brian y Wrote:98Z, Sorry for taking up all this space arguing about English law but it was stanc who said" The American colonies inherited a variety of restrictions that evolved under English Common Law. In 18th-century England, armed travel was limited to a few well-defined occasions such as assisting justices of the peace and constables. Members of the upper classes also had a limited exception to travel with arms. Concealable weapons such as handguns were subject to even more stringent restrictions."Actually, stanc did not say that. It was quoted from a linked article.
And it does appear that there is truth behind the claim of such gun laws being in effect in the 18th century American colonies.
Quote:Excerpts from: GUN LAW HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES AND SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS
C. Gun Carry Restrictions
Carry restriction laws were widely enacted, spanning the entire historical period under examination. As early as 1686, New Jersey enacted a law against wearing weapons because they induced “great Fear and Quarrels.” Massachusetts followed in 1750. In the late 1700s, North Carolina and Virginia passed similar laws.
Laws in the eighteenth century did not typically identify weapons concealment as criminal per se, but did restrict more general carrying of firearms, usually if done in crowded places, or groups of armed people.
D. Restrictions On Dangerous Or Unusual Weapons
States moved to enact laws restricting or barring certain dangerous or unusual weapons—also a subject that has contemporary reverberations. Such laws in the country’s early decades were aimed in part at pistols and offensive knives, like most concealed carry laws, but also at the practice of rigging firearms to be fired with a string or similar method to discharge a weapon without an actual finger on the firearm trigger. Referred to as “gun traps,” the earliest such law was enacted by New Jersey in 1771.
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/vie...ontext=lcp