Where Is The Militia?
By Larry Pratt

During World War II, governors of east and west coast states called up the citizen-militia to deal with the threat of invasion by the Germans and Japanese.

Following 9/11, the governors did nothing and the federal government created a new bureaucracy in Washington to coordinate federal police agencies.

Everybody knows that Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, an act which was followed by a congressional declaration of war in 1941. Many fewer know that the Japanese also launched an invasion off the coast of Kona, one of the Hawaiian islands.

The attack against Kona took place in 1941 and was met by an armed militia (not a neighborhood watch). One description of the attack comes from Elizabeth Goldhahn writing in the Missoulan on December 8, 1991:

Every gun in that part of the coast was mobilized, civilian volunteers assembled, along with the military.... The men were armed, ready and waiting when the Japanese patrol boats approached. A concentrated volley from big game rifles, small arms and handguns left the Japanese rolling in the crimson surf. None of them set foot on Hawaii.... The force set to occupy the Kona region was destroyed to a man.

The threat of Japanese attack continued. The Japanese did successfully occupy a couple of the Aleutian Islands in 1942, and it cost 700 American lives to dislodge them.

Also in 1942, a Japanese sub fired shells at an oil refinery at Goleta, California and later fired shells into the naval base at Fort Stevens, Oregon.

In response, militia patrolled the west coast of the country during those tense years.

In the east, a German submarine penetrated Long Island for the purpose of blowing up bridges and water works. The saboteurs were captured and executed. Civilian pilots and sailors patrolled the east coast with their handguns and rifles at the ready.

Fifty years later, four gun-free zones flew right past the noses of the professional police forces of the country. During the time the Muslim mass murderers were preparing for 9/11, the FBI was investigating President Clinton's bete noire, the vast right wing conspiracy. They did not have even a clue as to the real threat to America.

In spite of the national police force's record of failure, even more centralization of their power is being coordinated by Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security.

The airplanes are still gun free, and we know from FAA inspectors that they have been successful in slipping weapons through airport security nearly fifty percent of the time. This is following the federalization of airport security personnel.

The President and his subordinates have opposed even arming pilots. (Would it have been a bad thing or a good thing if a passenger or two had had a gun on the planes of 9/11?)

The Constitution provides for the militia. It gives the Congress power to provision the militia and to select its officers.

Why are the citizen militia not being called up to guard bridges, waterworks, nuclear plants, and airports? They have as much training for this as the national guard and other military units that have been assigned for some of these duties -- none. Other than Military Police, the training of the military is to search and destroy -- not exactly the training needed for protecting nuclear power plants. Why was the militia good enough for providing homeland security in the 1940's, but not in 2002?

We should not stretch our Clinton-decimated military further than it is now. We should be calling up and training citizen militias.

Perhaps the idea of using "civilians" violates the unconstitutional notion that security can only be provided by a centralized, professionalized police force. The people cannot be trusted, in this view, to participate in providing their own protection.

This notion of a centralized police fits comfortably with the growing acceptance that only the federal government can provide for all of life's needs -- education, old age, unemployment, health, etc.

The growing preemption of American life by the federal government has no room for individual responsibility. Rather than encourage the militia, politicians are busily looking for ways to disarm more and more Americans.

It is an unconstitutional view. Those that hold it should not be trusted to hold public office.