Steven Hayward at the wingnut PowerLine blog indulges in a silly hypothetical:
GUNS: TIME TO CALL THE LIBERAL BLUFF?
Here’s an idea: let’s call the left’s bluff on the Second Amendment. The left is wedded to the notion that there is no individual right to own guns because of the clause the 2nd Amendment that mentions “a well-regulated militia.”
[snip]The “militia” at the time of the Constitution was generally regarded as every able-bodied adult male. Since we cannot have police or even private security at every location where a terrorist or mentally ill person might turn up, how about we start a program encouraging Americans to sign up in large numbers to be state militia members, involving a short course in gun safety and threat assessment. Then instead of having signs at schools and malls and elsewhere declaring a “Gun Free Zone,” we’d have signs saying “This facility protected by state militia members.”
Call my bluff? I wish a motherfucker would, Steven!
But here’s the thing: It’s a “well-regulated” militia, so forget that namby-pamby bullshit about “encouraging Americans to sign up.” Nope, we’re going to follow an originalist interpretation of the US Constitution.
As you mentioned, when the Constitution was written, militias comprised “every able-bodied adult male.” So every able-bodied adult male who owns a gun is required to sign up for our modern state militia.
And forget that “short course in gun safety and threat assessment” crap, Steven. That’s a recipe for disaster, considering the firearms accident rate among our armed patriots, many of whom apparently can’t clean a gun without shooting their own dick off. (Google it! Happens all the time!)
Nope, if you want to post armed gomers at the Starbucks where my kid hangs out, they will damn well be highly trained in gun safety and threat assessment, and they’ll undergo a rather comprehensive psychological assessment too. They will be as well-regulated on that score as an FBI agent.
An initial six-week course followed by an annual two-week refresher ought to be sufficient. Anyway, that’s MY well-regulated militia. Ready to sign up, ammosexuals? Didn’t think so.
Danack
“An initial six-week course followed by an annual two-week refresher ought to be sufficient.”
Also needs one weekend a month.
Baud
Ahem
Baud! 2016!
Peale
What bluff?
redshirt
Spot inspections too to ensure guns are well maintained and kept securely.
Tom Levenson
And their weapons must pass regular inspection; and they are entitled to buy ammunition only for the weapons their well-regulated militia companies have registered; and they have strict liability for any damages arising from the use (or misuse) of their weapons.
Let’s rock, folks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Danack: Yup, Friday at 6pm to Sunday at 6pm.
Mike J
We already have a national guard. Why don’t they just sign up right now?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Gun nuts are happy to discard the First Amendment in favor of the Second. That’s what an armed society is a polite society means — they WANT a country where people are afraid to speak up because someone might shoot them. That’s their ideal world.
Mike J
And since they’re such fans of the Swiss notion of everyone having a gun, they’ll surly go along with the idea of keeping all the ammo at the armory.
Duke of Clay
I’ve thought about this idea as well. There should be physical fitness requirements. I would suggest that militiamen should be required to maintain a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9.
SiubhanDuinne
Mandatory insurance. And chain-of-custody laws with some fucking teeth in them.
Mike J
@Mike J:
On the nose typo and edit doesn’t work for me.
mainmata
Right on Betty. The right-wing gun nuts (and they are all right wing in their politics) have no understanding of “well-regulated” because they are against all regulations (except abortion) for anything not just guns. Any well-regulated civil militia would also need to have well-trained and well-supervised members and ones that had full liability insurance. Of course, even that wouldn’t actually work in reality.
Ecks
And also, as a militia, they could be called up at times of national emergency, wearing proper uniform, following orders without insubordination, to be in suitably good physical shape (got to be able to run at least a good few miles carrying personal equipment, etc, so lose the belly dough boy).
And if there was a war, in, say Iran or Syria, then obviously they’d be consideration about whether militias should be deployed to active front line duty.
Mike J
@mainmata:
Mosques? Birth control? Walking while black? I can think of thousands of things they love to regulate.
Adam L Silverman
The original/first Federal mandate was put in place by President Washington. It required that every male, of militia age, had to maintain a set amount of powder, wadding, and ammunition. That they must turn out at regular, set times (usually once a month) and present both their arms and their ammunition kit for inspection.
Of course we now know that Federal mandates are unconstitutional socialism.
goblue72
@Mike J: About to say the same thing. They get to keep their ammo at the town armory.
And they don’t just have to go through regular training. If they want to deploy themselves at the neighborhood Starbucks, they will do so only under regimental colors under the command of a military / national guard officer. Their deployments will also be under the control and direction of their
colonialtown council or board of alderman.Ten-HUT! Fall in.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Mike J:
They only want regulations on things that don’t affect them personally.
mb
According to the Constitution, Barack Obama is the commander-in-chief of the militia.
NotMax
Only so long as they are issued muskets…
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Ecks:
As I understand it, that was the original purpose — the Founders were worried that a standing army would be too “British,” so they envisioned defending the country with only militiamen. The folly of that was shown in the War of 1812, but they kept the 2nd Amendment anyway.
I’m not sure if our 2nd Amendment really was designed to help put down slave rebellions as some people say, but it sounds awfully similar to the laws they had in places like St. Croix where every able-bodied man over 16 was required to keep a gun and report to the main fort for duty if a slave rebellion started.
trnc
Can’t decide which I like better, the mandatory registration and training or liability insurance requirements. But, hell, no reason it has to be either/or.
Sadly, gun love means never having to say you’re responsible.
Omnes Omnibus
You talked me into it.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): A lot of the slave state militias served slave catcher duties.
Tim in SF
Daniel Kaufman, murdered in yesterday’s San Bernardino massacre. Met him once or twice. A friend of a large number of my friends.
Thanks, NRA members.
https://www.facebook.com/redtimmy/posts/10153823963257704
Ecks
@Adam L Silverman: If you’ve got militia, makes sense to call it up for any and every kid of collective threat (invasion, slave revolt, brown people walking around freely like they own the place, lieberals saying uppity stuff, & such)
Faction
Subject to random drug tests, of course.
Lit3Bolt
Can we not just call the ammosexuals out as liberals?
Liberal on terrorism.
Liberal on crime.
Liberal on child safety.
Teachers of Terrorism. Coddlers of criminals. Seriously, they seem to want to put a gun in everyone’s hand, and that seems to include scary brown muslims and blackity-black-black gangstas. They can’t point out the fact that Baltimore and Chicago have high crime without being confronted that their lax and liberal gun policies help those said criminals. They can’t complain about Syrian refugees or scary Mexican rapists if straw buyers are driving loads of weapons around to sell to your local serial killers.
I don’t get why the Right isn’t continually hammered on this issue.
Baud
@Ecks:
Efficiency!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Adam L Silverman:
Right, but what’s not clear to me is whether or not the 2nd Amendment was specifically designed for that purpose. Some people claim it was purpose-built for that because it does have some of the features of the militia laws, but I’m not really sure that’s enough to actually prove it.
ThresherK
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Weren’t England’s soldiers in the colonies often forcibly quartered in colonists’ homes? That’s the kind of thing I thought soured our FF on the idea of a big standing army.
PurpleGirl
@Duke of Clay: Yes. No beer bellies hanging over their belts. They can’t look like they swallowed a medicine ball or are pregnant.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I’m not sure. I’ve read several histories of its development, but I don’t think that was covered. My understanding is that the slave holding states tended to use the militia for law enforcement purposes, basically the local watch. So one of their duties would’ve been rounding up any escaped slaves.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Don’t forget killing Indians.
Ecks
@Baud: man, have we ever been falling down on THAT front too. Outsourced it to glue and alcohol. What happened to that city on a hill?
goblue72
Saturday Night Live, 1975. Show Us Your Guns
Sadly, the liberal satire of that short video clip would be met with howls of outrage by the gun nuts and Fox News these days.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I have it pencilled in for the 3rd night of Hanuka, does that work for everyone?
//Sarc tags!!!!//
Sarcasm alert – I am not serious!!!! I am not looking to kill anyone!!!
dave
so you’re suggesting that this state militia have, actually, more training than the police? sounds good. Most US police can’t shoot straight as it is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): @Adam L Silverman: Militias existed in the colonies long before the Revolutionary War. In New England, they were used primarily for skirmishing with the French and various native nations. It would not surprise me if they were used in part for catching escape slaves in the colonies where slavery was significant. The idea that the Second Amendment was specifically designed to aid slave catching seems ahistorical. If someone has some contemporaneous documentation supporting that theory, I would be interested in seeing it. It sure didn’t make it into the Federalist Papers.
Hungry Joe
Breaking: Blankenship found guilty on only one count, the least of the three — a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of one year in prison. He was facing up to 30. His attorneys say they’ll appeal. “Run coal,” as always, trumps miners’ safety.
Would it be appropriate to say, “Fuck you, Blankenship”?
It would be inappropriate not to.
JMG
The motives of the Founding Fathers, being complex, are also obscure, Like all pols through all history, they didn’t write down a lot of what they really thought. In New England, the militia tradition was pronounced and indeed supplied quick response to the Civil War. I don’t know about the South, but obviously a large group of armed men to supervise slaves was a necessity long before the Revolution.
Mike J
igorvolskyVerified account @igorvolsky
Sen @TomCottonAR received $2,581,794 in expenditures from NRA, so he voted against today’s background check measure
@SenatorRounds received $82,040 in expenditures from NRA, so he voted against today’s background check measure
@SenPatRoberts received $322,453+ in expenditures from NRA, so he voted against today’s background check measure
Sen. @robportman received $596,489 in expenditures from NRA, so he voted against today’s background check measure
.@sendavidperdue received $279,173 in expenditures from NRA so he voted against today’s background check measure
Etc, etc. Read igor’s twitter stream for many, ,many more.
JPL
@Tim in SF: Chris Hayes just read off the entire list. This is the first time that I moved from sadness to anger so quickly. The NY Daily News cover was right.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Hungry Joe:
Indeed. Shoulda been more, but it was a win to get a conviction at all. And as a matter of rights (and what is right) we don’t want a system like South Africa’s. Though in that specific instance I don’t mind the result for Pistorius – but the process is unacceptable.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Not even Omnes?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s on my mind because I just started re-reading the Chernow bio of Hamilton, and just finished the part where he talks about the militia duties in St. Croix that Hamilton would have been required to fulfill. Slavery was pretty horrific in the American South, but it was even more nightmarish in the Caribbean. The estimates Chernow has said that something like 2/3rds of the slaves brought to the Caribbean died within 5 years due to the conditions they were forced to live and work in.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: He’s been killing it (figuratively).
Suzanne
Also: frequent mental health checks, physical fitness standards, education standards, etc etc etc.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I am not an Indian.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Wait, don’t we want them to pass?
Cacti
I’d be perfectly fine with compulsory militia service a la Switzerland, and not having a large professional military that we’re forever running up in everyone else’s business.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
“I’m you.”
JPL
Since it’s been another week with a mass shooting, can we have an open thread to discuss football or The Wiz.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Then who am I?
jo6pac
As you mentioned, when the Constitution was written, militias comprised “every able-bodied adult male.” So every able-bodied adult male who owns a gun is required to sign up for our modern state militia.
This was a good thing yrs ago but state reserves and guard units have been taken over by the feds. The feds now pay the budget for state units. This just a little change in the wording of that worthless doc of Amerikas founding. Sad:(
jl
I’m in. I had to shoot long guns on the farm, and i done took courses as a kid, Fine with me. Improve my trap shooting while I’m at it.
smintheus
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The militias of that era almost certainly needed widespread membership widely distributed in order to be able to quash the kinds of local rebellions that had sprung up repeatedly during the 1780s, mostly tax rebellions. Also, many areas were subject to Indian attacks and they could not rely on far-flung armed forces to arrive in time to save frontier settlements. All of that is in addition to the natural desire not to give the federal government a standing army, which it could if it wished station in politically recalcitrant states.
Suzanne
@Baud: Um….I don’t really want a militia full of lazy, stupid people.
JMG
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): While of course not as severe, it was a graveyard (yellow fever!) for the whites there as well. British soldiers and sailors dreaded assignment to the West Indies.
smintheus
@jl: I think this would require local militias to be armed with muzzle-loaders.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought you were doing a Christine O’Donnell thing.
a different chris
How about you can only get a FFL or concealed carry license if you have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
Gvg
And let’s talk about those deemed not qualified by reason of lousy safety obedience, incompetence, aggression towards people obeying the law etc. it follows they CAN’T keep guns. Ready to face that consequence gun worshippers? You aren’t as special as you think.
It seems to me many 2nd amendment worshippers really want their hobby to be more special than anyone else’s. Collecting yourself is one thing. Expecting everyone else to see you as special is where I get really tired of the ones I know personally. No you haven’t defended our freedom with your private collection. sigh.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve got no problems with Omnes. I am happy to save him a latke!
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: No, I was just noting that I am exempt from the Silverman joke threat. I am not sure if I am more or less safe as result.
smintheus
@ThresherK: Yes; hence the Third Amendment.
Cacti
@Gvg:
Along those lines, I would also fully favor passing annual marksmanship assessments as a condition of keeping your militia service weapons.
Jay Noble
Funny how, that little skirmish in the 1860’s gets glossed over on the issue of militia’s. Militia’s were eliminated after that and replaced/absorbed by the National Guard. Slavery was very much an issue the addition of the 2nd Amendment. No slaves, no need for militia’s as they had been formed.
As for people’s rights as individuals to keep arms, it seems the Founders left that up to the states, several of which wrote it into their State Constitutions. As I’ve said time and again, the framers of the Constitution were masters of the English language. They said what they meant, and obscured when they wanted to fudge things.
LWA
I’m not a veteran, but from what I hear, the regulations for carrying, storing, cleaning, and using firearms and ammunition on military bases are fucking strict, beyond what any wingnut would ever consider.
What the commies at the DoD consider “well regulated” is probably something the guys at Powerline never anticipated.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I do martial arts to vent any unchanneled agression, so no worries here!
mtiffany
A short fucking course in gun safety and threat assessment? That’s it, right there, isn’t it? Every problem has a fast solution that ANYONE can learn in an afternoon’s training with a self-certified instructor.
I’m not a fan of the idea that we should place the police on a pedestal or show them deference at every turn — but for fuck’s sake, notwithstanding the murderous thugs in their ranks — they are professionals. They have to at least graduate high school and then make it through a training academy.
Real ‘gun safety’ is not something you learn in a ‘short course,’ and I dare say the same thing about ‘threat assessment.’
Omnes Omnibus
@mtiffany: I think you may be a bit too focused on the trees…
hellslittlestangel
Also, to be admitted to this well-regulate militia, one would have to pass a rigorous physical examination. Out of shape? No guns for you!
divF
I think that the idea that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact”, dating back to Jefferson and Lincoln, is particularly germane to discussion of the Second Amendment. I hope to live to see the day that SCOTUS acts on that insight.
Ecks
@Suzanne: ah, but that’s why you need the proper regulation – to keep the lazy and stupid in check. I mean, armies are in the business of giving extremely lethal weapons to 19 year olds and sending them out into dangerous and chaotic environments with the specific brief of killing people. Good military regulation is custom designed to contain the lazy and stupid.
Frequently it enforces its own particular brands of stupid too (as soldiers will be quick to tell you), but that’s a whole other issue, for the most part.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Omnes is not a witch.
scav
O, i will so emjoy watching the monthly fitness trials for continued militia membership. No lawnchair brigade of brave border defenders distributed in parks along the vulnerable Missouri state line, cupholders at the ready in their cammo Rambo jammies, but beefcake aspirants wobbling about the track — can we possibly give them pop-quizzes in realistic situations, springing out at them with paintballs when they’re watching football games at camp that weekend and scoring them on their reflexes?
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: How do you know?
Ecks
@BillinGlendaleCA: how do you know that without a pair of scales and a duck?
danielx
Late to the fair, as usual, but…
Dear Steven Hayward:
We already have state militias; they’re called the National Guard, fucknut.
Recruiting stations are open until 4:30 tomorrow, and I imagine with all the “boots on the ground” talk going right now they’ll greet you with open arms. Probably a little short on JAG positions for over the hill attorney bloggers but ne’er mind, always plenty of openings in the poor bloody infantry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ecks:
Would one of Betty’s chickens do?
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Always makes me think of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqQJB8DR_Zo
Teddy's Person
Long-time lurker here throwing my two cents into the discussion about the militia in the 18th century. Part of my dissertation examined the relationship between the militia and early notions of citizenship (defined more broadly than simply a legal status). Many of the Founders were (little r) republicans concerned with creating a virtuous citizenry that would put the interest of the common good above their own self-interest. [I know the reality was often very different than the rhetoric.] They saw the militia members as citizen-soldiers (i.e., landowners who had a stake in the new nation and would defend it), and serving in the militia was seen as a duty of citizenship. The Militia Act of 1792 was kind of a compromise between those who wanted a permanent standing army and those who saw a standing army as dangerous since king had just used the army against the colonists. The Act gave the federal government some authority over the state and local militias, specifically the president could call up state militias. Locally, the militia had economic, political and social functions. The militia musters were often the time to pay ones’ taxes, take care of legal business at the courthouse, or engage in trade. Socially, militia leaders were the community elite, and the muster was a time to show off their status and demonstrate largess to the community. Sometimes, the local militia operated as the community police force, which included catching runaway slaves. The local militia was a long-standing tradition in the colonies, and the Founders tweaked the system to serve a new republic.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddy’s Person: Post more often!
Suzanne
@Ecks: Armies give deadly weapons to uneducated poor young people, usually dudes, because they consider them the most expendable.
Ecks
@BillinGlendaleCA: do they float?
danielx
@dave:
Some are all too good. From various descriptions it sounds like Jason Van Dyke, pride of the Chicago Police Department, hit Laquan McDonald with every shot from a sixteen round magazine, which is not all that easy to do past spitball range. Even with a motionless on the ground target…
JustRuss
Well, not quiet every able bodied adult male, I believe the black ones were largely excluded. Presumably we’d continue that tradition.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ecks: I’m not sure, Betty says they’re il-tempered and messy.
Mike J
@Teddy’s Person: Since when did we start allowing people who know what they’re talking about to comment?
Or in other words, what Adam said.
Ecks
@Suzanne: that’s also true. Expendable to go off and die in service of (is it really) their country, but not expendable in the “had to shoot them because they were running around the local community pool doing dumbass things with our fully automatic explosive launchers.” sense. Kids are famous for doing dangerous stupid stuff, and kids with deadly hardware wouldn’t be any exception to that unless you work very hold to build and enforce a culture that keeps them just about in-line.
cbb
A helpful exercise for the reader is Paul Fussell’s “A Well-Regulated Militia”, an essay in which Fussell, an Army Infantry officer during the Second World War who later wrote about his experiences and taught English at several universities, identified precisely the ideas several have written above: ownership of a gun should require immediate enrollment in the Militia of the United States, with monthly drills under the watchful eye of experienced Drill Instructors, with all the duties of bivouacing (building latrines, stringing barbed wire, eating MREs) and physical training central to the experience.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
Slavery also existed well before the civil war, and so did slave patrols.
A couple of links to articles about slavery, slave patrols, and militia and the second amendment.
Slavery and the Second Amendment Slave Patrol Militias
The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery
Ecks
@BillinGlendaleCA: I think perhaps you are missing the reference, maybe. Or you’re just goofing on it in, at least a 6 or 7 dimensional chess way.
Teddy's Person
@Adam L Silverman: and @ Mike J Thanks!
A good book on the subject of both the Second Amendment and gun control is A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America by Saul Cornell
The Republic of Stupity
@Mike J: I like what Chris Rock said about that…
$5,000 might be a bit much for a bullet, but $50 or $100 for a bullet would be a good start…
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
More pointedly, they want to control others but be free of others’ control.
The Republic of Stupity
Somewhere earlier today, I read something about the so-called ‘knee-jerk reaction for gun control’ liberals are supposed to suffer every time we have ANOTHER mass shooting in this country…
Frankly, I’d rather suffer from THAT than the uncontrolled jerking reaction so many ammosexuals seem to experience whenever anything to do w/ their beloved guns comes up, period.
Just saying’…
Ecks
@Roger Moore: freedom for me, responsibility for thee.
Adam L Silverman
@Teddy’s Person: Its now on my list. I have to finish getting through the book on Putin, and the book on the first American serial killer, and the book on Thurgood Marshall’s case dealing with a different serial killer, and the book on Jim Crow, and several comic books! But thanks.
And post more often.
Ecks
@Adam L Silverman: cosigning Adam’s thought, Teddy. Post more often.
Another Holocene Human
@ThresherK: Actually, the notion is that a standing army kind of makes it easy/inevitable that a nation will get involved in budget busting wars of aggression, kind of a production for use notion.
They were on to something, but their solution was a failure.
amk
I posted this thread in their blog. Let’s see what happens.
Ajabu
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Queen Mary would like a word with you about St. Croix back in the day.
Does “Fireburn” ring a bell?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1878_St._Croix_Labor_Riots
J R in WV
@Mike J:
Bought and paid for!! Bald-faced bribery in my mind.
And Fuck You, Don Blankenship, you murdering bastard!!
Thanks Hungry Joe for saying it first, It would be wrong not to say it!
burnspbesq
@Adam L Silverman:
And the historical context matters, as well: the Second Amendment was drafted at a time when standing armies were unknown. The “well-regulated militia” was the army. Nowadays, we have standing armies.
J R in WV
@Ecks:
Teddy, I agree, keep up the commentary. We need well educated comments and good Democrats!!
Ajabu
@JMG:
And if the Brits had STAYED the hell out, we (Caribbean descendants of the original “some stopped on the way” crowd) in the West Indies would had life a hell of a lot easier.
I’ve noticed, though, that our native accents – in most all the islands that were once British – are really close to the sound of Irish English. I believe the Brits used them (the Irish – who were their underclass) as overseers during slavery.
Just an observation…
jl
@smintheus: Oh, OK. I don’t think the fambly had them thar any guns a’ that old. I guess I’ll learn something new.
RedeyeRobot
@Danack: 6 weeks? cops don’t get 6 weeks, military don’t get 6 weeks yes the accidental death rate is so high for guns it doesn’t make the CDCs top 20 preventable deaths (its about 600 a year)
dlw32
Well-regulated means more than that. It means the men are properly trained and equipped. They respond to their officers and their officers are bound by civilian governments (state or local). It’s not you and your buddies with a case each of ammo and beer.
Bo Alawine
This may have been covered already by someone in the comments, but one (the main?) reason for that Second Amendment was to mollify the Southern slave-owning states that they could still keep a force-of-arms to put down slave rebellions.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1465114
phein
@Danack:
Let’s see, 40 years ago Basic Training and Infantry AIT took me from the beginning of August through Thanksgiving, or about 16 weeks. I sure as hell wouldn’t have trusted me or my fellow graduates in public with firearms after that, so add another 3 weeks for a specialized training (that’s the length of Jump School), and that gives us just shy of 5 months.
5 months to start, and annual refresher training. At Ft. Benning. In the summer.
Sounds about right.
Paul in KY
I would pay money to see some of these ‘guns solve all problems’ jerks go through some good ole 18th century military discipline.
Paul in KY
@ThresherK: I think the founders definitely felt a standing army was a recipe for ambitious politicians to use to advance themselves. Also expensive to maintain.
Paul in KY
@Ecks: Maintaining strict military discipline is paramount in a combat area. Many times (IMO) this was not done in Iraq/Afghanistan.
May have actually been premeditated by some.
Paul in KY
@Teddy’s Person: Thanks for your comment.
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Oh, I can’t believe you wrote that, unless it was tongue-in-cheek. The founders knew all about standing armies. Great Britain had one, so did France. Those 2 standing armies had been fighting for 30 years prior to the revolution. Sweden & Russia also had them.