Ever since the Romans, standing armies have been viewed with deep suspicion. They are expensive to maintain, which often leads to onerous taxation, and they have an appalling record as instruments of oppression.

In Blackstone’s 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England, Henry St. George Tucker wrote: “Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”