ecosophia | (Reply)

From:

Not that I necessarily disagree with anything you say here, and you might be including this understanding in your recommendation above, but something that comes up a lot in Second Amendment discussions: "well regulated" at the time was understood to mean something more like "well-drilled" rather than "effectively controlled/overseen." At the time, for formations of musket-bearing soldiers to be effective, they had to move, shoot, and reload fairly precisely in unison and under command, because smooth-bore muskets are not terribly accurate. So, the emphasis was likely on "a group that gets together and trains enough to know each other, rely on each other, and likely to be effective in combat" as opposed to a hastily thrown together rabble with guns. As for how that came about, there were various approaches in the colonies - some militias were privately organized and run, some were privately run, but under charter from the colonial government, some were purely voluntary affairs, and some were directly organized by local governments.

Again, forgive me if you already knew this and you were skipping ahead to "what's the best way to ensure this outcome," it's just a topic I've encountered some heated discussion on in the past.

Cheers,
Jeff