Second Amendment was a reference to the right and duty of citizens of a “free state” — a state where citizens are free– to protect themselves from their own government. That means the government and legislators have a conflict of interest in this issue.
We cannot trust governments with the individual natural right of self defense.
That’s why the opponents of the new Constitution made the Bill of Rights a condition for letting the Constitution get ratified. Because they did not trust the new government, and they thought it would restrain them. Note that ALL of the Bill of Rights recognize the rights of citizens to clip the wings of government power, and to remove their claws. The Bill of Rights does not protect anything. What restrains our governments is only WE THE citizens.
[In] a series of debates on socialism published in 1914, in which John Basil Barnhill said, “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”
-Apparently, it was not Jefferson who originated this wording: Source: https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/when-government-fears-people-there-liberty-spurious-quotation
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