THIS is what firearms looked like when the 2nd Amendment was written ...

[starroute]

13. It wasn't even about the guns -- it was that there was no standing army

After the Revolution ended, all the soldiers went home. The US had no standing army. So for its own protection -- "the security of a free state" -- it needed a well-trained citizenry that could be called up at a moment's notice in case of emergency, like the Minutemen of the Revolution.

That was the point of the thing. It was based on some vague Roman ideal of the citizen-soldier -- which hadn't worked all that well even for the Romans, since professional armies are a lot more effective except under certain limited circumstances -- and it was abandoned within just a few years. Since then, the Second Amendment has been meaningless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army

After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was soon realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The first of these, the Legion of the United States, was established in 1791 and disbanded in 1796.

The War of 1812, the second and last American war against Britain, was less successful than the Revolution had been. An invasion of Canada failed, and U.S. troops were unable to stop the British from burning the new capital of Washington, D.C.. However, the Regular Army, under Generals Winfield Scott and Jacob Brown, proved they were professional and capable of defeating a British army in the Niagara campaign of 1814.