I'm a Jeffersonian. I don't believe the coat that I had as a child should be expected to work for me as an adult. I don't believe the Constitution as written in the 18th Century is to be held in such a manner that reasonable thinking is no longer required when considering what it means. Yes, I know Madison won out, and a certain rigidity to the Constitution has a great deal of merit. But when the US as a nation is enduring something that isn't occurring in all of the other first world nations, one has to wonder, is that what the Founding Fathers intended?
I doubt that any of the Founding Fathers could even imagine a revolver (45 years in their future when the 2nd was ratified), or had ever seen a breach loading gun (the first breech loading rifles were a novelty at the time, and the first widely adopted design was 28 years in the future*).
They could no more have anticipated a self loading** handgun or a fully automatic (machine) gun, than they could have imagined a Carrier Battle Group for their navy.
It's probable that they were familiar with (muzzle loading) rifles, with a rate of fire in expert hands of maybe two shots per minute.
The main "arms" they would have been thinking about would have been smoothbore flintlocks, expert rate of fire maybe five aimed shots per minute (I have seen someone fire six shots in a minute from a Brown Bess, the arm with which the US Founding Fathers were likely most familiar as it was the most commonly used firearm by both sides during the Revolutionary War; It was a specially staged display for which the shooter had spent years in training, and "aimed" may be a touch generous - the shots all went downrange, so the audience was safe, but the targets weren't in much danger either).
When the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, a lone gunman was a minor threat - a man with a sword or a knife could do more harm, more easily.
A lone gunman could get off a shot at a crowd, but would likely be mobbed before he could fire again. Effective range against a man-sized target is in the order of 100-150 yards, and if they were well trained and didn't panic, a lone gunman
might be able to get a second shot away, before the mob rushing him arrived to beat the crap out of him and take his musket away.
In that period, effective sustained fire was possible only from a group of gunmen acting in concert - a "well ordered militia" if you would. While some were re-loading, others could be firing. It took discipline, practice, and cooperation. Not just some incel with a self-loading rifle and a high capacity magazine, who can fire as rapidly as he can operate the trigger.
The modern interpretation of the Second Amendment is utterly absurd in the light of the state of firearms technology at the time it was ratified, vs the state of the art today.
I struggle to see why*** it wouldn't be perfectly constitutional to limit firearms ownership (without severe restrictions) only to designs that were extant in 1791 -
smoothbore flintlocks, muzzle loaded with black powder only. If you want anything else, get a licence, join a gun club (and keep the gun at the club in secure storage when not in use), or join the national guard, or the army.
You already have to pretty much do that if you want to legally fire a fully automatic weapon (or an artillery piece), so the precedent for restricting certain technologies is already in place.
* Breech loading pistols had been around for a century and a half, but weren't quick to load or fire, they were designed so cavalrymen could reload without dismounting. Early models were matchlocks, slow, inaccurate, and hard to use, but good for scaring the peasants, who had never heard a sound louder than church bells before they were drafted into the army.
** The term "semi-automatic" usually means "self loading"; Personally I always preferred the latter as less confusing.
*** Apart, obviously, from ingrained and institutionalised stupidity, masquerading as a 'human right'.
