Jan 24, 2020, 10:32 AM
Well regulated meant ‘trained where that training is paid for by the state’. The discussion at the time was that given the vastness of the territory, the sparsity of the population, and the limited funds, that they could not at the time afford to pay for it, and that men might not show up given the cost of travel to staging areas, and that they would need to wait until such training was affordable, and therefore they must trust that the men will do it themselves (which they largely did).
The english did this with the longbow in that every sunday after church boys were required (and did) spend three hours shooting the bow. This what (like the Russians are doing) we need to restore again – schools or churches or town halls where men practice regularly at the local level. By the regimental period the regiments were paid for and self sustaining in England. And this is my suggestion going forward – restoration of the regiments and the fraternal order that comes from them.
(My suspicion is that we can reform religion and civil society by working through the regiments as much as through school systems.)
The purpose of a trained militia is to (a) prevent the need of a standing army because (b) standing armies had been used to oppress the people. So, in keeping with european tradition a small number of professional warriors (the aristocracy) would command a large number of unprofessional riflemen (soldiers, footsoldiers). Which would balance the power between the people and the state ensuring that the state didn’t get out of hand, and insuring that the men were invested in the sense of control of their government.