, you're all legally members of the militia anyway. It's only in there to explain why the right to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed. Do your liberals exempt themselves from English classes?

NO STANDING ARMY

If under attack, the nation will defend itself with the citizen militia ala Switzerland.

If there is no standing army, then we can't get entangled in foreign affairs.

If there is no standing army, no American leader can use it to invade other countries.

That was the fucking point.

To keep our greasy rich American fucks from using a standing army to invade other countries with to make profits.

SEE HOW WELL THAT FUCKING WORKED?

Well either way it worked well, because even though the British managed to burn the White House to the ground in 1812, the U.S still pushed them back.

Yes.

Most of our liberals don't understand the "We're all part of the militia" part. Most don't even understand what a "right" is and think of "rights and privileges" in sociological doublethink terms rather than how they exist in the US constitutional sense.

Being non-imperialistic is not compatible with subjugating natives

/Thread

It did. The fact of the matter is the US threw out the second amendment a long time ago and this personal defense thing is a product of Scalia's word wizardy.

The reason for the tiny standing army was that when Jefferson was made president he was highly conscious of the fact that the existing systems, established for the Continental Army during the Revolution, were Federalist opposition strongholds.

Ostensibly he believed in a militia of free citizens as the best defense the US could have. While at the same time it was easy to draw dramatic parallels to a noble militia and the armies of ancient Greece and Rome. In 1801 he felt amply justified in cutting down the Continental Army to the barest skeleton. This is largely the reason for the utterly pathetic performance of the US "military" in the war of 1812.

With the Battle of Bladensburg as the darkest point in US history, and with Washington all but razed to the ground, the federal government realized that they couldn't rely on the militia and began to build what would become eventually the modern US military. It would still however take a long time for the idea of a militia as the chief defense of the country to fade.

Interesting. Noted for future reference.

It doesn't really matter, since the right to keep and bear arms protected by the 2nd Amendment is described as belonging to the "people" not to the "well regulated militia."

But how well regulated is our militia?

It ain't.

Reread your amendment and tell me how "well regulated" is relevent to the right to keep and bear arms.

It establishes intent which is relevant to the application of the amendment.

If you want a refutation, try Federalist No. 29, 'Concerning the Militia'

avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed29.asp

Is basically correct.

Mandatory military service for white males.

Except the Bill of Rights was written over a decade before the concept of "judicial review" was invented was invented by the court and acceded to by a weak administration.

These constitutional amendments were not precisely worded works of legalese. The founders wrote them to be simple statements of fundamental natural rights, never imagining that they would one day have to be defended in court against judges eager to find an excuse to nibble away at them.

That doesn't make it any less relevant when judicial review is the current standard practice.

I always found it strange how he described the Romans as having a 'militia'.

That "bullshit" is the official position of the Supreme Court

Constitution is vague at times.

It doesn't really specify if the 2nd guarantees the collective rights of a people to be armed VS an individuals right to be armed. Is it about the states rights to have its own state military forces and the feds can't tell them no?

It all comes down to how collectivist the founders were. Basically if you believe in republicanism and democracy, then the the state should be able to have its own gun laws. Because, you know, back then people actually believed their government represented them, and if the people of Georgia elected politicians who voted for gun laws, it meant the people of Georgia chose gun laws, nobodies rights infringed.

And this 'collective right' VS 'individuals right' is a long debated topic, once the supreme court even ruled that the 2nd amendment doesn't guarantee a persons right to own a gun, though that was later overturned. As of now, the supreme courts current position is 'both', a state has the right to its own military (the state guards en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_defense_force) AND an individual has the right to own a firearm, yet the states also has the right to regulate that with gun laws.

A militia that is well regulated.

Roman towns were defended by militias and before the Marian reforms the legions were made up of landowning citizens who would provide their own gear.

Sounds like Jefferson's wet dream.

>libtards are so totally ignorant of history that they don't realize that militias were one of the primary combatant forces in the Revolutionary War, which concluded less than a decade before the Second Amendment was written

Sickening tee bee aytch

it means regulations big gubmen are good

dont believe the neocons and their lies when they say the founders wanted limited gubmen the next time they try to gut social security

Providing your own gear yeah, but it was still compulsory.

Getting drafted into the US marines but having to buy all your gear yourself does not a militia the Marines make

George Washington also had the Romans in mind when he was bulking up the army during his presidency.

Washington had never liked the militia during the Revolution, but as the people and congress were hooked on the idea of a militia he acquiesced to their position. When the first two military engagements of US history during the Northwest Indian War were ignominious defeats at the hands of the Indians, he gave up on them.

During both Harmar's Campaign, and the following campaign by Arthur St Clair, the militia had failed to rally in the expected numbers, were badly equipped, and worst of all they were all untrained and after deserting continually during the march fled the instant the enemy appeared.

Washington re envisioned the army as a self sufficient Legion of professional soldiers, able to provide for its own logistics and maintain discipline after the manner of other traditional armies. He justified this position to congress saying that the cost to the US of relying on irregulars far outweighed the cost of maintaining a professional force. Washington used his veto power twice during his time as president and both times were to prevent congress from altering the military he was building.

Adams continued Washington's work, but when Jefferson came along the army was made into glorified civil service. The army became the engine for such things as the Lewis and Clark expeditions and building roads and bridges on the frontier. This was all well and good, but when it came time for actual war the army could not fight.

>2161702
Triggering faggots 200+ years later who can't handle the idea of a firearm even though they are fixture of human civilization and older than their language.

Guys with guns who obey some kind of rules of engagement.

The federalist papers are not law, but merely suggestions

You sir are correct

Yes it does. The revolutionary war kicked off because the English tried to take powder stores and a cannon from colonials.

Right wingers think that the Constitution is a Bible that can be interpreted any way they want. They're wrong.

That makes them literally no different than any other political group in the United States.

>A well regulated militia == an individual

Right, and police officers are people and I'm a person which means that I'm a police officer and police officers have the right to bear arms so I have the right to bear arms.

>1776 Militia highly trained like Prussian military

wew lad!

1776 militias were just people with muskets and maybe some cannon thrown in.

The founding fathers never had to deal with aircraft, tanks, missiles, and nuclear weapons.

>implying texts have some unified, definite, stable, static, fixed meaning
living and breathing my friend

Do try and argue that before SCOTUS. And record it, I haven't seen every sitting justice laugh at the same time before.

Abolishing the second amendment is was they had in mind.