The podcast More Perfect taught this non-American the key broad strokes of 2A that are very helpful for anyone else wondering how it got here. As always, turns out it’s mostly racism and power mongering rather than grand notions of human rights.
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First couple-hundred years: 2A was a backwater amendment that nobody cared about at all.
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1960s: Black Panthers dug it up and decided they ought to be able to use it carry guns and monitor police brutality.
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A white panic and subsequent wave of gun regulations followed. Lots of white people loudly proclaiming things like “It’s ridiculous to have such dangerous tools in the hands of anyone who wants them! This is why we have police!”
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1990s: Wayne LaPierre takes over NRA and decides to stop being a quiet hunter training organization and to build a political empire instead. Launches aggressive fear based marketing campaign that suddenly makes everyone care about guns.
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2008: SCOTUS decides in Heller case that 2A does mean, after all this time, that everyone has a right to own zomg all teh gunz
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Everyone retcons their memories to believe that individuals owning guns was some inalienable right that the founders super mega cared about.
Rest of the civilized world: 
