” lethality and easy availability in some states of the AR-15”
When the 2nd Amendment was written citizens could own artillery and many did. Talk about lethality. But guns aren’t the problem. People are.
There was a lot of social ills back then too. And society was even MORE violent in some ways, what with duels and all the skirmishes with Native Americans and whatnot — not to mention the brutality of slavery.
But I don’t think the founders could have envisioned the sheer scale of broken families, fatherlessness, psychiatric epidemics, gender dysphoria, etc… when architecting this free society of ours. I wonder if they would have erred more on order over liberty.