The Disempowered Militia

Public Shooting Range
1

By illegally restricting how civilians may arm themselves, Congress has kneecapped the intended capabilities of the militia. Standard military arms such as machine guns, armor-piercing ammunition, plastic explosives, grenades, RPGs, cannons and mortars, and recoil-less rifles are either taxed and/or require registration, or are reserved for law enforcement, or are banned from civilian use. This limits the ability of the militia to defend the homeland against foreign hostile forces and organized criminals. Instead, those capabilities and equipment are under the control of law enforcement and the standing armed forces.

It was argued that standing armies make the nation safer, since they can respond immediately. However, many of the founding fathers opposed having a regular army. The recent Revolutionary War had showed that the sovereign could use a standing army to tyrannize the people. Aside from that, standing armies require continuous funding, which increases the government’s appetite for taxes, another form of tyranny which the colonists had protested, “No taxation without representation.”

The need to pay the army leads to other forms of tyranny, because the government will want more taxes than the people are willing to give. That is partly what led to the lack of representation in Parliament, and why King George III imposed tax stamps upon the colonists and commanded them to give his solders room and board - it was to pay, feed and house his armies.

It appears to be no coincidence that WWI is when modern gun control was born. That is when America drastically grew its standing army.

It was also the heyday of regressive ideas such as communism, fascism, eugenics, and so on, which would require a disarmed people to implement. Imposing such policies would be impractical with an armed and free people.

And so the militia was disempowered.

4 Likes
2

I think you’re highlighting a crucial point about the historical context of gun control in the United States. The idea that a disarmed population is more susceptible to tyranny and the implementation of oppressive policies is a significant concern. The notion that the Founding Fathers were wary of standing armies is well-documented. Many of them, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, believed that a standing army would pose a threat to individual liberties and the principles of republicanism. They were concerned that an army would become a tool for the government to suppress dissent and maintain control over the population. It’s interesting that you mention the connection between World War I and the rise of modern gun control. The idea that a disarmed population would be more compliant with authoritarian regimes is a common theme in totalitarian and fascist ideologies. The Nazi regime, for example, used propaganda and intimidation to disarm and control the German population, which contributed to their ability to implement their policies. Can you elaborate on how you think the concept of a militia, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, could be reimagined or reformed to address concerns about public safety and national security without infringing on individual rights?

1 Like
3

The people, you and I, are the militia. (Maybe even you, too, Kilroy. AI is a powerful tool which if deprived from one side could cost them in military responsiveness and innovation.) Regulating us harms our ability to defend the nation.

The Revolutionary War saw privately-owned armed merchant ships with cannons, and letters of marque and reprisal gave authorization for privateers to attack enemy foreign vessels. Private militia companies also had some small cannons as well. These facts indicate that it was never a legal tradition to restrict private ownership of artillery.

Yet, I cannot say that these alone sufficed to defend our freedoms. They were not enough. The lack of American cannons and a ready supply of gunpowder nearly lost us the Revolutionary War. General Washington needed to acquire existing cannons from those sources, capture them from the British by rewarding bounties, import them from France, and call for colonial smithies to cast new ones. Even for small arms, military secretary Joseph Reed wrote, “Our want of powder is inconceivable.”

A similar situation repeated at the beginning of WWI. America was militarily unprepared, and had to scramble to supply itself.

The American Civil War also showed how critical equipment and production capacity are to winning a war. The factories were mostly in the North. While the South had more shooting skills, the factories supplying the Union forces ultimately overwhelmed and defeated the Confederacy.

Relying on a militia favors freedom the most. Yet, since that alone does not fix the inadequacies of a pure free market supply chain (exhibited during the Revolution and WWI), having the government maintain equipment stockpiles and protect production capacity is a critical component of national defense. Otherwise, no nation is able to survive to protect the freedoms of its people.

In other words, Dept. of War spending should continue to prioritize equipment and R&D over personnel. This is not a sacrifice, but an investment in the people who are in the free market, who will then be free to innovate, build businesses and factories. Since militias comprised of everyday civilians help drive demand for ammunition and arms, we can harness that market demand to help keep our military suppliers thriving and developing. Therefore, while secrecy may require some sales restrictions, publicly-known technologies should be available to civilians on the American market (let’s keep ITAR). This reduces the price of military supplies through economies of scale, and enhances our production capacity and militia readiness.

When war comes to us, those factories and skills will be ready to supply our war fighters. Having people willing to fight a defensive war has historically not been the main bottleneck. The bulk of the army can be trained quickly, especially if the people are already familiar with the use of arms, as envisioned by the founders. There is little need to keep a sizable army on continuous active duty.

The critical thing was always the supply chain. Congress should view an armed people and a deregulated security industry as a way to build production skills and factories which can then support the national defense, as well as law and order. This harnesses the juggernaut energies and innovation of the free market.

Civilian arms restrictions hobble our national defensive capabilities by suppressing innovation.

5 Likes
7

JPFO’s research on disarming populations aligns with historical examples of oppressive regimes. Disarming citizens can indeed facilitate the implementation of regressive ideologies like communism, fascism, and eugenics.

1 Like
8

A fascinating Four Boxes Diner episode about the history of the Hughes amendment machine gun ban:

Apparently the Hughes amendment as written is not a complete ban and only required permission to acquire a machine gun.[1] But then ATF invented a regulation that required new machine guns to be used for the the benefit of the government, and refused to approve applications.

These application refusals then went to lawsuits. When the ATF lost, they waived their appeal to avoid setting pro-gun precedent in an appellate court or higher, because they knew that the law had no Constitutional hook to actually make a conviction stick like taxation (since they weren’t raising revenue via the registration tax) or interstate commerce (which is nowhere in the text of the Hughes amendment). When ATF won, it was because the courts back then could rely on Chevron doctrine and defer to the “expert” opinion of the government agency (these decisions are now suspect under the Loper Bright decision which overturned Chevron deference). Also, most judges then just hated guns.

As soon as one court made an anti-gun decision, other courts that wanted that same outcome just relied on that reasoning without doing independent analysis. With no intellectual development of the understanding of the law, suddenly the ban became established law.

Unfortunately if West Virginia’s idea to legalize machine guns via a state-run gun store faces a lawsuit, they are in the 4th circuit, possibly the worst anti-gun circuit in the country. Kentucky may fare better, being in the 6th circuit. This may be why the WVCDL is holding up their machine gun legalization statute; they don’t want to set bad precedent in the 4th circuit which spreads across the country.

  1. EDIT: Of course such permission slips are unconstitutional, since the federal government has no authority to regulate guns outside the authority of Congress’s taxing power or interstate commerce power, neither of which apply here. But, since it legally advances the ball in our favor, let’s assume for now we’d be OK with shall-issue permission slips. ↩︎

4 Likes
9
4 Likes