Checkmate!

 

1. I have always felt that, intuitively at least, all my BMEWS readers understood this. If you read history, or went to school in the 60s or 70s and can remember what they taught you in 3rd or 4th grade, the idea the We The People are the Militia is pretty clearly understood. That’s why the Founders were against having a standing army. That’s probably why, until after the Spanish American War, that our soldiers were divided into groups by area - 14th Alabama, 44th Pennsylvania, 11th Maine etc (hypothetical numberings): we are the militia.

   Many people to this day read the Constitution and understand; it’s pretty much your duty to be armed and skilled with that arm. Granted the injuns aren’t about to raid us, and DHS probably isn’t about to take over the Arizona statehouse. Probably.

   It was only with the formation of the National Guard that the citizen’s militia got downplayed/lightened/redundant. Right around the start of the 20th century I think. Right about when motorized vehicles came along, and planes, machine guns, long range artillery, and repeating rifles. Up until that point, a squad of local armed citizens with access to the town’s iron cannon was fully the equal of a like number of professional soldiers. Now we are at their mercy.

   Posted by Drew458       05/05/2013  at  07:33 AM  



2. 4th-grade Civics for me. Two years later, when my sister went through 4th-grade, with the same teacher, Civics and that big, heavy textbook had vanished from the curriculum. Ditto for my other sister two years after that. This vanishing curriculum was the subject of my second Toastmaster speech. So I beg your pardon if I don’t think it’s necessarily true that BMEWS readers know this.

   Posted by Christopher       05/05/2013  at  09:54 AM  

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