The early Americans saw gun rights as an important check on government power.

Source: Gun Control Advocates Ignore What the Founding Fathers Really Thought - Foundation for Economic Education

There is this odd tendency among at least some gun control advocates to argue that auto or even semi-auto weapons should not be covered by the 2nd amendment because they are not needed for hunting or target practice or whatever random irrelevant reason they want to give. These arguments ignore the original intent of the 2nd amendment. This isn't an intent that needs a great deal of work to interpret or that is open to different interpretations. The founders of the country and framers of the Constitution made it quite clear in many of their writings where they were coming from. It addition to general self protection from the many threats of the time, it was generally felt that an armed citizenry was the only check on oppression by an out of control government. Obviously, every one hopes that such a check is never actually needed. However, it's kind of like having a fire extinguisher. Perhaps you will never have a need to use it but you still have one for protection. There are also those who try to interpret the wording of the second amendment choosing to believe it is saying that only the militia should be armed. However, the militia is not the same as the professional military and generally refers to every able bodied individual. The militia IS the citizenry or at least a large part of it. I realize that there is some 17th century language here but we aren't talking about hieroglyphics. The language is perhaps a bit more formal but hardly foreign. It's still English. But then again, it has been argued for a long time that education has been going steadily downhill and words today don't seem to mean what they used to...when they are understood at all.