Comment on How many people would it take to overwhelm a fully functioning military in a nuclear state?
endless_nameless@lemmy.world 1 day agoNo, it’s completely right. At the time of writing, it did literally mean all able men of fighting age. This was determined by the supreme court in 2008. That’s not to say there weren’t specific militia organizations, but it’s not what the amendment is specifically referring to.
Apepollo11@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ll admit, I didn’t know the Supreme Court had said that.
It’s an insane interpretation - and I see that many justices said so at the time.
I guess whether or not the writers of the amendment actually meant every able-bodied man when they wrote “well-regulated militia”, or whether they meant a militia, is impossible to know for sure.
But to say that the word meant something different at the time is patently untrue. Around the English speaking world at that time, local militias - with that specific word used - were used to keep order. It was a common world for an actual thing people would have been familiar with.