• Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    As SCOTUS has so ably noticed, the 1900’s aren’t early enough to tell us the intentions behind an agreement from the late 1700’s. So a law passed in 1916 to help with drafting soldiers has shit all to do with the 2nd amendment. Especially since it’s so easily revocable.

    And training did not take place once a year. It took place at least once a month, more often in some places. Finally, trying to use a term of art like “the great yeomanry” as evidence it was every man is just gilding the lilly. He even uses the exact phrase “A well regulated Militia” in opposition to your great yeomanry. Which would seem to suggest that only those who practiced often enough had a right to bear arms as the founders understood their contemporary language.

    Jumping on subjective terms and ignoring what’s actually said might work in your gun forum circle jerks but it doesn’t pass muster in the light of day.

    • Narauko@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That passage on the makeup of the militia is from the 1792 Militia Acts, and is fully contemporaneous with the 2nd amendment being a mere 16 years after the Declaration and 9 years after the end of the war. There is clear continuity from before the founding to today that the militia is the citizenry.

      Let’s throw out the “flowery language” since you dislike it, it doesn’t change anything. In plain English he wrote that the discussion was about and included all classes of citizens. I don’t know if you are speed skimming or just that biased in your comprehension of the work. His use of “a well regulated militia” was to say that it was an unreasonable expectation and counter productive, and the only expectation was that the people be armed. He is literally saying “give up on the whole well regulated militia for everyone thing and be happy that at least everyone, the people at large, will be armed”.

      I don’t know if you are trolling at this point, just not reading the paper, or so biased that you actually think that “the experiment [the project of disciplining the entire militia of the United States], if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped” is actually advocating in favor of only arming the disciplined [well regulated] militia.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Oh no I’m reading it. I also read his other writings. He very explicitly argued for a standing military as soon as the country could afford it.

        But this also lays out what they thought of Militias, that it wasn’t just every person with no training.

        I’d love to see a source linking the 1916 law all the way back though too. Obviously I wasn’t able to track it further back.

        • Narauko@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          The chain of laws would be the two Militia Acts of 1792, then the Militia Act of 1795 which made 1792’s Presidental powers permanent, then the Militia Act of 1862 where they expanded every able bodied white male citizen to include black males, then the Militia Act of 1903 which made the organized militia officially into the National Guard and the unorganized militia of all other male citizens (and those who have stated formal intention to become a citizen this time) into the unorganized Reserve Militia, and then finally the National Defense Act of 1916 providing funding to the National Guard and creating the ability to draft the Guard for overseas service.