The Right to Bear Arms (i.e. the 2nd Amendment) was seen by our Founding Fathers as the last check against tyranny. They knew that the best line of defense against a standing army was an armed populace. The Founding Fathers believed the people themselves were the militia and that peaceable law abiding citizens must never have their right to bear arms be infringed upon or they would not be an effective deterrent against a tyrannical government.
The fundamental purpose of the militia is to serve as a check upon a standing army, the words “well regulated” referred to the necessity that the armed citizens making up the militia have the level of equipment and training necessary to be an effective and formidable check upon the national government’s standing army.
Well regulated does not mean regulations. When the Constitution specifies regulations it specifically states who and what is being regulated. The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected.
Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.
