You've kind of hit upon my point.....it was relevant then....but now?....Its at the point where last year a report came on the news about a highschool shooting and it was like 'oh...again?' and then one in Finland that had a wholly different response...it was a bigger ordeal.
I dont understand why the masses having the right to own a gun is a good thing
It's a good thing if your mother country decides to restrict your freedoms, imperil your commerce, deny you the right to worship, the right to trial by jury, the right to intercolonial trade, and tax you silly without any parliamentary representation. Ahem.
When the Bill of Rights was written, militia was extremely necessary given what communication was in the day. The militias were the backbone of public security. If France declared war on England, the colonies might not have known about it until France landed in New York. If there were Indian uprisings or raids, the militias were the first to respond. There was no time or ability to notify any central government. Infrastructure in this country, outside of river travel, was hideously slow and difficult. If immediate response to a perceived threat was necessary, the militias were the only response.
Americans also deeply resented having a standing army on their soil. Even today, America maintains a relatively small defense force that is largely kept isolated from the rest of the public. The Bill of Rights even includes an amendment that prevents the military from commandeering private property or forcing people to quarter troops. Many of the soldiers who landed in the colonies with red coats weren't even British. Lots were mercenaries, including the much-hated Hessians, and they had no qualms about treating non-combatants with as much cruelty as they could muster.
When the Bill of Rights was written, there was no certainty that the UK wouldn't try to take back the colonies again. Preventing just that scenario was of utmost importance and there was a genuine fear that some state governments might harbor loyalist sympathies and create laws, such as stripping citizens of their guns, as a way to make British invasion much easier.
Maybe above all this, was the overriding idea that the people had to remain sovereign above any government or person. The founding fathers had just come out of a revolution, the French king had just lost his head, Voltaire was the brilliant mind of the age, and the Enlightenment was in full swing. The founding fathers, uniquely in the world, ceded final power not to a government, but to the people themselves. In the end, an American is obligated to no one but him or herself. If we wish to do away with our government and live in Bartertown, we can do so. If there is any credo in American political philosophy, it's
never trust government. Because of this, private citizens owning and keeping guns, not the government, is the final guarantor of American sovereignty.
It must also be pointed out that guns are very handy when you live in the US. We have rabies, varmints and livestock threats, lots of places to hunt, and sometimes live so far from law enforcement that response can take hours. Guns are part of daily life for many people and use them as they use any other tools. In places where gun ownership is very high, crime is usually very low.