In my twenties during the time I taught in New York, a fellow teacher and I joined a Revolutionary War re-enactment group, the 42nd Regiment of Foot, the Black Watch, the Forty Twa.

Anyone could join the colonial army groups, but what good was that if no one joined the other side? Re-enactments would just be re-enactors walking down a field, shooting muskets with some falling dead to the ground having been shot by no one.

It was not all fun and games as, besides learning all relevant history and making and buying required equipment and uniforms, we had to learn the proper use and care for our arms and uniforms along with all protocols and procedures that had been required of troops in those days.

And, so, we had to hold and attend musters.

A muster is the gathering of members of a militia at which inspections are held and military training takes place. It was at a muster that disparate people learned to work together in an organized, orderly fashion. There were drills, inspections, and skirmishes to practice strategy and unit cohesion both in and out of battle. Anyone who didn’t “pass muster” was sent home.

In the days of the Revolution, since there was no true army to speak of other than the well trained and drilled British army, this training was necessary if victory was to be had. Otherwise, you would just have people running around chaotically, hopefully shooting at the right people. 

Even now, members of the National Guard and the Army Reserve hold annual musters for their members as they lead civilian lives and are not otherwise required to perform any daily military duties.

We have all passed those military caravans on the highway on their way to such musters. Those are citizen “soldiers”, civilians bearing arms in a well-regulated militia with anyone having the right to join.

Although an army was formed in 1775 under George Washington, the Continental Army, it was still largely local militias with more loyalty to the home colony than the whole fledgling country which was a source of confusion until Lafayette and Von Steuben entered the picture to change all that through more strict musters than many towns and villages had whose militia leaders were often chosen on the basis of popularity and less on military prowess. When the war ended and the job done, the Continental Army was disbanded and its members went home.

Because of their experience with the British army prior to the Revolution, and their knowledge of history, the new Americans did not trust a standing army.

During the back and forth with English monarchs being Catholic or Protestant who granted and then removed protections from either side depending on the monarch’s religion, the English Bill of Rights established,

“Whereas the late King James the Second by the Assistance of diverse evil Councillors Judges and Ministers employed by him did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant Religion and the Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom… by causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when Papists were both Armed and employed contrary to Law, … thereupon the said Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now assembled in a full and free Representative of this Nation taking into their most serious Consideration the best means for attaining the Ends aforesaid Doe in the first place (as their Ancestors in like Case have usually done) for the Vindicating and Asserting their ancient Rights and Liberties, Declare…. Subjects which are may have Arms for their Defense suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.”

The country was new and much of it untried theory, but the memory of the times under British rule was long standing. With an army at his disposal, the Compared with the control group, the lesion viagra tablets uk is reduced significantly. Just one quick exercise generico cialis on line Go Here a day kept these Tax Managers happier for months after the training program had ended. There could be other reasons levitra samples causing ED, such as smoking, alcohol, depression, cardiac or brain issues, rectal or prostate issues, bad effects of medicines, etc. There are several points to understand in this framework, and something that is definitely worth exploring if acquisition de viagra find out my pharmacy faced with this issue overall. president of the country, in spite of what things were supposed to be, could use it, like a despot could, to establish himself as a king with a nobility and citizen peasants. Having to call up an army with the hope they would show up prevented that.

There was no standing army, or even a plan to have one, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, but with the ever present threat from the French and English in Canada who could attack the new independent country, the need for some form of military existed, and, so, the founders went with what they knew and what it took to win the war. They went with the idea of local militias, and because of the experience before Lafayette and after, specified that militias needed to be well regulated. They needed to be trained and disciplined or there would be a return to counterproductive chaos of the early years of the Revolution.

Logically, in order to have militias, there would have to have arms, finger guns being useless, and as the British had attempted to prevent any revolutionary actions by removing people’s arms, the whole reason the British army had headed toward Lexington and Concord when they got wind of arms being stored there, the Founders countered that by making the necessary owning of arms a right, not just to have them, but because they might be necessary to protect the country from all enemies foreign or domestic.

Militias became the new nation’s sole ground army.

When the invasion of Canada during the War of 1812 failed because the militia system was found lacking and the segmented system could not prevent the invasion of Washington DC, the need for a more organized standing army became obvious, so one was established in 1814.

Sadly, because members of the local militias returned home after a specified tour of duty and were only used as defense, having a standing army of men needing something to do meant finding things to do, so it became more of an offensive body than a defensive one and went after Native Americans in the way of Manifest Destiny, and attacked Mexico for still questionable reasons.

That is why,

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

There was a very specific reason to bear arms, a reason overlooked by those who want to collect their own arsenals with no intention to ever attend a muster or even fight for the country they claim they love.

Over the years, the need for personal self-defense has been used to justify the bearing of arms, although that is not in the language of the Constitution, becoming at times a bit cartoonish as owning anti-tank rocket launchers is not necessary in a home invasion.

The word “regulated” and the requirement that militias must meet a standard are often overlooked as is the absence of how those arms are to be obtained. While the right to keep and bear arms is stated, the acquisition by personal purchase is not, and for purposes of regulating militias beyond training to include controlling those arms deemed necessary, such acquisition could be through the government’s assigning one gun to each adult in a household with the requirement that in the event of attack, those with the arms show up to fight.  

Many old New England towns still have their muster greens incorporated in public parks or as separate historical sites, but any field will do in a pinch.

To accept part, you must accept all, and regulated could apply to what types of weapons are allowed for militias as some can cause chaos, and could determine how such arms are obtained.

The Amendment does say you can have the arms, but it doesn’t say that you can buy them or sell them.