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Old December 26, 2009, 11:39 PM   #23
Al Norris
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Join Date: June 29, 2000
Location: Rupert, Idaho
Posts: 9,660
Justice Story wrote:
Quote:
The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.
I bolded the part that I wanted you to take particular note of.

Tennessee Gentleman, and several others wou;ld have us believe that the militia is a dead letter.

To that I give you United Airlines flight #93. Those people acted as and were the militia. They gave their lives so that the terrorists could not complete their mission.

Now we have the most recent example, Jasper Schuringa on Northwest flight #253. The fact that he was a Dutch citizen, means nothing if the definition of militia is: All able-bodied persons acting in concert to thwart an enemy.

In such asymetric warfare, that we find ourselves in today, the need for the citizen militia still exists. Despite living in a world of lethal armed forces and police.

Thomas Cooley wrote, in his General Principles of Constitutional Law (1880):
Quote:
... for to bear arms implies something more than the mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in doing so the laws of public order.
So while I generally agree with TG that some State or Local supervision is most likely necessary, it seems as if at least one scholar agrees with the voluntary militias that were mostly disbanded after the severe scrutiny from the OK City bombing.
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