Claiming that Baltimore City is “so far gone,” President Donald Trump recently suggested that he was considering federalizing the National Guard to increase police presence in that city, much as he did in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Indeed, he has also suggested doing the same thing in such cities as Chicago, Oakland, New York and San Francisco, among others.

He cannot.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Maintaining and deploying such militias — what we today call state National Guards — were clearly envisioned by our nation’s founders as essential state, rather than federal, functions. As such, they were typical

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