What did the term “militia” mean at the Founding?

0:04This is a very important concept because recall that the American Revolution was fought in part by the Continental Army, which was an army of professional or perhaps we should say, professional live soldiers, soldiers that had received at least some training and served under the official command of George Washington, who is the commander of the army but it was also fought by militias. And these are fighting forces that are controlled and organized at the state level. Oftentimes they have little, if any training.

0:31There's simply a law on the books that says to people at the time, who was men of a certain age, look, if we call you out, you have to show up with weapons to participate in whatever military activity is going on. And so this was something that the founding generation was quite familiar with, the idea that you could have both a professionalized military force which we would think of, not only today as the army but also the National Guard.

0:53The National Guard would have looked to the founders very much like a standing army. That's really not what they meant when they thought of militia. What they thought of when they thought of militia was the minutemen from Concord in Lexington, people who are farming one minute, and then when the alarm goes out, they go back to the farmhouse, take the musket or the rifle off over the mantelpiece, and go out and drop their plow and pick up their gun and start fighting. Both of these were considered to be sort of legitimate fighting organizations with significant difference that one was controlled by the national government, the other was controlled by state governments, or in some cases was just an organic gathering of ordinary people not subject to the control of any government.

1:31It's important to keep in mind that the wording of state constitutions when it comes to gun ownership was quite different in different states. So, for example, the Pennsylvania Constitution of that time said that the right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned and so then this puts the focus more on the idea that the right to own weapons may have multiple rationales, not only the ability to protect the prerogatives of one's state against federal oppression, but also the ability to protect oneself as an individual from whatever might arise. Keep in mind at this time that we still had a frontier where there are at least in some places there were hostile Native Americans. There are wild animals in the wood, some of which might attack you, others of which were good to eat, and then you might want to hunt. And then, of course, we had no organized police force at the time and so if you were riding for any significant distance,

2:22it would be wise to bring a firearm with you because you never know when you might be attacked by an animal, a local or a criminal of some kind. These are all different rationales for why a state constitution might protect the right of the people to own a gun.