ABSTRACT
Every generation suffers to some degree from historic amnesia. However, when the history of major political tradition, along with the assumptions and passions that forged it, are forgotten, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to understand or evaluate its legacy. Experts in English constitutional and legal history have neglected this subject, however, with result that no full-scale study of the evolution of the right to keep and bear arms has yet been published. During most of England’s history, maintenance of an armed citizenry was neither merely permissive nor cosmetic but essential. The old common law custom persisted that when a crime occurred citizens were to raise a “hue and cry” to alert their neighbors, and were expected to pursue the criminals “from town to town, and from county to county.” Endless alarms of plots provided an excuse to keep the militia on full alert, to impose restrictions on the production, importation, and movement of arms, and to create a standing royal army.
