Reply #348: the distinction

[Lexingtonian]

is well captured in the phrase "well regulated". 'Blessed' is not the word I would use, but if an armed unit is formed via government officials, sees/admits itself as fully accountable to government, and pledges itself to uphold the laws in force in the district comprehensively- that would would be a pretty good meeting of the criteria.

It works well enough for the on-the-spot deputizing of armed people in the Wild West to help hunt down criminals. It works for the U.S. Army units that were sent in to massacre and terrorize Indians. (The laws and orders and officials involved don't have to be particularly moral, sadly.) It doesn't work for lynch mobs or for Shay's rebellion, it doesn't work for the Waco Branch Davidians or Randy Weaver or the Montana Freemen or Tim McVeigh or the 'Republic of Texas', or the Michigan Militia. The Confederate Army would be legal- though the use to which it was put wouldn't be.