That is the true 280 years of real practising of the right to bear and keep arms before machine guns were banned in 1922, yet from 1880`s til 1922 they were LEGAL--
There is no limit on the second amendment because there were no limits in the Colonial laws which preceded it, upon which the 2nd Amendment is based.
The colonial remnant can be seen in the 1795 federal and NY State treaties which were copies of the 1763 colonial treaties with the Iroquois Nation which guarantee firearms FOREVER on the reservation-
IT gives NO RESTRICTIONS on types of weapons or persons who can possess firearms. My cousins on the reservations know the treaties give them unlimited access to any kind of weapon.
Believe me, we have the same rights as the Iroquois Nation to have any kind of weapons we want. All these gun control craps actually violate the treaties and the Second Amendment..
Dred Scott vs Sanford.
What the SCOTUS thought about gun control in the pre Civil War era.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html
It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished;
and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs,
and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.