One of the questions surrounding the Second Amendment is, what exactly
is a "well regulated" militia? So, what did the phrase "well regulated"
mean at the time? The Oxford English Dictionary has a sample. Gibbon
used it twice.
FYI, not only was that term anciently used and understood by the
Framers, many of them had a direct connection to the use of that phrase
prior to the drafting of the Second Amendment. Professor Volokh has
written often on the subject, of course (viz:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/amazing.htm#45). Fully a third of the
signers of the Constitution were Freemasons (some possibly after they
signed; that is a somewhat cloudy history; sixteen percent of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons as well).
What these Freemasons might have incorporated from their fraternal
association into their politics is, of course, unclear. Arguably,
however, the language of their association with the fraternity was never
that far from their minds and the phrase "well regulated" was extremely
familiar to them. Without divulging Masonic ritual, one can find the
phrase oft repeated in open sources:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Principles_of_Masonic_Law/Chapter_X
http://books.google.com/books?id=yLlJAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA321&lpg=PA321&dq=%22well+regulated+institution%22+freemason&source=bl&ots=sarzxzWkfX&sig=gHOLD0VhCKOevCUwPe6Dex4ZJtg&hl=en&ei=0ZhJTa2JFIP88Abpg8DWDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.freemason.com/library/prilaw12.htm
And so forth. In every case the term "well regulated" does not mean
"controlled" or "supervised" but "guided" by principles of rectitude,
high standards of morality, virtue, principles, etc.
***GRJ***
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