The Minutemen, the National Guard and the Private Militia Movement: Will the Real Militia Please Stand Up, 28 J. Marshall L. Rev. 959 (1995)

Members of private militia organizations gain no Second Amendment rights by virtue of such membership. The debates surrounding the ratification of the Constitution make clear that the drafters’ definition of “militia” did not include private armies." The Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed over how militia control would be divided between the federal and state governments, but no one argued that the militia should be independent of all governmental control.