A Well-regulated Militia

A Well-regulated Militia PDF Author: Saul Cornell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195341031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A leading constitutional historian argues that the Founding Fathers viewed the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but rather an obligation a citizen owed to the government to arm themselves and participate in a well-regulated militia.

A Well-regulated Militia

A Well-regulated Militia PDF Author: Saul Cornell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195341031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A leading constitutional historian argues that the Founding Fathers viewed the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but rather an obligation a citizen owed to the government to arm themselves and participate in a well-regulated militia.

Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812

Citizen Soldiers in the War of 1812 PDF Author: C. Edward Skeen
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 081314955X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Book Award During the War of 1812, state militias were intended to be the primary fighting force. Unfortunately, while militiamen showed willingness to fight, they were untrained, undisciplined, and ill-equipped. These raw volunteers had no muskets, and many did not know how to use the weapons once they had been issued. Though established by the Constitution, state militias found themselves wholly unprepared for war. The federal government was empowered to use these militias to "execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions;" but in a system of divided responsibility, it was the states' job to appoint officers and to train the soldiers. Edward Skeen reveals states' responses to federal requests for troops and provides in-depth descriptions of the conditions, morale, and experiences of the militia in camp and in battle. Skeen documents the failures and successes of the militias, concluding that the key lay in strong leadership. He also explores public perception of the force, both before and after the war, and examines how the militias changed in response to their performance in the War of 1812. After that time, the federal government increasingly neglected the militias in favor of a regular professional army.

Gathering Storm

Gathering Storm PDF Author: Morris Dees
Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN: 9780060927899
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
On October 26, 1994, Morris Dees wrote Attorney General Janet Reno to alert her to the danger posed by the growing number of radical militia groups. He warned the Attorney General that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate is a recipe for disaster." This was six months before the Oklahoma City bombing. In Gathering Storm, he tells for the first time why he decided to alert the Attorney General and why the danger of serious domestic terrorism still exists. The militia movement we saw so much about immediately after the Oklahoma City bombing was not a spontaneous grassroots uprising of men angry at big government but, as Dees shows, a well-organized effort by some of America's most dangerous far-right extremists. Its goal is to destabilize our democracy through domestic terrorism. Few are more qualified to expose the militia network and its close cousin, the Christian patriots, than Dees. Dees points out that the Oklahoma City tragedy was not an isolated event. He connects together a series of violent acts and plans promoted by militia groups and small secret "patriot" cells since the early 1980s. Many, he says, have ties to sources of political power in state houses and in Washington. Dees names names, gives places and details events that could prove embarrassing to some.

The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent

The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent PDF Author: H. Richard Uviller
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822384272
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
"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." —Amendment II, United States Constitution The Second Amendment is regularly invoked by opponents of gun control, but H. Richard Uviller and William G. Merkel argue the amendment has nothing to contribute to debates over private access to firearms. In The Militia and the Right to Arms, or, How the Second Amendment Fell Silent, Uviller and Merkel show how postratification history has sapped the Second Amendment of its meaning. Starting with a detailed examination of the political principles of the founders, the authors build the case that the amendment's second clause (declaring the right to bear arms) depends entirely on the premise set out in the amendment's first clause (stating that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state). The authors demonstrate that the militia envisioned by the framers of the Bill of Rights in 1789 has long since disappeared from the American scene, leaving no lineal descendants. The constitutional right to bear arms, Uviller and Merkel conclude, has evaporated along with the universal militia of the eighteenth century. Using records from the founding era, Uviller and Merkel explain that the Second Amendment was motivated by a deep fear of standing armies. To guard against the debilitating effects of militarism, and against the ultimate danger of a would-be Caesar at the head of a great professional army, the founders sought to guarantee the existence of well-trained, self-armed, locally commanded citizen militia, in which service was compulsory. By its very existence, this militia would obviate the need for a large and dangerous regular army. But as Uviller and Merkel describe the gradual rise of the United States Army and the National Guard over the last two hundred years, they highlight the nation's abandonment of the militia ideal so dear to the framers. The authors discuss issues of constitutional interpretation in light of radically changed social circumstances and contrast their position with the arguments of a diverse group of constitutional scholars including Sanford Levinson, Carl Bogus, William Van Alstyne, and Akhil Reed Amar. Espousing a centrist position in the polarized arena of Second Amendment interpretation, this book will appeal to those wanting to know more about the amendment's relevance to the issue of gun control, as well as to those interested in the constitutional and political context of America's military history.

The Rise of the National Guard

The Rise of the National Guard PDF Author: Jerry Cooper
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803264281
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
From the beginning of our republic the concept of a citizen soldiery, organized throughømilitias, has undergirded American military philosophy. This nation fought the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War, and began the Civil War, relying on volunteer militias and only a skeletal professional military force. The Civil War demonstrated the need to adapt state militias to the requirements of modern war, yet the United States retained its original philosophy in what became the National Guard. The Rise of the National Guard describes in thorough detail the evolution of the state militia system to a more federally controlled National Guard during the crucial years of development. The subject is important because the "citizen soldier" and "militia-national guard" traditions form one of the two pillars on which American military policy is built; a professional, regular military force is the other. Jerry Cooper's detailed research, unique examination of the experience of individual states, and careful analysis make this work the standard treatment of the subject.

The Militia Movement

The Militia Movement PDF Author: Charles P. Cozic
Publisher: Greenhaven Press, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781565105416
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 102

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Book Description
Collection of essays representing differing points of view about the militia movement of the 1990s.

American Militia in the Frontier Wars, 1790-1796

American Militia in the Frontier Wars, 1790-1796 PDF Author: Murtie June Clark
Publisher: Genealogical Publishing Com
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
"This book is a compilation of the records of state militia organizations which were authorized and paid by the newly formed federal government to fight in the Indian Wars during the period 1790 through 1796" --

Armed Citizens

Armed Citizens PDF Author: Noah Shusterman
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813944627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
Although much has changed in the United States since the eighteenth century, our framework for gun laws still largely relies on the Second Amendment and the patterns that emerged in the colonial era. America has long been a heavily armed, and racially divided, society, yet few citizens understand either why militias appealed to the founding fathers or the role that militias played in North American rebellions, in which they often functioned as repressive—and racist—domestic forces. In Armed Citizens, Noah Shusterman explains for a general reader what eighteenth-century militias were and why the authors of the Constitution believed them to be necessary to the security of a free state. Suggesting that the question was never whether there was a right to bear arms, but rather, who had the right to bear arms, Shusterman begins with the lessons that the founding generation took from the history of Ancient Rome and Machiavelli’s reinterpretation of those myths during the Renaissance. He then turns to the rise of France’s professional army during seventeenth-century Europe and the fear that it inspired in England. Shusterman shows how this fear led British writers to begin praising citizens’ militias, at the same time that colonial America had come to rely on those militias as a means of defense and as a system to police enslaved peoples. Thus the start of the Revolution allowed Americans to portray their struggle as a war of citizens against professional soldiers, leading the authors of the Constitution to place their trust in citizen soldiers and a "well-regulated militia," an idea that persists to this day.

Knockout

Knockout PDF Author: Ian Slater
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
ISBN: 1645403017
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
NO WARNING. NO RULES. NOWHERE LEFT TO RUN. Freeman and McBride. On opposite sides of the most bitter divide since the Civil War, two warriors found in each other the perfect enemy: implacable, unforgiving, unwilling to leave anything to chance. And in the war between the USA and the Militia, Gen. Douglas Freeman and master guerrilla strategist "Lucky" McBride are each fighting for the only thing they believe in: complete victory at any cost. While Freeman won round one, putting McBride's top soldiers behind barbed-wire prison fences, McBride and the Militia are most dangerous when cornered—and they're about to strike back. McBride has his eye on the big prize: the most magnificent American weapon anywhere in the world. Killing when he has to, striking out of thin air, and moving his shock troops like chess pieces, McBride is taking aim. And if he hits his target, the cost in lives will be staggering. As for Freeman, he'll use guerrilla tactics to find the Militia at a secret fortress already running with blood—and then take aim himself....

American Militias

American Militias PDF Author: Richard Abanes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780830813681
Category : Government, Resistance to
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Abanes explains where the paramilitary groups come from, who are their members, what are their beliefs and how they are organized and motivated. Offering a thorough and balanced perspective, he describes many of the complex conspiracy theories that have gained a following among paramilitarists, show how racism and religion fuel many of their bizarre beliefs and goals, and suggests how their sometimes dangerous zealotry might be defused.