A very thoughtful TACTICAL CIVICS™ Member from Arizona has asked some very good questions, versions of which many of you will hear, and will want to be able to answer: “How are you using the term “militia” ...is it the constitutional militia as per TACTICAL CIVICS™ where there is a county ordinance, or does it cover training groups outside of that? If citizens gather for training before a county militia ordinance is passed, and use the term militia for that group, is that illegal as per the US Constitution? I want to be sure I understand the difference between legal and illegal activity. "I was specifically trying to get more insight regarding a group calling itself the Arizona State Militia. I am a resident of Arizona and would like to know more about what is going on in Arizona and if there are laws that would make the TACTICAL CIVICS™ mission different in Arizona. The questions I have encountered when explaining the TACTICAL CIVICS™ Mission to people include if TACTICAL CIVICS™ is "legit" and questions that indicate reservations about being involved with, associated with or supporting a "militia" group. Up to this point, my understanding was that TACTICAL CIVICS™ only recognized groups that were ordained by the county government and anything else was unconstitutional and therefore criminal. "What I am trying to process is that some of our members are associated with possibly unconstitutional organizations. Or is there a broader definition of "Constitutional Militia" than the TACTICAL CIVICS™ definition?" Thanks for the question! Here is our response: Militia is over a thousand years old, found in the Dooms of King Ethelred in 1014 AD. Of course, armed community self-defense is much older...as old as people, I am sure. Words are the property of the people who use them. If I ask you to hand me an ooga-booga, and you do not know what that is, nobody can challenge my right to ask you that way, but my common sense may be lacking. Words are useful and meaningful to the extent that the groups of people who use them share a common idea of their meaning. Although government can try to legislate the meanings of words, like the USDA saying when and how you may use the word, "organic", they have no lawful power to do so. It is part of our freedom of speech, which dates back at least as far as Moses sassing God when he did not want to be the man to lead Israel out of Egypt, but which is protected in the First Amendment to our Constitution. Militia in the American Colonial period was universally understood, and codified by law, to be all the able-bodied men, dedicated to defense of the community. Against Indians,against mad dogs and barn fires, eventually against the red-coats. Because it was a community function that everyone recognized as necessary, the People's organization, i.e. their government, attended to it, "regulating" it in regard to weapons that would be used and sometimes providing them, in regard to regular training or mustering, even punishing people who did not serve, etc. We the People are the Militia, but We the People also set up institutions to "take care of stuff". The name for that is government. Its principal job, as declared in our Declaration of Independence, is to secure our rights… once upon a time it was against Indians who wanted to steal our cattle, burn our houses and kill us, later it was against soldiers of an arrogant king with similar agendas, and one way it did that was by "regulating" Militia to be sure it would be effective. When we wrote our Constitution, we assumed the existence of Militia. No sane People would stop collaborating to defend itself. Trusting that it would always be there, and understanding that it WAS We the People and not a subservient part of a potentially power-hungry or corrupt government, we placed in its trust certain essential duties, to wit, "execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions". We later said that it was "necessary to the security of a free State". We did not say that these were to be its only functions; we did not say that it was prohibited from getting kittens down out of trees, nor did we give government any power to alter its character or definition. But it is through these three explicit duties that We the People placed Militia in a role of oversight over the rest of the apparatus, as well as of general community self-defense, and that position defines uniquely American Constitutional Militia. So we at TACTICAL CIVICS™ take and use the term Constitutional Militia specifically to mean Militia with recognized authority and duty to do these things, "well-regulated" (the Constitution's term), to assure that it will be able to do so. It would be a contradiction to believe that the power of government to "regulate" Militia could be used to stop it from performing its lawful duties, so we know that nothing in the meaning of "well-regulated" in the Second Amendment can possibly imply restrictions of weapons or susceptibility to any order to "stand down" when the law is broken, or when insurrection or invasion is taking place. Of course, one of the salient features of our free society which exists to secure rights, is due process....innocent until proven guilty and all that. So Militia, in "executing the Law" which exists to secure rights and therefore includes Due Process, cannot just knock over presumed bad-guys, and drag them to jail or suspend them from the nearest oak tree. We the People have another ancient organ to investigate wrongdoing and make formal accusations or indictments, that is the Grand Jury. Militia properly can execute Grand Jury warrants for search or arrest, and make the arrest after the Grand Jury indicts. Fair trial must follow in which We the People again, this time as petit jury, get to rule on both the facts and the law of the case. Any judge trying to obstruct any part of the process is, right away, meat for another Grand Jury investigation. So I have gotten a little off track in answering your question. Anyone can call themselves Constitutional, or Pink-and-Purple Militia, but we think the term is most useful and meaningful if applied to Militia recognized and well-regulated by some level of government (local primarily, since the States and Congress have refused; but also because that has been its immemorial character) so as to ensure its effectiveness. The Ordinance that TACTICAL CIVICS™ has developed threads that needle, guaranteeing that it is only to ensure effectiveness that "regulation" can be applied, but that it is definitely there to assure everyone that the groups in that county covered by the Ordinance do indeed hold the lawful authority and duty to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions.