Homeowner shoots two of three invaders

That's hardly a definition. It's a requirement that the government always maintain a militia. There was a fear that future governments would create a standing army and then use its existence to say that a militia was unnecessary.



The UK prevented people from amassing arsenals suitable for mounting insurrections against the government. They allowed people to have arms suitable for defending against criminals, both at home and when traveling abroad in public.

This right to self defense guns was then incorporated into the US Constitution. If it does not emanate from the penumbra of the Second Amendment, it is swept up by the Ninth Amendment.



Not quite. It was one of the amendments to the Dick Act (sometime around 1916 maybe?) that provided for state militia. All the 1903 act did was provide for the National Guard.

However, while the statute does provide for such militia, it is not really used. Those states which elect to have a militia, have them as completely unarmed bodies. It kind of defeats the whole purpose.



Where there are assertions that the National Guard is a militia, the fact that it isn't a militia is quite material.

All of it.

There is absolutely no basis for your claim about the purpose of the second amendment, nor your dismissal of Tucker's comment on Blackstone's commentary--the game laws prohibited you from keeping a firearm in your home, no matter what the purpose.

The Militia Act of 1903 (the Dick Act) has already established the National Guard as the organized militia. Maybe you and your confrères could take that to the Supremes. Until such time as you do, and win your case, the National Guard is the organized militia of the United States.

There is the fact that the Founding Fathers openly expressed those very concerns, and openly expressed them directly in conjunction with their calls for what became the Second Amendment.

Note this discussion in the Virginia Ratifying Convention. There was lots of concern that a tyrannical government could replace the militia with a standing army:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_15s13.html

This same convention went on to propose a wordy version of what would later become the Second Amendment:





I did not dismiss his comment. I merely pointed out what his comment actually said (i.e. he was only talking about the sorts of arsenals suitable for insurrection, and did not mention armaments suitable for defense against criminals).




Not after the 1689 English Bill of Rights they didn't.

Rex v. Gardner (1739): "And they do not extend to prohibit a man from keeping a gun for his necessary defence, but only from making that forbidden use of it. And the word 'gun' being purposely omitted in this act, the defendant is not within the penalty."

Mallock v. Eastley (1744): "the mere having a gun was no offense within the game laws, for a man may keep a gun for the defence of his house and family."

Wingfield v. Stratford (1752): "It is not to be imagined, that it was the Intention of the Legislature, in making the 5 Ann.c.14 to disarm all the People of England. As Greyhounds, Setting Dogs ... are expressly mentioned in that Statute, it is never necessary to alledge, that any of these have been used for killing or destroying the Game; and the rather, as they can scarcely be kept for any other Purpose than to kill or destroy the Game. But as Guns are not expressly mentioned in that Statute, and as a Gun may be kept for the Defence of a Man's House, and for divers other lawful Purposes, it was necessary to alledge, in order to its being comprehended within the Meaning of the Words 'any other Engines to kill the Game', that the Gun had been used for killing the Game."

Rex v. Dewhurst (1820): "A man has a clear right to arms to protect himself in his house. A man has a clear right to protect himself when he is going singly or in a small party upon the road where he is travelling or going for the ordinary purposes of business. But I have no difficulties in saying you have no right to carry arms to a public meeting, if the number of arms which are so carried are calculated to produce terror and alarm."

It is this right that Heller was primarily based upon. If the English Common Law right does not emanate from the penumbra of the Second Amendment, then it was swept up by the Ninth Amendment instead.




Having a statue declare that part of the standing army is a militia does not transform it into the militia of the Constitution.




Sue to have the National Guard not be considered the militia, even though it is already not considered the militia???

It would be much better to have a lawsuit focus on the bodies that actually are considered the militia (i.e. the state guards).

I can see a lawsuit which argued that the government was violating the Second Amendment by not maintaining state guards as well-armed bodies.

If anyone wants to pay the bills, I'll go sue.




As part of the standing army however, it is not the militia which is mentioned in the US Constitution.

That would be the various state guards.

en.m.wikipedia.org/.../National_Guard_o...