Any society is a tug-of-war between individuals and the majority. Individuals, at least those who desire to be accepted in the greater society, must acquiesce some of their desires to the majority's will or face the authority given that majority by the rule of law that holds the society together.
Americans portray their history as being based on the rejection of the bullying by individual rule over them, exemplified in the Crown's authority over the colonies. This is far from the truth and often runs opposite to reality. At the time, Europe was undergoing a major transformation that eventually ushered in much more liberal governance and spelled the demise of feudalism.
Among the objections the Crown voiced concerning the colonies' policies were their embrace of slavery, already finding opposition across Europe, the ill-treatment of the indigenous Americans, and disrespect for their rightful claim to the valuable land in America. History only makes passing reference to the alliance this created between British troops and the Native people, but it was more a factor than is alluded to.
While American history would represent our nation's founding as a critical milestone in the rise of liberal democracy in the world, it can't be ignored that we were closely allied with the French aristocracy that would find itself swept away just a decade or so later by the French revolution and that nation's quest for a more just society.
Given the true history of our nation's independence and the timing of the second amendment that closely coincided with the revolution in France, it would not be outlandish to ask if we, perhaps, have the intention of the amendment entirely backward. It would explain the inclusion of the "well-regulated militia" terminology as the country couldn't afford, nor desired, a standing army to protect the status quo that it saw as existing on shaky ground given current events domestically and across the globe.
The bastardization of this purpose was the result of the government's abandonment of its new citizens after declaring the availability of free land in an attempt to expand its area from ocean to ocean. The "law" in the new frontier was mostly whatever the strongest and best-armed faction declared it to be and life was high risk, at best.
Self-defense was a primary concern of the new settlers who faced both marauding bands of criminal elements looking for easy pickings and Native people who resisted the government's claim to the land in the first place. What central authority existed to represent our national government was largely cooperative with local power figures and banks once one ventured west of the Mississippi River or south of the Mason-Dixon.
Basic communication between our central government and its citizens in the remote west was not established until after the Civil War as the railroads established commerce across state and local boundaries and laid out telegraph lines with the tracks. Generations of people without a cultural root common to the country they adopted gave us a very disjointed society that manifested itself in religious extremism and an almost total lack of any higher education across much of the country remote from population centers.
At one time, and even up until the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, one hundred and fifty separate currencies were serving local commerce, so the unification of the nation was not as simple as it is often portrayed to be, with many people resistant and resentful of any imposition of central authority. Given this hodge-podge of history it is easier to understand both the knee-jerk distrust of a central government and the desire to retain some means to oppose it should it go rogue. However, I'm not sure that the amendment those citizens depend upon has a similar purpose with them at its historic core.
