Those were not my words. They came from
You are somehow confusing two different quotes from your own posting. You changed the wording of the 2nd Amendment, and that change was in your words.
But we can repeat in more detail the response to the source you have decided is inerrant gospel, and then misread:
In the United States, as of the early 2000s, the National Guard serves as the nation's militia .
Made up of volunteers, the National Guard acts under the dual authority of both the federal and state governments.
Serving as a militia, occasionally, does not make it a militia. It's not a militia. It occasionally serves as an emergency medical and disaster response outfit, police force, etc, as well. It is none of those things. It is a standing State and Federal military force.
Apparently this is poorly understood - some history:
From Wiki:
The
National Guard Bureau is the federal instrument responsible for the administration of the
United States National Guardestablished by the
United States Congress as a
joint bureau of the Department of the Army and the Department of the Air Force
Pay attention now:
It's not made up of "volunteers" like a militia (or a posse, say), but enlistees (exactly like the US Army, and the other military forces commanded by the State). It's paid, trained, professionally organized, uniformed, and completely equipped by the US and State Governments. It is under the command of the US and State Governments, by way of officers with military rank appointed and commissioned by the US Government. None of that is true of any militia.
Now the origins of the Guard were in actual militia, especially State militia (not town or county or regional militia, as were prevalent in 1780). And the co-option into the professional military took more than a century, during which the characteristic features of a militia were replaced with the characteristic features of a State standing military force, as it is today.
A brief timeline, quoted from Wiki, so you can see the alteration by stages, and by reversing it mentally can come to realize what the word "militia" meant to the authors of the Constitution, and what it means to educated people today:
1) Bill of Rights - 1780, more or less.
Ten years later, the regular Army has had some problems:
2 Wiki) The
Militia Acts of 1792 were a pair of
statutes enacted by the
secondUnited States Congress in 1792. The acts provided for the organization of the state
militias and provided for the
President of the United States to take command of the state militias in times of imminent invasion or insurrection.
{ notice: prior to that, such as in 1780, militias were not necessarily organized or identified by State}
2 cont.) The first Act, passed May 2, 1792, provided for the authority of the president to call out the militias of the several
states, "whenever the
United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe".
[3]
- - - -
The second Act, passed May 8, 1792, provided for the organization of the state militias. It
conscripted every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45 into a local militia company. (This was later expanded to all males, regardless of race, between the ages of 18 and 54 in 1862.)
- -
Militia members, referred to as "every citizen, so enrolled and notified", "...shall within six months thereafter, provide himself..." with a
musket,
bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a
cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack. Men owning rifles were required to provide a powder horn, ¼ pound of gunpowder, 20 rifle balls, a shooting pouch, and a knapsack
{notice: every militia member, meaning every adult male citizen under 45 not in the military, was not merely expected but required to provide his own firearm upon notification of deployment, and rifles were ordinary militia weapons}
The militias were divided into "
divisions,
brigades,
regiments,
battalions, and
companies" as the state legislatures would direct. - - - -
Court martial proceedings were authorized by the statute against militia members who disobeyed orders
{notice: before that time, such as in 1780, militia themselves arranged their own command structure and enforcement of orders}
So passed the first 125 years, including several wars, of US Army and Navy deployment and - much differently organized - occasional militia involvement.
Then:
3 Wiki)
United States Secretary of War Elihu Root - - - argued that
state militias should be more like the Army in discipline, uniforms, equipment, and training,
-
Dick championed the Militia Act of 1903, which became known as the Dick Act. This law repealed the Militia Acts of 1792 and designated the militia [per Title 10, Section 311] as two groups:
the Unorganized Militia, which included all able-bodied men between ages 17 and 45, and the Organized Militia, which included state militia (National Guard) units receiving federal support - -
{notice: this separated the National Guard units from the former militia as understood in 1780 - they are still government labeled "militia", but as we will see they will otherwise increasingly resemble regular military forces}
3 cont) Guardsmen had to answer a presidential call or face court-martial. States had to organize, equip, and train their units in accordance with the policies and procedures of the regular Army. If Guard units failed to meet Army standards, they would lose federal recognition and federal funding
- -
The Dick Act was modified by the Militia Act of 1908, the
National Defense Act of 1916, the
National Defense Act of 1920, and the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933.
[23] In 1908, The nine-month limit on federal service was dropped, - - The ban on National Guard units serving outside the United States was also dropped - - during a mobilization the National Guard had to be federalized - - - the creation of the Division of Militia Affairs as the Army agency -
{this "organized militia" is now a branch of the military, under Army command and control}
4 Wiki) The
National Defense Act of 1916 - - - the War Department was enabled to centrally plan for the National Guard's authorized strength, and the number and types of National Guard units in each state. - -
- - implement uniform enlistment contracts and officer commissioning requirements for the National Guard. - -
- - replaced the federal subsidy with an annual budget - - division of Militia Affairs was expanded to form the Militia Bureau (now
National Guard Bureau).
- - - stipulating that they would be drafted into federal service, thus removing the National Guard from its status as the militia of the states when operating under federal authority.
{notice: they did eventually drop even the pretense of the label "militia"}
5 Wiki) In 1933, an amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916 created a separate reserve component of the United States Army called the National Guard of the United States. Since 1933, all National Guardsmen have been members of both their State National Guard (or militia) and the National Guard of the United States.
{ and the transformation is completed.}
- - - - -
Notice: the "unorganized militia" remain, untransformed - still actual militia, with all the characteristics thereof. The US still has militias. But the National Guard is not one of them - and it certainly is not anything like the militias of 1780.
In particular: Militia bring their own firearms. That's where the ablative clause in the 2nd Amendment comes from.
