The Federalist Papers

[rushmc 23]

It can take a bit to get used to the elegant way these were written. But if you should choose to do so, follow the link and go to number 26 and the subsequent papers to follow the discussion related to self-defense and militias

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/fed.asp

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln