Thanks to
@bongsaway for the idea of the format...
Whether you are a gun zealot or would prefer no guns in America, do you believe that the founders wrote the 2nd Amendment anticipating that America would become the most violent developed country in the world?
Congress won't do anything. The courts apparently never understood what a comma means in a phrase. Our only hope for meaningful gun safety in America appears to be in a Democrat President that is willing to grab powers denied to the Executive by law and use them.
No. It was a cost-saving device US government, primarily.
Before 1774, colonists could own firearms. Now, during times of civil unrest, it was not unusual for a colony governor to confiscate arms within the area where the unrest was happening (Washington would do the same during the Whisky Rebellion), but it would normally be limited to that area. In fact, prior to 1774, there was a nice commercial business selling firearms from England to the colonists and to a lesser extend, Native Americans. Also, remember that as the colonies were getting started, they were pretty well-armed.
Because of widespread protests and riots int he few years leading up to 1774, only then was there a ban on selling gunpowder and firearms. More riots broke out and the confiscations began. But keep in mind, those confiscations occurred in hotspots and not really over all the colonies and every single colonist (although there were some in Parliament who wanted to do just that). Still, not a good thing to do.
When we won our independence, the government we set up was a simple confederacy. In the Articles of Confederation, the only mention about firearms was that each state was required to field a militia when called for. Each state was responsible for how that militia was armed. And that was it: no 2nd Amendment yet. During this time, when there were insurrections, the militias routinely took arms away from the population that lived in the area the insurrection took place. Washington demanded loyalty oaths and if you didn't do it, your firearms were taken from you. The Articles eventually gave way to the Constitution...which also said nothing about firearms except for the responsibility to field a militia army. It wasn't until the Bill of Rights did the 2nd Amendment show up.
Washington and the Founders wanted the defense of the US to be reliant on militias first and a much smaller national army second. To that point, after the Revolution, Washington talked Congress into disbanding the Continental Army and to reduce the national force to 1,000 (give or take), mostly infantry to protect the artillery and one small calvary unit, a Coast Guard and essentially no real navy. This force would later turn into the Legion of about 5000 men. So, Washington and Congress realized that there was no way they could afford to equip all the militias with gunpowder and firearms. Which was a concern as the state militias were our first line of defense against any aggression.
Washington, in the rare instance that he talked about freedom to carry a firearm, noted a desire that the US should create a private industry of creating firearms for civilians to purchase as their own. His reasoning: have the people pay for their own defense so that when called for duty, the government wouldn't have to tax everyone to supply all the militias firearms. Private citizens called up would theoretically have the firearm, shot and powder and be ready on that score. Many other Founders and Framers had similar thoughts so when time came for the Bill of Rights, the idea was to allow private citizens to own firearms so that they could serve in the militias without the government going bankrupt to fund it. So to do that, there had to be right for Americans to privately own firearms.
So, when someone says that the 2nd existed to provide for a militia...that is true. But it is also true that Americans have a right to private ownership as per the 2nd. Basically, when the Heller decision came down, the court essentially recognized that while the need for militias are no longer applicable, that reason wasn't cause enough to determine that Americans no longer have the right to bear arms...but was not an unlimited right.
The impetus of the 2nd Amendment was to save money for militias to do the government's fighting.... which also means that the 2nd has no bearing on arming the citizens against the tyranny of the government as the whole point of the 2nd was to provide the government as army to use when needed via militias.
