There’s been a lot in the news lately about militias (the anti-government, criminal type), which got me thinking about militias (the ‘fought the British and gained our independence’ type). That led me to some research about the Virginia militia, and that led me to an interesting fact:
I’m in a militia.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to blow up a federal building or anything. I knew I was in a militia under the original meaning of the term which, as George Mason so succinctly explained, is a military force made up of “all men.” It turns out that, in Virginia at least, this original meaning is actually codified in state law. Under the Code of Virginia §44.1:
The militia of the Commonwealth of Virginia shall consist of all able-bodied citizens of this Commonwealth and all other able-bodied persons resident in this Commonwealth who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, who are at least sixteen years of age and, except as hereinafter provided, not more than fifty-five years of age. [Emphasis added.]
We Virginia militiamen are broken into four classes under the code:
