"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 29 Nov 2004 00:42:42 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"The Watcher" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:41:30 -0500, "Ed Huntress"

wrote:

(snip)
It's not my authority, Watcher.

Well, at least you got that part right.

It's well documented in the law.

OK, which law.

The laws creating the National Guard and the standing army. The last time
an
armed unit was called up from the "unorganized militia," if I recall
correctly, was in 1865.

The National Guard was formed in 1903.
Some 116 years after the signing of the Constitution...and the
approval of the 2nd Amendment. So the law regarding the National
Guard, does not supersede the 2nd. No law can supercede a
Constitutional Right. Only another Amendment can do that.

Oh, cripes, Gunner. You know better than that.

What I said was that some of the 2nd Amendment has been superceded under law
and in fact. You're talking about rights. I was talking about the *facts* of
what happens today, and the laws regarding militia.

The Militia Act of 1792 was repealed in 1901. (After Teddy Roosevelt said,
of the old law and of the way the militia actually functioned, "Our militia
law is obsolete and worthless.") It was replaced by the Dick Act of 1903.

As of 1916, the state militia (plural) are now the National Guard, and the
dual state-federal control is now fully explicit (amended in 1920). When
there's an insurrection or a need for military force to enforce the laws of
the US, the states' governors call up the National Guard (Kent State;
Newark; Detroit; etc.). They don't assemble a unit of the unorganized
militia. When the *federal* government demands that a state call up its
militia to put down an insurrection (Little Rock), it's the National Guard,
not the unorganized militia, that's called up.

Could the states or the feds call up the unorganized militia? Yes, in
theory. But the laws today specifically require that they call up the
*organized militia* (the National Guard, when it's not operating under
federal jurisdiction, in time of war or on demand of the President). They
*conscript* from the unorganized militia, which is now nothing but a legal
subterfuge to allow conscription. The "unorganized militiaman" is drafted
into the Army, in fact, not into a militia. He isn't expected to bring his
own gun, or even to have one. "Able bodied men" are no longer required to be
armed at their own expense, and with their own personal arms, as they
legally, if not actually, were required to do under the Militia Act of 1792.
That act is now defunct, replaced by the Dick Act and then the acts of 1916
and 1920, etc.


Judicial "interpretation" or not. If it were so..then any state
could allow the holding of slaves again, or the banning of political
speech.

I have no freaking idea what you're talking about. I'll bet you don't,
either.



As to the Founders view of the militia....

"The power of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the
hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for THE
POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANRY OF AMERICA FROM
SIXTEEN TO SIXTY. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled
and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army,
must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? are they not
ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man
against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia.
Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are
the birth-right of an American."

-Tenche Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 Feb. 1788"

Nice magazine article! Was that an op-ed?


Or they may know something that you haven't considered. For example, the
federal government had no authority under the 2nd (and they still don't,
until and unless the 2nd is incorporated under the 14th Amendment) to
tell
the states how to handle the issue of gun control.

Incorrect. Its no more subject to states rights than are any of the
Bill of Rights ammendments, including the 1st.

Ah, Gunner, most of them were subject to states' rights until the
Reconstruction Amendments. Some of them still are, including the 2nd.


If you don't know that, you're living a fantasy. It wasn't until the
Reconstruction Amendments were enacted, after the Civil War, that the
feds
presumed to go over the heads of the states on most issues involved in
the
Bill of Rights. And they still haven't done so regarding the 2nd.

Which is par for the course. The Civil War was fought over States
Rights, and the damned Federalists won. Which only means they inforced
their views, not the Constitution.

A clear case of Might Makes Right, even though its contrary to the
Founders and framers of the Constitution.

It appears you don't know what the framers intended with the Bill of Rights.

Tell us, Mr. Historian, why is it that the states would demand a Bill of
Rights, only to find that it was a set of restrictions on what the STATES
could legislate? Do you think the states were screaming for the federal
government to limit their power?

Or have you re-thought that question, and screwed your head back on tight?
g

Ed Huntress