"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson

I haven't had a chance to look up the whole quote but it seems clear to me what their intentions were when they wrote the second amendment. The ellipsis were added by a columnist at the campus paper.