>Good point, Charles
>
>To reiterate - in the 18th C. a militia was a band of concerned citizens banding together under a local leader. The infamous Green Mountain Boys of the Revolution are a classic example of what a militia was then.
Kind of Ye Olde Street Gang <g>
>
>>>> Given all their lofty ideals it's hard for me to believe the founders envisioned an entire society running around armed to the teeth.
>>
>>Actually, in the American of the 18th century it would have been hard for the Founders to imagine a society where everyone was *not* armed. Militia was a gathering of *armed* citizens - their own guns.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
