[Fangrim]

Roxy's suspended, but that's no reason not to further tear apart his position.

Quote by: Roxdog Once again, for people with zero comprehension skills: “The People” and the “well regulated militia” are two separate things. It is a very simple concept. Go read the words of the founders. Standing armies (regulated militias) are dangerous but necessary, therefore the people’s God given right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. The end. Appointed men in drag are not necessary to “interpret” what is completely obvious and “self evident”.

The Founding Fathers made themselves clear on their opinions of the evils of standing armies (here Roxy is correct) and the savior of liberty that were the state militia (here Roxy is dead wrong).

Quote by: James Madison "As the greatest danger to liberty is from large standing armies, it is best to prevent them by an effectual provision for a good Militia."

Quote by: Alexander Hamilton "If insurrections should arise, or invasions should take place, the people ought unquestionably to be employed to suppress and repel them, rather then a standing army. The best way to do these things, was to put the militia on a good and sure footing, and enable the government to make use of their services when necessary. . . "

Quote by: Elbridge Gerry, Anti-Federalist constitutional drafter What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.

Standing armies are NOT at all the same thing as regulated militias. The entire point of militias was that they were not standing, and thus did not present the same dangers to liberty as standing armies.

EDIT: Let's tear it up a little more. As to Roxy's statement that

“The People” and the “well regulated militia” are two separate things

...

I'll let David Yassky tell it.

Quote by: The Second Amendment: Structure, History, and Constitutional Change [T]he nature and structure of the American militia have changed radically since the Founders' day. Henigan and Ehrman summarize the "key developments in the history of the militia" as "the split between an organized and unorganized militia; the passage of the militias from state authority to largely federal authority; and the rise of the army as the main defense force in the country. The end result of these changes is the disappearance of anything the Founders would have recognized as a militia. Today we have the National Guard (which, as the revisionists correctly observe, the Founders would have seen as little better than a standing army), and we have self-proclaimed "citizen militias" constituted wholly independently of any government -and mostly, of course, we have the vast bulk of citizens who have no involvement whatever with any form of military organization. These developments certainly constitute a change in "presupposition" as Lessig uses the term. To the Founders, protecting gun ownership by "the people" amounted to more or less the same thing as protecting gun ownership by the "Militia." Now the two are quite different.