I don't think it's about assassination - the amendment is clearly about a "militia," which envisions a group of individuals capable of fighting a protracted war

I don't think it's about assassination - the amendment is clearly about a "militia," which envisions a group of individuals capable of fighting a protracted war - like the Revolutionary War. (I'm not taking a position on what the "militia" language says about how much it guarantees a right for individuals, but it certainly guarantees a right for militias.) Even in the era where it was written, any joker could assassinate an individual politician - see e.g. Spencer Perceval, or honestly the entire idea of duels. The threat of a military attack is a very different one from the threat of assassination; while the Black Hand was (sorta) successful, Lee Harvey Oswald was not, nor were any of the other assassins of any other American president. Assassination usually kills an individual and leaves the system intact; revolution usually changes the system entirely. And popular revolution (unlike assassination) used to carry the implicit authority of democratic legitimacy, back when the people could be reasonably well armed against their own government. You'd win by having more soldiers on your side and the willingness of the people who lived in each city to either aid the soldiers or become soldiers themselves, which would be a way of returning control to the people when confidence was lost that the current system really represented the people. (That doesn't work too well nowadays because Raytheon would just rule the country, of course.) I agree with the rest of what you write, and yes, for all that the Right seems to paint the Left as violent, the Left seems to not really believe in using the Second Amendment for its intended purpose to pursue their goals.