I think the writings I posted the last time around indicate that the militia was not to be run by "ourselves" (there has to be a leader, doesn't there?), but rather was to be under the authority of the state or the state's Governor--i.e., "well-regulated." They are talking about a state militia there, not one communally run by each of its armed members by voice vote, or some other amorphous means.
"Decentralized" cannot mean that the militia has no leader, and that each militia member when called to service in a conflict does what he wants, but that the state's leaders call the shots rather than the federal government.
I really do not see anyone attempting to grapple head on with the 2nd Amendment's "well-regulated militia" language as a peculiar artifact of the times which must be understood in order to understand the right. The Amendment may have intended nothing other than that those called to service in state militias have the right to buy the weapons they would need for their service, as the states apparently could not be expected to supply firearms--we are talking, now, about the poor rural America of 1782, not the America of the year 2000.
I find it strange to suggest that the Founders wanted the people to have firearms so that the states might wage war against each other as occurred in the Civil War. That is stretching things indeed.
I don't think anyone here is advocating a complete ban on firearms. But the 2nd Amendment, predicated as it is on the needs of well-regulated militias that no longer exist in the form they did in 1782, does not provide as clear a "right" as some suggest. |
