Say the word "militia" in polite company these days, and you're apt to draw looks that would seem more appropriate for someone who was extolling the virtues of cannibalism. That's because the term, held in such esteem by the Founding Fathers that it was considered necessary to the security of a free state, has by now been hijacked, in the perception of much of the public, into meaning "hate-filled, bigoted armed mob."
At the same time, groups like the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV), still stubbornly cling (dare I say "bitterly cling"?) to the discredited notion that the Second Amendment protects only the right of state-sanctioned militias to possess arms. Then, when a state dares consider forming a militia, they wax hysterical about the lack of federal control, despite their acknowledgment that the Second Amendment was intended to enable states to effectively resist an overreaching federal government.
Today, Second Amendment and liberty advocate John Longenecker, author of Safe Streets in the Nationwide Concealed Carry of Handguns, and now, Even Safer Streets 2011—The 2nd Amendment As A Mainstream American Value, explains how liberty advocates can reclaim the hijacked term of "militia," and how to respond to groups who first argue that the Second Amendment only protects militias, but then strenuously resist the formation of those same militias.
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My thanks to Gun Rights Examiner Kurt Hofmann for hosting me for a visit and guest blog on my virtual book tour this month. -- JL
In a time when our heritage is undermined and erased, battles in preserving the heritage are won with education as the first countermeasure. This means having something to hand down in a legacy that is better than we found it. The issue put to me for this guest blog is how we meet the smear of Militia as hate-fulled and anti-government.
This is not a problem, this is an opportunity.
Militias in America have nothing to do with separatism or hate. This is because the one militia model of importance was in existence in the U.S. prior to the formation of our nation’s first government. The first government of the United States made no moves against militias because it knew they are allies. The country could not have survived and formed were it not for armed citizens.
Over time, through various Militia Acts, officials have tried to absorb our first militia into the Military. Though there was some progress, the original militia within the meaning of the second amendment remains intact and officially recognized by United States Code Title 10, Section 311. The main purpose of various Militia Acts was to bring the original militias under control of the Commander-in-chief, but this has not succeeded. Today, denoted as Unorganized Militia, United States Code [and other documents] officially recognizes the original as independent.
How this plays in 2011 is this. The militia mission generally recognizes shortcomings of government agencies of disaster management due to travel distance, mustering assets, time elements, contact and communications in notifications just to get organized and generally deploy. Militia exists because constituents are aware of this shortcoming of delay, and they elect to form preparedness units in their own right for immediate response times.
Kurt Hofmann, your readers are astute in articulating the issue of interest as one of a self-defeating proposition: you have to be a militia to be armed, but we won’t allow you to form a militia. This is seen a hundred other ways also, as in requiring a gun permit, but permits are denied on grounds of having to show cause first.
This is hostile to the interests of a community, but Americans need to know that not all states express such hostility. The public needs to distinguish that militias within the meaning of the second amendment are welcomed and supported around the country for various needs, not the least of which are a faster response in time of disaster or other local emergency such as child location, cost effectiveness, people well trained by specialists, and a better general grasp of the community’s needs.
The non-gun owner public might also like to know that state and local law enforcements around the country work well with their militias and drill together. Many militia members are given police handie-talkies on police frequencies for disaster management assets, and only one or two states, I am informed, refuse to work with local militia on the grounds that the militia is not vetted. This has not been a problem for the majority of states who shake hands with and work with volunteers all the time and militias in time of emergency. Tornado-struck southern states this year were welcoming volunteer response days before professional assets could even arrive on scene. Though these reporters did not identify these people as any militia, what you saw was militia material in the volunteers.
Militia within the meaning of the second amendment was the everyman at the time of ratifying the second amendment. In that framing era, there was to be no organized police force until around 1845 in Philadelphia and Boston with decades more for the movement to move west. At that same time of the first militia, there was to be no National Guard for another 130 years, so we know the Founders did not mean National Guard when they wrote the second amendment. Militia exists to fill a gap.
Furthermore, following Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed a little thing called the Vitter Amendment to its Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act of 2006. Intentionally or unintentionally, in making it illegal to confiscate guns from folks in time of emergency, Congress affirmed the Unorganized Militia within the meaning of the second amendment by protecting citizen rights. Already affirmed by U.S.C., Congress re-affirmed it in the Vitter Amendment by making it illegal to confiscate weapons from citizens, understanding rather well the concept of how an armed citizenry operates sooner, wider and better than some believe.
What makes Militia patriotic?
Patriotism is often expressed in terms of Independence and accepting its consequences. One realizes that, for both personal dignity and for optimal safety, one must accept that one is on his or her own. Family is an excellent unit to develop and utilize this value, and an intact home is an anchor of our ability to resist adversity large and small. Preferring to be on your own – within reasonable limits, of course – enables better decisions, better examples, better values, and better legacy to hand down. Your local militia is formed on this value and on the realization that you are on your own as a community, for extended periods it seems, and that you meet this with training, supplies, practice, citizen involvement, and a general preparedness model. Independence is patriotic.
Militias are often comprised of people of all walks of life, including medical personnel who train the militia members in all sorts of care and management as is practical. The entire concept is built on the well established idea that citizens are the original first responders, and that agencies are second. After all, someone has to call them. Who would advocate doing nothing until the arrival of professional assets? In whose interest would that be?
When the professional assets are known to be days or even weeks away from your community in time of disaster – with food, energy, safety facing everything from looters to raw sewage – you see the purpose of militia. If you appreciate preparedness with an immediate response time of minutes to a few hours, then you are militia material. By now, it should be quite clear that militias are volunteers of community spirit and not the toothless, angry, isolationist personalities they are portrayed.
Militia’s purpose today.
Militia lives on in a spirit of Independence where it is most practical and most needed. We all want safer streets, effective food inspection, smooth, safe highways, and prompt delivery services, and we hire public servants to do these for us without corruption. But when bureaucracy takes on a life of its own, it begins to compete with the Sovereign people for survival, and much of this needs to dislocate working safeguards and functions of the electorate [corruption]. Gun control and the smearing of militia are two examples of this adverse ‘competition’. This begins a momentum of increasing, unwelcome over-centralization, and militia was formed at the beginning of the nation to sort of get away from that kind of thinking. Militia exists today in a non-violent mission to show how unneeded some programs -- and some attitudes -- are. Through peaceable persuasion by example for several specific missions, the void of onset of a disaster and arrival of assets is now filled, and this must never be discouraged, whatever the political reason.
Coaching, training, and supporting these volunteers makes more certain that there will be no such void or neglect of a community. There are such groups such as Certified First Responders, but as part of a total militia preparedness concept, the model needs to remain local and uncentralized for it to work best.
Thanks everyone for having me. I’m very pleased to be with you.
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