• afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It was, those three words aren’t there by mistake.

    Standing domestic armies were controversial at the time. They needed a way if a state was a facing a crisis it could grab a bunch of armed citizens, declare it a militia, and deal with the issue. Most of the signers were lawyers and they knew that there had to be a legally established procedure for this.

    This is me being nice to them btw the issue was slavery and the fear of slave revolts.

    And a few decades ago it got reimagined as a civil liberty. Which is clear from the text that it is not and is clear from the debates around the amendment at the time.

    • FryHyde@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I was always under the impression that the militia bit was because they didn’t want the USA to form a government army. The army instead would be all citizens, armed, that would act in case of a national threat, then like… go back to farming or whatever.