I am not sure what you are getting at with the rest of this paragraph....Oh and by the way the constitution was drafted and passed AFTER we won the revolutionary war. There for I don't see the connection with Britain. I think they had gotten the idea at this point.
Keep looking this dog didn't hunt............with all due civil respect
Yeah, Howard, when I wrote that paragraph even I thought it was a bit "rambling", so to speak.
The general gist if my point in writing this:
"How long before you accept the fact that the Founding Fathers, when they spoke of "the people", were referencing the population of the United States (which wasn't anywhere near what it is now days, further convincing me that the FF's had no idea what the future would bring and therefore were not drafting this "Hands Off!!!" shot at Great Britain to protect individual rights...they were more interested in "the people" as in the population of the United States!)"
...was to emphasize my belief that with the nature of our American society back in the days in which these documents were being drafted the FF's could not possibly have envisioned the huge population growth for our country, much less the technological development that would change our society in the manner it has, but they
WERE aware of GB's tendency to invade other sovereign countries and establish British rule, and fully expected England to strike again.
Our Declaration of Independence was a document to say "Hey...back off, England, we are our own sovereign nation now and will not tolerate your invasive actions. HANDS OFF!!!" They were right...we won the Revolutionary War, but that wasn't enough, and the FF's
WERE astute enough to know that England wouldn't give up that easily. Next came the Constitution and then Amendments...but Britain would not give up easily and the FF's knew that...and sure enough, they were right, as evidenced by the War of 1812.
So...with a growing national population and huge natural resources we would still have been an attractive target, but it would still have been impossible to see into the future to be able to plan for the societal advances we have seen since the 2nd Amendment was drafted...so they again took a shot at England and said "... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed...", meaning to me that the country's population, which relied on a militia to repel England's advances, would certainly arm a militia so that future attempts to "conquer" America would be met with military might, and the second Amendment was their way of warning other countries that they better think twice before challenging our army (our "armed" militia).
Yeah...sorta rambling, again, I know, hope I was able to communicate adequately my interpretation of "...the people".
Cheers, Howard!
Doug