Back in the day "well regulated" meant "well armed and equipped".
So, in order to form a proper defense of the country, any able bodied man could be called up (the militia), and it was necessary this body of men be well armed and equipped.
Well, that's the TEXTUAL reason. There's a SUB-TEXTUAL reason as well:
"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."
If you go with that reading, then one could argue that the 2nd amendment doesn't require the allowance of privately owned/held firearms at all, but would be satisfied by state, and/or local governments organizing their own "militias", with arms purchased, stored and controlled in much the same way as our national military does, but managed by said militia organization. In such a reading, banning the private ownership and use of firearms could conceivably be enacted without running afoul of the second amendment.
I'm not saying that I propose this or that I think it's a good idea, just that one could make the case.
That's where the current Supreme Court comes in:
2008: "Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia."
2010: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense."
2016: "The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as "bearable arms," even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."
2022: "New York's requirement that an applicant for an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed pistol or revolver must prove "a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community” is unconstitutional."
Back in the day "well regulated" meant "well armed and equipped".
So, in order to form a proper defense of the country, any able bodied man could be called up (the militia), and it was necessary this body of men be well armed and equipped.
Well, that's the TEXTUAL reason. There's a SUB-TEXTUAL reason as well:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment
"It was in response to the concerns coming out of the Virginia ratification convention for the Constitution, led by Patrick Henry and George Mason, that a militia that was controlled solely by the federal government would not be there to protect the slave owners from an enslaved uprising. And ... James Madison crafted that language in order to mollify the concerns coming out of Virginia and the anti-Federalists, that they would still have full control over their state militias — and those militias were used in order to quell slave revolts. ... The Second Amendment really provided the cover, the assurances that Patrick Henry and George Mason needed, that the militias would not be controlled by the federal government, but that they would be controlled by the states and at the beck and call of the states to be able to put down these uprisings."
If you go with that reading, then one could argue that the 2nd amendment doesn't require the allowance of privately owned/held firearms at all, but would be satisfied by state, and/or local governments organizing their own "militias", with arms purchased, stored and controlled in much the same way as our national military does, but managed by said militia organization. In such a reading, banning the private ownership and use of firearms could conceivably be enacted without running afoul of the second amendment.
I'm not saying that I propose this or that I think it's a good idea, just that one could make the case.
That's where the current Supreme Court comes in:
2008: "Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
2010: "The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
2016: "The Second Amendment covers all weapons that may be defined as "bearable arms," even if they did not exist when the Bill of Rights was drafted and are not commonly used in warfare."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/14-10078/
2022: "New York's requirement that an applicant for an unrestricted license to “have and carry” a concealed pistol or revolver must prove "a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community” is unconstitutional."
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/