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A message widely shared online in 2012 held that the 'Dick Act of 1902 also known as the Efficiency of Militia Bill H.R. 11654, of June 28, 1902 invalidates all so-called gun-control laws': The American experience with the Spanish-American War of 1898 and its aftermath demonstrated the need for reform of the U.S. military. In an attempt to balance the competing interests of those who wanted the U.S. to maintain a much larger standing army and those who felt an expanded peacetime army was both too expensive and contrary to American tradition, Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903 (also known as the Dick Militia Act or the Dick Act, named for Ohio Congressman Charles Dick), which established the National Guard as the Army's primary organized reserve. According to I Am the Guard, a history of the Army National Guard: Most everything stated about the Dick Act of 1902 in the example quoted above is erroneous, however: It divides the militia into three distinct and separate entities ... the organized militia, henceforth known as the National Guard of the State, Territory and District of Columbia, the unorganized militia and the regular army. Under current public law, the militia of the United States comprises two classes, not three: the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of those who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. The regular army (i.e., the U.S. Army) is not a class of militia. All members of the unorganized militia have the absolute personal right and 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms of any type, and as many as they can afford to buy. Nothing in the Dick Act, or any other item of U.S. legislation, states that all members of the unorganized militia have an absolute personal right to keep and bear arms of any type. The term unorganized militia simply refers to a subset of private individuals (i.e., men between the ages of 17 and 45 who are not part of the National Guard or the Naval Militia), and those persons are subject to the same legislative limitations on firearm ownership and possession as any other private individuals. The existence and enforcement of modern laws limiting the ownership of certain types of firearms is prima facie evidence that those laws have not been invalidated by a piece of legislation enacted back in 1903. (And even if such a claim were true, then the unfettered right to keep and bear arms would not apply to men over the age of 45 or to any women, as neither of those groups falls within the legal definition of unorganized militia.) The Dick Act of 1902 cannot be repealed; to do so would violate bills of attainder and ex post facto laws which would be yet another gross violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. No legislation is immune from being repealed, and in fact much of the content of the Dick Act has effectively been repealed through the passage of subsequent modifying legislation such as the Militia Act of 1908, the National Defense Act of 1916, and the National Defense Act of 1920. Moreover, bills of attainder and ex post facto laws are legal terms that have nothing to do with a supposed prohibition on the repeal of legislation: the former is a legislative act pronouncing a person guilty of a crime without trial, and the latter refers to laws that retroactively impose punishments for actions that were legal prior to the passage of those laws. The President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their State borders. Although it was true at one time, it is not now the case that the President of the United States has zero authority without violating the Constitution to call the National Guard to serve outside of their state borders. The Dick Act authorized the federal callup of National Guard units for nine months (with the restriction that they serve within U.S. borders), and a 1908 amendment to the Dick Act eliminated both the nine-month callup limit and the restriction on National Guard units serving outside the United States. However, U.S. Attorney General George W. Wickersham declared in 1912 that authorizing the use of the National Guard for overseas service was unconstitutional. As noted in I Am the Guard, though, that 1912 restriction was lifted by legislation enacted in 1933 that provided that those who enlisted in a state National Guard unit simultaneously enlisted in the National Guard of the United States and thereby became deployable assets of the U.S. Army:
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