(Cont)
Militia:
a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.
* a military force that engages in rebel or terrorist activities, typically in opposition to a regular army.
* all able-bodied civilians eligible by law for military service.

A common meme coming from the Left is that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to own muskets.  This is, in light of the founding fathers’ own statements on the matter, patently absurd, for how can citizens, armed only with muskets, defend themselves from government troops using fully-automatic machine guns, M-16s, APCs, M1 Abrams tanks, missiles, bombers and fighter jets?
Even armed with semi-automatic weapons it would be difficult for citizens to overcome such a force to secure their own freedoms.  The only advantage the citizens would posses is an overwhelming superiority in numbers, which Maddison points out.