damienrr
Regular Member
" militia system ... implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, and, with certain exceptions, to cooperate in the work of defence." It went on to say that the miltia are not troops or standing armies but civilians primarily: "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defence." James Madison, the author of Second Amendment, plainly understood that "the militia" meant able-bodied civilians. Dismissing fears that a federal army might become as oppressive as the English Redcoats, Madison noted that America had "a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands." And, according to Madison, this broadly defined militia held "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation" with "governments [that] are afraid to trust the people with arms." Today, federal law defines "the militia of the United States" to include all able-bodied males from 17 to 45 and members of the National Guard up to age 64, but excluding those who have no intention of becoming citizens and active military personnel. To translate, that means that every able-bodied guy of a certain age who is not in the military is in the militia. God bless America.