In the never-ending debates about guns on a forum I participate in, a frequent objection by the antis- aside from their insistence that the Second Amendment refers to a regimented state army- is that the mass of the populace buying and owning guns with no licensing or training requirements can hardly be called "well-regulated" (in the 18th century meaning of the term). I have a proposal that I think would silence those critics without infringing on the right to own and carry weapons, and I wanted to run it by the good folk here.
My idea is to revive the mustering of the militia in a modern form, which would go like this: just as jury duty is a civic obligation of all citizens, all citizens not otherwise exempted or disqualified (see below) would have to report for "Militia Duty", which in these modern times would consist of a gun knowledge and marksmanship class similar to what's now required for carry. Aside from the usual disqualifications of felons, minors, those adjudicated incompetent, etc., the exemptions would amount to conscientious objectors: anyone willing to swear that they don't own a gun, have no plans to acquire a gun, and promise to notify the militia authorities if they ever do get a gun. Lying about that would be a misdemeanor punishable by a stiff fine and/or no more than one year in jail.
A key provision of this would be a sub-clause stating that the requirements would in no way disqualify anyone from owning or carrying a gun. Instead, if you passed the course you would not need to retake it for five years. If you didn't pass, you would be required to retake it every 30 days until you did (or swore to not own a gun). In other words, the penalties mentioned above would be for shirking militia duty, not for owning a gun.
This may be the "perfect" compromise (i.e., equally displeases both sides), but I thought I'd get the opinion of those here.