Actually, the founding fathers meant it in the most extreme way, as in having private citizens form their own, well regulated militia, as capable as any modern army, with battleships and the latest modern weaponry. Today it would translate into privately-owned aircraft carriers. Firearms themselves were more of an aside, along the lines of "people need to have unrestricted access to guns, so they can get comfortable with them and it's easier to incorporate them into those private militias". That's the gist of the actual ideas behind the 2nd amendment based on the writings by the founding fathers of the United States. Another poster also tore down your "muskets yes, AR's no" argument because that would be like limiting free speech to town criers and hand-cranked presses (but not electrically operated presses because they didn't exist). You really don't want to use the founding fathers' motivations as a basis for gun policy if you're an anti-gunner
There are approximately 30,000-35,000 gun deaths in the US every year (2/3 suicides and most of the rest are gangbanger on gangbanger homicides). There are 100,000 cases of legitimate use of firearms in self-defence where a firearm was used to kill or wound the attacker. There are another 700,000-1,500,000 annual cases where the law-abiding American defended him/herself either by brandishing the firearm or by firing a warning shot without hitting anyone. Check the stats before spewing liberal propaganda if you don't wanna appear gullible and ignorant
