Doesn the Tenth Amendment give individuals rights over the militia?
A. The Tenth Amendment reserves powers to the people that are not already delegated by the Constitution to the United States or the individual states. The Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Powers regarding the militia are delegated explicitly and fully in Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 15 and 16 between the United States and the individual states . In 1820, the U.S. Supreme Court stated in Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheaton 1,20 : “It may be admitted, at once, that the militia belong to the states, respectively, in which they are enrolled, and that they are subject, both in their civil and military capacities, to the jurisdiction and laws of such state, except so far as those laws are controlled by acts of Congress constitutionally made.” Accordingly, however the militia are not governed by federal law, they are creatures of state law. To
