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You left out "the security of". But the original meaning of "militia"
translates as "defense service", an activity. In idiomatic English it
is common to make words polysemes,
and in particular, a kind of polyseme I call an actronym,
for a word that originally meant an activity and has come to also mean
those engaged in the activity. Try replacing the word "militia" with
the phrase "defense activity" wherever it appears and you might get a
better sense of it. On 02/02/2011 03:08 PM, Dave Hardy wrote: You can find related references at least back to Charles I, who sought an "Exact Militia." If militia is taken to mean all men capable of bearing arms, then "a militia is necessary to a free state" is meaningless. Every state, free or unfree, has one. -- Jon ---------------------------------------------------------- Constitution Society http://constitution.org 2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 jon.rol...@constitution.org ---------------------------------------------------------- |
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