Several months before Concord/Lexington the locals made it mandatory that every able male adult be part of the militia. Most of them owned firearms, but those that didn’t would be provided one to use for training and for battle when it came to that.
But yeah - forcing me to buy something. Nope. I mean, you go down that road, and then they could force me to buy high-priced health insurance or something.
(Oh - AR prices would go up.)
Remember that many of those early locals had just finished fighting the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763) as British subjects formed up into militias. They were well armed and trained.