Anti-gun folks have been around from the beginning

This is a topic that's been rumbling around in my head for a while now. I'm not sure I can articulate it in as much detail as is often seen over at The Smallest Minority, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Many gun owners seem to think that the dawn of anti-gun folks and politicians seems to be around the 1920s 1930s with the passage of the NFA. Sadly, I've got news for them, we've been fighting anti-gun folks since this country began. Yea, yea, we all know about the British trying to take the guns of the colonists, but I'm not talking about them, although we could spend many days talking all the various governements when removed weapons from their "peasants." No swords for non samurari in Japan, etc. No, who I'm talking about are the anti-gun folk who helped found this country. What you say? You've read the Federalist papers and all the juicy pro gun quotes in all of them. Which is exactly my point. Why would all of these founders of our country feel the need to expound long and hard to various national and state conferences on their respective constitutions about guns? They did this precisely because they were seeking support and ammunition to use against those who would suggest we go the way of the other countries and bar citizens from guns. If all of the founding fathers for the nation and all of the states were so pro-gun, there wouldn't have been a need for the expounding upon of the virtue of guns.

Next, we look at the often glamourized "Old west" Sure, when you were truly out in the wild, it was probably fairly common for folks to carry guns, but it's also equally common to find any number of towns and cities from that era that had weapon bans in place that forced people coming into town to disarm, leave town, or face jail. Even the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral was partially instigated due to one group walking about town with guns when it was against the city ordinance.

What's the point of all of this? Honestly, I don't really have a big point other than to suggest that we've been fighting the good fight from the beginning, and while we've had some serious setbacks, we've also had some serious successes. But I also don't want folks to lose sight of the fact that some anti-gunning has just as long of a legacy as our pro-gun constitution, which means we can't become complacent in some of our more recent success.