[Tennessee Gentleman]

Originally Posted by RDak

You know I always enjoy these threads also.

Seems to always bring out the usual suspects doesn't it? I am sure a psychologist could tell us why.

Originally Posted by RDak

Let's say we are in deep, deep trouble and society has "broken down".

Here has always been my problem with such scenarios. If our society and then our government with all it's democratic institutions "breaks down", then what relevance is the Constitution at all? I have personally seen that type of environment and the rule of law there (Somalia) meant nothing. It was survival of the fittest and the law of the jungle (no pun intended). So, really I am not sure we can really talk in those terms and I understand why TFL bars such TEOTWAWKI threads. As the Russians IIRC say: The living would envy the dead.

Therefore, I would only see a legitimate militia being called during a time of national emergency by a functioning government to meet a specific threat or problem. That is what I believe the FFs thought as well. The militia in such circumstances might be asked to bring it's own weapons but I doubt it would since firearms are cheap and plentiful today and the logisitical problems would be large with various assorted shotguns and Grandpa's .32.

However, even that scenario is pretty much beyond the pale today. No foreign country can invade us because we would nuke them into oblivion and we have sufficient NG and LEOs to handle large civil unrest or natural disaster without a need to call up the militia.

I am NOT talking about just volunteering to help like my church did during Katrina and I am not talking about brief localized small crazy periods like the LA riots where folk might band together for SD. Those are not militia activity.

Originally Posted by RDak

I look to Federalist Paper No. 29 alot when getting into gray areas and feel Hamilton's paper provides the "flavor" of what the militia system was all about at the time of the FF's. It is a "preamble" so to speak.

You know a lot of folk quote that paper (Federalist #29) but when I read it I see Hamilton arguing for a militia with more government control not less.

Finally, what militia thread would not be appropriate without mentioning the Nazis (forgive me Glenn). But you know it was the weak Weimar Republic and it's lack of effective democratic institutions and protection of civil rights that allowed the Nazi's to take over. The "armed citizenry" that facilitated that were the Brown Shirts. In fact I see very scary parallels between the Sturmabteilung and some of these "modern" militia groups. Mobs with guns who answer only to themselves. This is a true danger to liberty those who post fervently for some imagined unaccountable "people's militia" should consider.