The problem is that "militia" as a description has been taken over by private groups of people who like to dress up and parade around with weapons and make bold statements about how one day they are going to essentially become the new even more brutal oppressors and "make everyone do what they say".
Many of those simply have great plans and delusions to become the local brutal warlords and use violence, and threats to intimidate citizens the moment the bigger gang of government paid folks is out of the way.
Originally in the days before a large standing army or large police oppression force, the "militia" was essentially every able-bodied man. Something bad went down, all the local male citizens showed up with their guns ready to help protect the common good. Usually under the direction of the current already established government or local military leadership. That was the "militia". Many states had this organized in the early days so if the call up was done, people already had an idea where to report to and what the ranks were.
It is a world away from all these "militias" that you see running around besmirching the term. Many of whom you would actually wind up having to fight against and wipe out in the event of actual trouble, in order to protect your family and local community.
You think the government and police are bad?
Wait until they are gone suddenly, and all these "militias" aka private warlord groups start deciding to enslave the population.
As at least one member here admitted, their traveling group are going to be happy to kill and take what they want if people don't give it to them.
That's what's going to happen with many of these "militia" groups if central government vanishes. They will start going around looting, killing, taking what they want and enslaving and terrorizing the citizens.
So given that the term has been hijacked by the opposite of what it should be, it would be wise to avoid using that to describe yourself or your friends.
Kind of like you may like adorning your house with the ancient symbol of harmony still widely used by the Buddhists and others in the east, but since a group of very bad socialist types gave a similar looking symbol a very bad name, you probably best avoid it unless you want to have to endlessly explain the differences.
