Gun Control & RKBA

dairy dog posted: And the Nunn court's view of the Second Amendment? Hoo boy, is that a doozy for gun control. "The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State."
{dairy dog remarked}: .. rather, it ensures that everyone has the right to be armed to the teeth so that if the state wishes to create or expand its well-regulated militia, it may draw from its own gun-totin' populace..

By 1846 the schism between individual & militia rkba was in progress, the individual rkba was generally viewed as from scofflaws wanting to avoid militia service. To cite the radical Nunn case is disingenuous for a full view of the situation then, singles out a slave owning southern chief justice. You want stars & bars back too dairy dog? (nickname for confederate battle flag, guillaume, compare stars & stripes = US).
Tennessee confined rkba obviously for common defense, disallowing blacks:

Tennessee: 1796: "That the freemen of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence."
1834: "That the free white men of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defence."
(enacted 1870). That the citizens of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defense; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime.

the atlantic: The opinion most enthusiastically embraced by public-carry advocates is Nunn v. State, a state-court decision written by Georgia Chief Justice Joseph Lumpkin in 1846. As a jurist, Lumpkin was a champion both of slavery and of the Southern code of honor. Perhaps, not by coincidence, Nunn was the first case in which a court struck down a gun law on the basis of the Second Amendment.
The Supreme Court cited Nunn in District of Columbia v. Heller, for the first time in over 200 years, that {2A} protects an individual right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. Why courts or gun-rights advocates think Lumpkin’s view of the right to bear arms provides a solid foundation for modern firearms jurisprudence is puzzling. Slavery, “honor,” and their associated violence spawned a unique weapons culture. One of its defining features was a permissive view of white citizens’ right to carry weapons in public. ... http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016133712

In the North, publicly carrying concealable weapons was much less popular than in the South. In 1845, New York jurist William Jay contrasted “those portions of our country where it is supposed essential to personal safety to go armed with pistols and bowie-knives” with the “north and east, where we are unprovided with such facilities for taking life.” Massachusetts was not unusual in broadly restricting public carry. Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan, Virginia, Minnesota, Oregon, and Pennsylvania passed laws modeled on the public-carry restriction in Massachusetts ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-origins-of-public-carry-jurisprudence-in-the-slave-south/407809/