Under the previous laws, enacted by Parliament to make sure the militia wouldn’t self-mobilize and overthrow the government (as had happened relatively recently, and which the powers that be didn’t want to happen again), only those trusted politically could bear arms. And distrusted group was disarmed. Having the right to bare arms meant you were truely FREE and not a second class citizen.
The experience of the previous 100 years it what motivated the Congress in 1791 to create a right to bear arms.
If the “CT” in your user name refers to Connecticut, you probably know that in New England, and much of country (outside of one colony, Pennsylvania, which was owned by a Quaker) Quakers were regarded as quasi-criminals and could be expelled, or worse (and that most of what is now the United States was officially Judenrein.) To understand the American constitution you need to understand the laws governing this country for the 170 years prior to the revolution, . American legal history did not being in 1776.