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Originally Posted by carguychris
To build upon what Aquila and JimDandy have already written, the founders clearly intended for "The Militia" to be sanctioned and controlled by the government, which is why the Constitution gives control of the state militias to Congress and command of the militias to the President.
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Whoa, Mate.
I referred to the Militia Act, which is in Federal law. It defines who is in the "unorganized militia," but it does not say that the unorganized militia is under government control unless called up by the Federal government. I don't believe that the Founders saw local militias as being under government control at all ... other than ensuring that each town or county HAD its local militia. The colonial militias were typically not under government control unless/until called up by the governor for duty.
As to someone's comment above that many states prohibit "private" militias or paramilitary training, I'm not so sure about that. I haven't researched the laws of all the states on this, but I have researched several. And, while those I have looked into do have provisions regarding paramilitary training, they do not have blanket prohibitions. They prohibit paramilitary training for the purpose of overthrowing the government.
In states such as those, a group conducting paramilitary training for the purpose of taking over the state and seceding from the United States might be prohibited. A group of U.S. military war veterans training as a "militia" so as to be better prepared against the possibility of a terrorist assault would not be prohibited.
Of course, the question of how to explain the difference to the nice men in the Bradley fighting vehicles could be vexing ...