2nd amdt spinn off, "well regulated militia"

Spinoff of the spinoff: do people who think all drugs should be legal also believe that all forms of weaponry should be illegal?

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Interpreting the 2nd ammendment this way, which I do, would make me think that not only is this an individual right, but also that the government should provide marksmanship and weapons training to all citizens.

Is that the take you have and should this be the case?

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No. Rights are limitations on government action. They do not require action on the part of government or private actors.

The notion of disarming colonists living in an agrarian society in the mid-18th century is absurd. Guns were an essential, everyday part of life.

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The federal law enacted in 1996 (Title 36 U. S. Code, 40701-40733) that created the Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and Firearms Safety, Inc. (CPRPFS, the formal legal name of the CMP) mandates these key “functions for the corporation:

(1) To instruct citizens of the United States in marksmanship;

(2) To promote practice and safety in the use of firearms;

(3) To conduct competitions in the use of firearms and to award trophies, prizes, badges, and other insignia to competitors.

The law specifically states: In carrying out the Civilian Marksmanship Program, the corporation shall give priority to activities that benefit firearms safety, training, and competition for youth and that reach as many youth participants as possible.

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'Merica

[that's not snark; I actualy like that the government promotes this]

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Guns were an essential, everyday part of life.

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Isn't the right to defend my life and property an essential everyday asset?

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[that's not snark; I actualy like that the government promotes this]

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Boosie - I kind of think of you as the SFP Mark 2.0 - Jake was liberal as heck back in the day. You're smart, are a critical thinker and not totally co-opted by the leftist, statist establishment.

You'll be traditionally conservative, libertarian or some combination within 5 years. Mark it down.

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do people who think all drugs should be legal also believe that all forms of weaponry should be illegal?

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Ironically, a lot of people I know who toke up favor strict gun control.

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But that clause in the 2nd Amendment is troubling to me. It could have been made much clearer by either the exclusion of the militia phrase, or more clearly defining the duties of the militia.

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The perfect is the enemy of the good, WT. The clear language in the dominant clause is relatively unambiguous, "...the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The militia clause of the Second Amendment doesn't bother me any more than the "Congress shall make no law" does in the First - it's not perfect language, but the intent and subsequent application is very clear. In fact, the First Amendment has been stretched much further to protect all sorts of speech (all the way to pornography) that were never intended to be on equal footing with political speech (IMHO), while it seems a relatively extreme amount of stretching has to be done by the left to regulate things such as magazine capacity, folding stocks, and other such nonsense. Every right is subject to reasonable restrictions, but the left seems to want to "reasonably restrict" the Second Amendment out of existence.

And they can do that - propose a repeal. Let's see how far that gets them.

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Seeing as the revolutionary war was fought against a supposedly tyrannical government by many people who were not professional soldiers but mainly irregulars, it amuses me that anyone could believe the founding fathers wanted only the government to be well armed and not the citizens.

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Indeed, it looks more to me like the federal government didn't want any part of the expense of arming a defense force, and left it up to the able-bodied white males to provide their own arms.