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Old 12-26-2012, 06:25 AM   #3355
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
The thing is, that part of the constitution was written when there was a strong desire to defend the nation entirely through a citizen militia. As opposed to a standing army alon the lines of the absolutist European model. Also as a bit of an inheritance from the British culture, whose obession with citizen militias and fear of standing armies was a regular political bugbear throughout the 18th and into the 19th century.

The inadequacy of citizen militias having proved itself time and again, America now has one of the largest and best funded armies in the history of mankind.

Citizen militias were in part a defence against a possibly overweaning state. But they were never meant to be a potential defence against a massive standing army. They were supposed to negate the need for such. And they were supposed to be armed with a firelock rifle by their hearth, which would be picked up and put down again as needed in defence of their freedom.

At no point could the people who drafted that constitutional right and obligation have forseen the destructive power of modern weapons, nor the existence of such a well-armed population running alongside a gargantuan standing army, set within the context of a seemingly ever increasing militarism in popular culture.

Nor could they have envisaged a time when an individual of ordinary means could easily achieve an arsenal to rival of that of an entire militia regiment.
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