Yet another explanation:Tsyroc wrote:I recently saw somewhere where it was interpreted that individuals needed the right to bear arms because it was expected and necessary for the government to have a "well regulated militia" and since it was considered a fact that the government was going to have the ability to exert force through that militia then the people would need to be able to exert force in return as a step to prevent tyranny. (Those Founding Fathers were all about preventing tyranny).
The Founding Fathers were concerned that no class of citizens should be barred from membership in the militia. Therefore they protected the right to bear arms, which is a word for what soldiers (or militiamen) do. "Bearing arms" does not mean simply that you are physically carrying weapons; it means that you are part of an armed body, or engaged in a warlike activity.
This may seem bizarre to us today, but remember that the Founding Fathers were also concerned about other things we find bizarre- note the Third Amendment. Why is it so important that the government not be able to quarter troops in private housing during peacetime? Because that was a big deal in Boston during the runup to the Revolution, not because it was any kind of a colossal long term hazard in and of itself.
Remember that the first open battles between American colonists and British troops were fought around Concord and Lexington, where the British were sending a large flying column to the towns around Boston to confiscate the weapons in militia armories. At this time, militias were mostly armed with weapons stored in central facilities near their homes, and not in the homes themselves. The Massachusetts Minutemen were an exception, and not a very effective one; their performance during the Revolution had been less than stellar.
Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that the Founders envisioned an unprecedented system where every American not only be part of the militia, but also own and maintain their own weapons.