Good points but I don't think lone gunmen stalking and murdering members of Congress for being members of one party or the other is the approach our founding fathers had in mind but I wasn't there discussing 2A when they wrote it so I could be wrong.
When trying to resolve the colonies' grievances with England they tried diplomacy and protests but were ignored. When it came to armed conflict it was through militias and other semi-organized groups and eventually a Continental Army. There were other minor uprisings but I'm not sure how many one person attacks there were, if any (sorry, my history is lacking I guess).
Thank you for this post!
In the last century small groups of pure ideologists (=nutcases) were able to influence masses and turn them against those who supported the law and behaved correctly. Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro.... We may think incorrectly that majority was evil. It was not the case at all! Even at the peak of the communism the actual membership in the communist party was very low (sometimes even under 10%). Ideologists always emphasized the control over education, media, intelligence and security organizations. They did not care about building laws. They were breaking them and their boldness paralyzed law-abiding citizens. They also did not mind using thugs and derailed people to their advantage.
There were always 10 most important steps in their strategy:
1. Shock and surprise masses by unrealistic behavior and bold statements.
2. Terrorize masses but assign terrorist activities to your opponents (Reichstag fire in Germany, Kirov's assassination in Russia).
3. Offer protection from internal and external enemies of the people.
4. Take control over media, education, government,.....
5. Blame opponents and groups of people for delays and failures.
6. Motivate masses to report on people who do not fit into a new community. Motivate masses to generate demand for quick punishment of those who resist.
7. Eliminate the entire opposition.
8. Create new laws supporting terror.
9. Close borders from the inside.
10. Create dictatorship of the masses.
In America we were at #5 and entered #6.
That is what I think.