I'm just wondering when gun control laws started here in the U.S. and what the history was behind them
Gun control is about racism, from the beginning it was about preventing Indians and Black slaves from possessing firearms. The Slave Codes, Jim Crow, Son of Ham to the Sullivan Law to today's proposal, it's all about race.
Suggested cursory reading/study list:
That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (Independent Studies in Political Economy): Stephen P. Halbrook: 9780945999386: Amazon.com: Books
Amazon.com: Armed America: The Remarkable Story of How and Why Guns Became as American as Apple Pie (9781595552846): Clayton E. Cramer: Books
http://www.claytoncramer.com/books/concealed.pdf
The Dark Secret of Jim Crow and the Racist Roots of Gun Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLLG8rv1u9A
http://www.amazon.com/Negroes-Gun-Black-Tradition-Arms/dp/161614839X
I beg to differ that gun controls roots stemmed from racism.
Anytime anyone in power wants to subjugate those beneath them they must disarm them.
FDR's federal answer to everything.
The NFA had floated about in faculty lounges for a decade before being implemented and it originally covered handguns.
NOT that I am a fan of FDR or anything, just want to ensure history is clear here.
there was a law restricting the rights of "travellers" from carrying a concealed firearm. No real definitions, and it is unclear whether anyone was prosecuted for it, but it reflected the idea that people "from here" were all ok.
Maybe there's some confusion here about gun control laws vis-a-vis racism, but it's true that the first gun control laws were indeed implemented to prevent people from specific ethnicicties from acquiring guns