re: #258 goddamnedfrank

There’s a plausible argument to be made that, as the term was used at the time, well-regulated meant “properly functioning.”

I could see that being the case. The term ‘junk guns’ still gets used sometimes, but back in the time of the Founding some muskets were more dangerous to the firer than to the target. That’s why a number of states eventually had “inspectors of militia”: The inspector was assigned to ensure that all militiamen had a musket or rifle that would actually work reliably and to ferret out dishonest gun makers trying to sell the militia substandard guns.