Source: http://gamilitia.com/index.php/faqs
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:25:19+00:00

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An iconic group of men who led the American Revolution against the British Crown, the Founding Fathers' legacy lives on today as we continue our fight for liberty and freedom. Below are our favorite quotes from a few of our Founding Fathers.
Letter to Destutt de Tracy (Jan. 26, 1811), in The Portable Thomas Jefferson (“[T]he militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms”).
Petitioners take a seemingly narrower view of the militia, stating that “[m]ilitias are the state- and congressionally-regulated military forces described in the Militia Clauses. Although we agree with petitioners’ interpretive assumption that “militia” means the same thing in Article I and the Second Amendment, we believe that petitioners identify the wrong thing, namely, the organized militia. Unlike armies and navies, which Congress is given the power to create (“to raise . . . Armies”; “to provide . . . a Navy,” Art. I, §8, cls. 12–13), the militia is assumed by Article I already to be in existence. Congress is given the power to “provide for calling forth the militia,” §8, cl. 15; and the power not to create, but to “organiz[e]” it—and not to organize “a” militia, which is what one would expect if the militia were to be a federal creation, but to organize“the” militia, connoting a body already in existence, ibid.,cl. 16. This is fully consistent with the ordinary definition of the militia as all able-bodied men.
From that pool,Congress has plenary power to organize the units that will make up an effective fighting force. That is what Congress did in the first militia Act, which specified that “each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia.” Act of May 8,1792, 1 Stat. 271. To be sure, Congress need not conscript every able-bodied man into the militia, because nothing in Article I suggests that in exercising its power to organize, discipline, and arm the militia, Congress must focus upon the entire body. Although the militia consists of all able-bodied men, the federally organized militia may consist of a subset of them.
Finally, the adjective “well-regulated” implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training.See Johnson 1619 (“Regulate”: “To adjust by rule or method”); Rawle 121–122; cf. Va. Declaration of Rights§13 (1776), in 7 Thorpe 3812, 3814 (referring to “a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms”).
The phrase “security of a free state” meant “security of a free polity,” not security of each of the several States as the dissent below argued. Joseph Story wrote in his treatise on the Constitution that “the word ‘state’ is used in various senses [and in] its most enlarged sense, it means the people composing a particular nation or community.” (in reference to the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause: “The militia is the natural defence of a free country”). It is true that the term “State” elsewhere in the Constitution refers to individual States, but the phrase “security of a free state” and close variations seem to have been terms of art in 18th-century political discourse, meaning a “‘free country’” or free polity. Moreover, the other instances of “state” in the Constitution are typically accompanied by modifiers making clear that the reference is to the several States—“each state,” “several states,” “any state,” “that state,” “particular states,” “one state,” “no state.” And the presence of the term “foreign state” in Article I and Article III shows that the word “state” did not have a single meaning in the Constitution.
There are many reasons why the militia was thought tobe “necessary to the security of a free state.” First, of course, it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders largestanding armies unnecessary—an argument that Alexander Hamilton made in favor of federal control over the militia. Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.
We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.
The debate with respect to the right to keep and beararms, as with other guarantees in the Bill of Rights, was not over whether it was desirable (all agreed that it was) but over whether it needed to be codified in the Constitution. During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Antifederalist rhetoric. John Smilie, for example, worried not only that Congress’s“command of the militia” could be used to create a “select militia,” or to have “no militia at all,” but also, as a separate concern, that “[w]hen a select militia is formed; the people in general may be disarmed.” Federalists responded that because Congress was given no power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, such a force could never oppress the people. It was understood across the political spectrum that the right helped to secure the ideal of a citizen militia, which might be necessary to oppose an oppressive military force if the constitutional order broke down.
It is therefore entirely sensible that the Second Amendment’s prefatory clause announces the purpose for which the right was codified: to prevent elimination of the militia. The prefatory clause does not suggest that preserving the militia was the only reason Americans valued the ancient right; most undoubtedly thought it even more important for self-defense and hunting. But the threat that the new Federal Government would destroy the citizens’ militia by taking away their arms was the reason that right—unlike some other English rights—was codified in a written Constitution. JUSTICE BREYER’s assertion that individual self-defense is merely a “subsidiary interest” of the right to keep and bear arms, is profoundly mistaken. He bases that assertion solely upon the prologue—but that can only show that self-defense had little to do with the right’s codification; it was the central component of the right itself.
Besides ignoring the historical reality that the Second Amendment was not intended to lay down a “novel principl[e]” but rather codified a right “inherited from our English ancestors,” Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U. S. 275, 281 (1897), petitioners’ interpretation does not even achieve the narrower purpose that prompted codification of the right. If, as they believe, the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia, see Brief for Petititioners 8—if, that is, the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment’s guarantee—it does not assure the existence of a “citizens’ militia” as a safeguard against tyranny. For Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia, which must include the authority to say who will belong to the organized force.17 That is why the first Militia Act’s requirement that only whites enroll caused States to amend their militia laws to exclude free blacks. Thus, if petitioners are correct, the Second Amendment protects citizens’ right to use a gun in an organization from which Congress has plenary authority to exclude them. It guarantees a select militia of the sort the Stuart kings found useful, but not the people’s militia that was the concern of the founding generation.
or the Constitution of the United States, are void, and the Judiciary shall so declare them.
and it is the role of the Federal courts to interpret what the Constitution permits.
(a) Each county is divided into militia districts according to its territory and population.
(b) Militia districts are to remain the same as presently organized until changed in the manner prescribed in this chapter.
HISTORY: Orig. Code 1863, §§ 453, 454; Code 1868, §§ 515, 516; Code 1873, §§ 481, 482; Code 1882, §§ 481, 482; Civil Code 1895, §§ 330, 331; Civil Code 1910, §§ 373, 374; Code 1933, §§ 23-201, 23-202.
(a) The militia of the state shall be divided into the organized militia, the state reserve list, the state retired list, and the unorganized militia.
(3) The State Defense Force whenever such a state force shall be duly organized.
(c) The state reserve list and the state retired list shall include the persons who are lawfully carried thereon and such persons as may be transferred thereto or placed thereon by the Governor in accordance with this chapter.
(d) Subject to such exemptions from military duty as are created by the laws of the United States, the unorganized militia shall consist of all able-bodied male residents of the state between the ages of 17 and 45 who are not serving in any force of the organized militia or who are not on the state reserve list or the state retired list and who are, or who have declared their intention to become, citizens of the United States.
HISTORY: Ga. L. 1916, p. 158, §§ 1, 3, 4; Code 1933, §§ 86-201, 86-209, 86-301, 86-401; Ga. L. 1951, p. 311, § 3; Ga. L. 1955, p. 10, § 4; Ga. L. 1985, p. 356, § 2.
When the militia of the state is called into federal service under the Constitution and laws of the United States, the Governor shall order out for service the organized militia or such part thereof as may be necessary; and, if the number available is insufficient, the Governor may call for and accept from the unorganized militia as many volunteers as are required for service in the organized militia. During the absence of the organized militia in the service of the United States, their state designations shall not be given to new organizations.
(3) Provide for the separate organization of the unorganized militia and authorize the enlistment in such organizations of persons volunteering for such service who are not otherwise subject to military duty under Code Section 38-2-3.
HISTORY: Ga. L. 1916, p. 158, § 2; Code 1933, §§ 86-206, 86-210; Ga. L. 1955, p. 10, § 9.
Whenever he shall deem it necessary, the Governor may direct the members of the unorganized militia to present themselves for and submit to registration at such time and place and in such manner as may be prescribed by regulations issued pursuant to Code Section 38-2-110.
(a) Whenever it is necessary in case of invasion, disaster, insurrection, riot, breach of the peace, or combination to oppose the enforcement of the law by force or violence, or imminent danger thereof, or whenever it is necessary to maintain the organized militia or any force thereof at the number required for public safety or prescribed by the laws of the United States, the Governor may call for and accept from the unorganized militia as many volunteers as are required for service in the organized militia or he may direct the members of the unorganized militia or such of them as may be necessary to be drafted into the organized militia or any force thereof.
(b) Whenever it is necessary in time of war or in case of invasion, disaster, or other like emergency, or imminent danger thereof, the Governor may direct the members of the unorganized militia or such of them as may be necessary to be drafted under such regulations as he may prescribe into the active service of the state and to serve as directed by him.
(c) Whenever members of the unorganized militia are drafted into the active service of the state, they shall serve for such period as the Governor may direct, not to exceed the duration of the emergency for which they may be drafted. The compensation of all members of the unorganized militia, while on duty or assembled pursuant to this Code section, shall be paid in the manner prescribed by Code Section 38-2-250.
HISTORY: Ga. L. 1916, p. 158, § 2; Code 1933, § 86-205; Ga. L. 1951, p. 311, §§ 11, 12; Ga. L. 1955, p. 10, § 10.
(a) It shall be unlawful for any member of the unorganized militia who is ordered to register or to be drafted under Code Sections 38-2-71 and 38-2-72 to fail to appear at the time and place designated in such order.
(b) Any person who commits the offense described in subsection (a) of this Code section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
HISTORY: Ga. L. 1916, p. 158, § 2; Code 1933, § 86-208; Ga. L. 1951, p. 311, § 15; Ga. L. 1955, p. 10, §§ 11, 106.
(a) The flag of the State of Georgia shall consist of a square canton on a field of three horizontal bands of equal width. The top and bottom bands shall be scarlet and the center band white. The bottom band shall extend the entire length of the flag, while the center and top bands shall extend from the canton to the fly end of the flag. The canton of the flag shall consist of a square of blue the width of two of the bands, in the upper left of the hoist of the flag. In the center of the canton shall be placed a representation in gold of the coat of arms of Georgia as shown in the center of the obverse of the Great Seal of the State of Georgia adopted in 1799 and amended in 1914. Centered immediately beneath the coat of arms shall be the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" in capital letters. The coat of arms and wording "IN GOD WE TRUST" shall be encircled by 13 white five-pointed stars, representing Georgia and the 12 other original states that formed the United States of America. Official specifications of the flag, including color identification system, type sizes and fonts, and overall dimensions, shall be established by the Secretary of State, who pursuant to Code Section 50-3-4 serves as custodian of the state flag. Every force of the organized militia shall carry this flag while on parade or review.
(b)(1) It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, corporation, or other entity to mutilate, deface, defile, or abuse contemptuously any publicly owned monument, plaque, marker, or memorial which is dedicated to, honors, or recounts the military service of any past or present military personnel of this state, the United States of America or the several states thereof, or the Confederate States of America or the several states thereof, and no officer, body, or representative of state or local government or any department, agency, authority, or instrumentality thereof shall remove or conceal from display any such monument, plaque, marker, or memorial for the purpose of preventing the visible display of the same. A violation of this paragraph shall constitute a misdemeanor.
(3) Conduct prohibited by paragraphs (1) and (2) of this subsection shall be enjoined by the appropriate superior court upon proper application therefor.
(4) It shall be unlawful for any person, firm, corporation, or other entity acting without authority to mutilate, deface, defile, abuse contemptuously, relocate, remove, conceal, or obscure any privately owned monument, plaque, marker, or memorial which is dedicated to, honors, or recounts the military service of any past or present military personnel of this state, the United States of America or the several states thereof, or the Confederate States of America or the several states thereof. Any person or entity who suffers injury or damages as a result of a violation of this paragraph may bring an action individually or in a representative capacity against the person or persons committing such violations to seek injunctive relief and to recover general and exemplary damages sustained as a result of such person's or persons' unlawful actions.
(c) Any other provision of law notwithstanding, the memorial to the heroes of the Confederate States of America graven upon the face of Stone Mountain shall never be altered, removed, concealed, or obscured in any fashion and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.
HISTORY: Ga. L. 1916, p. 158, § 3; Code 1933, § 86-1004; Ga. L. 1951, p. 311, § 43; Ga. L. 1955, p. 10, § 90; Ga. L. 1956, p. 38, § 1; Ga. L. 2001, p. 1, § 1; Ga. L. 2003, p. 26, § 1; Ga. L. 2004, p. 731, § 1.

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