I’ve never been a member of the NRA. I’ve never owned a weapon, though I trained with and used a weapon while in the military service. After years of listening to guns rights advocates I have seen the light. With the force of a fifty caliber HEI round striking me between the eyes, I’ve realized that within the text of the second amendment can be found the answer to most of our national problems. The answer lies within a full implementation of the intent of the second amendment which reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Cleary, our founding fathers did not grant American citizens the inherent right to bear arms out of a the goodness of their creator. The opening clause "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" explicitly reveals that the right to bear arms hinges on the need of the nation for a "A well regulated Militia." But there is nothing in the modern United States that corresponds to a citizens militia, well regulated or not. So I propose that President Obama and the Congress of the United States create a Citizens Militia consisting of every adult US citizen between the ages of 18 and 65.
Of course, there are naysayers out there who will, no doubt, be driven to apoplexy with the very idea. A Citizens Militia would save vast sums from military spending, serve as a boon to health by requiring certain minimum physical requirements for all citizens, implement a national health care system to keep citizen militia members in good health, provide a cheap labor pool that will end Americas addiction to illegal labor, and many other benefits. The Citizen Militia would work in the following way.
Upon a citizens 18th birthday, all American citizens would report for 1 year mandatory training. During their year of training, citizen militia members would train in the use of weapons, small unit combat tactics, threat identification, and use of force. No waivers for conscientious objection, wealth, marriage, pilonidal cyst, or other minor excuse are allowed, though conscientious objectors would serve with the medical corps or within an entertainment/stress relief unit to fulfill the fantasies of those bearing arms. After completion of the year of service all citizen militia members will be issued a state of the art combat weapons system to be maintain at the citizens own expense. Medical and entertainment/stress relief unit members will be require to carry maintain their own gear. For three months of every year until the age of 65, all citizen militia members will train with a unit. Only a verifiable medical emergency will exempt a Citizens Militia member from training, though training must be completed upon the first induction date after a complete bill of health is obtained from the National Militia Health Care System.
How will the creation of the Citizens Militia provide a benefit? Certainly, the first real benefit of a citizen militia would be the abolition of the US Army, US Marine Corps, and National Guard. The existence of a National Citizen Militia would make such organizations redundant and unnecessary. The Navy and Air Force would be reorganized. Militia members, after their initial year of training, would be allowed to volunteer for service in these organizations. While maintaining the required standards of weapons training, they would serve for three months on naval craft and operating Air Force assets. Considerable savings would be achieved through the use of a unified command structure and bureaucracy and by standardization across the Citizen Militia.
The necessity of maintaining one quarter of all adults in the military at any time would require an efficient national health care system. The current maze of competing insurance companies with different plans is simply too inefficient and costly and would leave millions of Citizens Militia members without adequate health care. Health care would also be required to ensure that a minimum level of conditioning be met by all members of the Citizen Militia. Grossly overweight Citizens Militiamen would not be able to carry 75 pounds of equipment to the top of Mount Rushmore to defend the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Maintaining an overall high level of diet and exercise would keep Americans in fighting trim and lead to happier, healthier, and longer lives.
Other benefits accrue form the establishment of a Citizen Militia. Members in training cannot perform calisthenics or target practice 16 hours a day. They would form a gigantic cheap work force that can be utilized to build and maintain infrastructure, harvest crops, or fill any other task that illegal aliens perform today. What Citizen Militia Member would not be willing to perform back breaking labor at minimum wage for three months of every year as a duty to country. Use of Citizen Militia assets to perform necessary work could be contracted out to the highest bidder at a considerable savings to the US treasury. For their work, an additional benefit for the Citizen Militia member would be found by providing the minimum wage to all serving Citizen Militia members tax free for their three months of service each year in addition to three hots and a cot every day and 16 hours of healthy recreational back breaking labor.
Lest prisoners serving time for crimes against the people of the United states be considered to be getting a free ride, prisoners would not be exempt from their required service. They would be required to take moral and ethics training classes while serving in the Citizens Militia to address the deficiency in their upbringing or personality. As with America’s prison population, elected members of the government would also be required to fulfill their service each year, though they would be required to serve in the entertainment/stress relief because citizens would enjoy screwing their representatives for at least three months of the year.
There are those who will complain that requiring a quarter of the adult population of the United States of America to complete military training and public service for three months of the year is too harsh a sacrifice. But with great power comes great responsibility, and the privilege of being an armed and dangerous US citizen should not come cheap.