After 7 pages of discussion, despite many excellent and informed posts discussing the Second Amendment and the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers, it is my opinion that no one has really directly addressed the original question in this thread, which was this:
The question is:
Who regulates this militia?
Forget any possible agenda Claus may or may not have had in posing the question. I took the question at face value and will give my analysis of a direct response.
There is a simple, direct answer, depending on which definition of militia one chooses to use. Claus gave us four possible definitions quoted below, and he immediately ruled out Number 2.
1. an official reserve army, composed of non-professional soldiers;
2. the police in Russia or East European countries;
3. the entire able-bodied population of a state, which can be called to arms against an invading enemy, or;
4. a private, non-government force, not necessarily directly supported or sanctioned by the government.
I'll go ahead and rule out Number 4 as well, because it's clear that any private non-governmental force is not regulated by any government. By definition, such a force must be self-regulated and thus the question as applied to Number 4 is trivial.
That leaves us with two possible material definitions: 1 and 3.
The first one concerns reserve forces. With respect to the United States Army, I am positively certain that the reserve forces consist of two components (you can check the U.S. Army's official website for confirmation). They are the Army Reserve and the National Guard.
The Army Reserve is a federal force and is indeed regulated by statutes passed by the Congress and by administrative regulations promulgated by the Department of the Army under authority given it by Congress.
The National Guard is made of 50 individual forces, one for each state. It is ordinarily a state force and is regulated by each respective state by statutes passed by the respective state legislatures and by administrative regulations of the state. The governor of each state serves as the commander in chief of its respective National Guard.
The National Guard can be federalized by the President in times of emergency or wartime. It is then, and only then, that the National Guard becomes regulated by Congress and federal administrative regulations. This is because of federal preemption of state or local laws.
The Air Force and the Navy have similar reserve components, both federal and state.
The third definition of militia is simple. It consists of all able bodied males and females who are members of a reserve component. This is implemented by the draft and by activating reserve units, retired members of the armed forces, and members of the individual ready reserve into active duty status. The draft is a federal function and has no state analog. Activating units, retired members, and IRRs is also a federal function. Thus, it is regulated by Congress, and by the President as commander in chief. See Article I, Section 8 and Article 2, Section 2, United States Constitution.
AS
