The second amendment was to make sure the government could organize militias to put down armed rebellions, not to empower them.

You may consider it hypocritical, but the vast majority of the founders ( Jefferson was an exception) were very very anti armed rebellion! That's the context for the Constitution replacing the articles of confederation. Having recently fought one they didn't think we needed any more revolutions and didn't want any more revolutions! And didn't appreciate several violent incidents like Shays rebellion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/75z37x/what_...

> Shays’ Rebellion was an armed uprising led by former Massachusetts militiamen and veterans of the American Revolution which took place between 1786 - 1787. Daniel Shays led several thousand ‘rebels" to fight against the economic injustices that were facing farmers and agrarian peasants all across America. (3) These farmers were experiencing extreme poverty following the end of the Revolutionary War. All across America, farmers saw their lands foreclosed on in unfair property seizures, and they wanted to fight back. They were also trying to fight taxes which were beginning to be levied against them.(4) People in rural American fought these perceived injustices in a few ways, with Shays' Rebellion being the most violent. Shays' Rebellion would ultimately be put down, but it startled the gentry who feared further uprisings throughout the United States.

> While we call it a “rebellion" today, these men did not label themselves this way. They called themselves “regulators,” specifically they called themselves the “Massachusetts Regulation,” modeling off of the North Carolina Regulators that we saw just a moment ago.(5) This was the larger part of a trend of poor Americans fighting back against economic injustice. The idea of “civilian regulation” was catching on and becoming a popular idea for ending government corruption. They believed that if the government wasn't regulating itself on behalf of "We the People", then "the People" had the right to regulate, or take back the government – to take it back and do what they believed was right. They didn't see themselves as a rebellion, but rather the gentry labeled them as such in order to de-legitimize their cause. By calling them "rebels," neutral Americans would see these men as insurgents who needed to be stopped. But this regulation was not the only type of fighting Americans across the country participated in. Many states saw widespread revolts
...

> By the time the the constitutional convention convened, America was under extreme duress. In Terry Bouton's article "A Road Closed: Rural Insurgency in Post-Independence Pennsylvania" he masterfully explained the fighting and rebellion that took place in the rural country sides of Pennsylvania that mirrored what had happened in Massachusetts.(7) The gentry were terrified that they were losing control of rural America, and as a result they would not be able to seize foreclosed land and collect taxes, which they needed. Empowering militias to be trained and carry firearms allowed the gentry to call up these men in times of need and suppress these rebellions that were taking place. The Founders knew that the only solutions were to call up militias as they had done in North Carolina and Massachusetts.

...

> Multiple other bills of rights from other states had already protected a militia's right to bear arms (such as Section 13 of Virginia's Declaration of Rights) and many of these states were fighting to have the federal government protect this as well. Here their declaration stated:

> > SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, or composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.(8)

> This wording is even more carefully crafted then in the national Bill of Rights. Here, they define “well-regulated” meaning they were trained my military officers. You also see that they define the purpose of it as being necessary to “defend” the state (implying against people in rebellion) and they of course explain why they feared a standing Army. Now if you examine the wording of the Second Amendment, we can see some clear similarities:

> > A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

> Like in Virginia, “well regulated" is the key phrase. They are referring to militias led by people like Benjamin Lincoln and his Massachusetts Militia, not Shays and his "rebellion". The idea that people need firearms to protect themselves from the government is not accurate. It was a message propagated by anti-gun control advocates of the 1980s. This “right” was crafted when rebellions were happening everywhere and the only way the government could maintain control was to make sure they could call up their militias.