“It is rather pointless to talk about ‘militia-suitable arms’ without talking about the Militia and their revitalization as the only way to preserve ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,’” Edwin Viera commented in response to my latest update on the status of a Maryland gun ban case in the 4th Circuit Court of appeals.” If there are no constitutional Militia in operation, and this state of affairs is lawfully within the power of Congress and the States to continue, then what meaning does ‘militia-suitable arms’ have in practice?
“If, on the other hand, the Militia were in operation, then essentially any and every type of ‘Arms’ which had any conceivable use by the Militia (which is essentially every conceivable type of “Arms”) would be absolutely protected by the Second Amendment and the Militia Clauses of the original Constitution, and thus secure against phony judicial ‘tests’ such as ‘strict scrutiny’ and ‘intermediate scrutiny,’ which anyone with two brain cells to rub together can understand to be schemes for defeating constitutional rights, not protecting them.”
He’s right, of course. And deterrent effects of independent “We are Everywhere” potentials notwithstanding, the Founders were right when they deemed “a well regulated Militia … necessary to the security of a free State.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s “pointless to talk about militia-suitable arms.” The report was about a case where collectivists are trying to ban them, and what’s in front of the court is more narrowly focused . The larger Militia point and solution — especially what it will take to actualize it – will not be resolved in this particular case.
