[BlueTrain]

I hesitate to get into this again because I've stated my views plainly on the subject. But nevertheless, it is clearly subject to government authority. Not only were those who came up with that short amendment fearful of the army, they also clearly did not want armed bodies that were not subject to government authority. Federal laws were passed not long after specifying some of the details of militia service.

The militia were actually embodied on several occasions in the early days of the United States. Sometimes they did all right, other times, not so well. It was the fact that the militia really couldn't stand up to a trained army and sometimes not even to the Indians, that they decided that having a regular army wasn't such a bad idea after all.

You may note that the National Guard in some states was still being referred to as the state militia well past WWI. You are all free to join the National Guard if you are qualified. The original notion of the militia hardly included everyone, by the way, and you probably wouldn't want everyone in today, either. In any event, personal self-defence was not the point of the militia as described in the 2nd amendment. I seriously doubt that the idea of women carrying pistols ever entered their heads when the amendments were being considered.

Of course, I believe many of you don't like any form of control over one's actions whatsoever and I can understand that.