[BlueTrain]

The early colonists had a fear of standing armies, they having had bad experiences with them, generally speaking, and some of those experiences they brought with them from Europe. The militia was considered necessary and they were used in fighting the French and the Indians. Many of the Revolutionary War officers and men had experience in that war. I do not know details of the colonial units that actually took part in the French and Indian War, however.

Mostly the members of the militia provided their own arms and equipment but evidently the colonial governments provided some as well, even though the arms were considered government property. It was the attempt to confiscate these arms by the British that really started the shooting.

The militia was not a voluntary thing. Participation was required. It was organized. It was regulated. There is no way round that. I can't imagine they were thinking of street crime when they wrote that, although if you've ever been to Philadelphia and the neighborhood where it (the Constitution) was written, you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. One thing I do no know is where the militia district stopped. That is, there were people living in isolated rural districts that probably could not have managed a militia. There wasn't a quorum, if you follow me. As it was, in a few places I am aware of, there were actually colonial troops, later state troops, stationed on what we think of as the frontier, which at the time was roughly 300 miles from the ocean or a little further. In the next twenty years or so it had reached the Mississippi. These state troops along the frontier were sometimes known as rangers but there were never many of them. The Indians were a source of trouble along the frontier until they were defeated by Wayne.

I believe that the people who wrote the second admendment were more concerned with actually having a militia and that it was under the control of the government than with citizens carrying hideout pistols. The last thing they wanted was private armies. They didn't care much for standing armies either and the Continental Army was effectively disbanded. The existance of the militia was a given and the fact that the officers would have been the local gentry was probably assumed, though none of that was mentioned in the admendment.

I also believe the view of the citizenry towards the militia, it not being voluntary, began changing almost right away. By the time the frontier was beyond the Mississippi, you read very little about militias. The army was doing everything by then and curiously, the army was voluntary. There was a movement in the 1850s with state military units but I'm not sure if that would be called the militia.

Other places around the world that we sometimes like to point to when discussing this subject, like the Boers in Africa and the Swiss (in Switzerland), unfortunately also end up being the same story. They aren't (or weren't) voluntary and they used government issued arms, if nothing else. And the worst thing is, no matter how you define it, I'm too old to qualify.