PeterS wrote:
All of this is a red herring and a logical fallacy. If a Militia was to be a professional fighting force able to protect our nation they had to be as well regulated as our military...
As you say. IF. But nowhere in any of the founders of our constitution did they write that the militia was to be a professional fighting force. You are basing your belief on an assumption that is not only unsubstantiated, but which the founders themselves gave very different explicit meaning of.
According to the "Dictionary of the English Language", 1755, by Samuel Johnson, Regulate means:
1) To adjust by rule or method.
Nature in the production of things, always defines them to partake of certain regulated, established,
essences, which are the model of all things to be produced : this, in the crude sense would need
some better explication.
2) To direct.
Regulate the patient in his manner of living.
Ev'n godesses are women; and no wife Has pow'r to regulate her husband's life.
And according to "An Universal Entymological English Dictionary" by Nathan Bailey (1726) & 1737 & 1775 edition
Regulate:
1) To compose one's Manners.
2) Set in order.
https://archive.org/stream/universaletymolo00bailuoft#page/n505/mode/2up/search/regulate NOTE: Neither of these dictionaries, or any I found from the 17th through early 19th century, included any variation of external control in their meanings. Most were near duplicates of these two I cited.
And the term "well regulated" is discussed by these respected sources.
James Madison Research Library
http://www.madisonbrigade.com/library_bor.htmhttps://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm