Via Dave Hardy, this interesting paper made good reading.  Here are a few excerpts.

Does the English right matter to Americans? It is key to our right because every colonial charter promised settlers to the New World that they and their descendants would have all the rights of Englishmen as if born and abiding in England. It was these rights the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve. After 1689 these rights included the rights incorporated in the English Bill of Rights. The dangers of life in the American wilderness made the English practice of an armed citizenry essential. In many colonies all householders were ordered to be armed.  A 1625 law of Plymouth colony, for example, stipulated that “in regard of our dispersion so far asunder and the inconvenience that may befall, it is further ordered that every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under him able to beare armes a sufficient musket and other serviceable peece for war . . . with what speede may be.  A similar 1640 Virginia statute required “all masters of families” to furnish themselves and “all those of their families which shall be capable of arms (excepting negroes) with arms both offensive and defensive.” Some colonial laws actually required residents to carry their guns. A Newport law of 1639 provided that “noe man shall go two miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword; and that none shall come to any public Meeting without his weapon.  Virginia laws required “that no man go or send abroad without a sufficient partie well armed,” and “that men go not to worke in the ground without their arms (and a centinell upon them).” They further specified that “all men that are fittinge to beare armes, shall bring their pieces to the church upon payne of every offence, if the mayster allow not thereof to pay 2lb of tobacco.

These early laws were needed in a dangerous new land but Connecticut’s revised militia act, a century later, still ordered all citizens, both “listed” soldiers of the militia and every other householder, to “always be provided with and have in continual readiness, a well-fixed firelock . . . or other good fire-arms . . . a good sword, or cutlass. . . one pound of good powder, four pounds of bullets fit for his gun, and twelve flints.  In 1770, five years before the American Revolution Georgia felt it necessary “for the better security of the inhabitants” to require every white male resident “to carry firearms to places of public worship,” to defend themselves “from internal dangers and insurrections.”  Whether the threat came from slaves, foreigners or native Americans the means of defense was an armed citizenry. There was never a ban on taking a gun outside, on the contrary in many instances it was mandatory. Ordinary precautions that limited storage of gunpowder, shooting guns in crowded areas or carrying a weapon to terrify others were put in place, but the emphasis was on the duty to be armed and a freer use of private firearms than existed in England.

As we’ve discussed before.  But in this day and age, the statists know better, because they are out betters.  We need their protection and wisdom.