[andyfox]

According to historian Saul Cornell:

A profound change in the nature of American gun culture occurred in the early decades of the new [19th] century. Americans began sporting weapons designed primarily for personal self-defense. The expanding economy of the new century made a staggering array of these personal weapons readily available to consumers. In addition to pistols, there was a gruesome assortment of edged weapons, which were more reliable and hence more deadly than handguns. Sword canes, small daggers such as the dirk, or the fearsome knife that came to define the rough-and-tumble world of frontier life, the bowie knife rounded out the options available to those who wished to arm themselves with a dependable edged weapon. While many citizens outfitted themselves with these weapons, others recoiled at their countrymen's penchant for traveling armed and demanded that their legislatures take strong measures to regulate, and in some cases prohibit, this practice. The enactment of these early gun control statutes prompted a backlash that produced the first systematic defense of an individual right to bear arms in self-defense.

Kentucky passed the first law designed to curb the practice of carrying concealed weapons in 1813. Violation of the statues was punishable by a hefty fine of one hundred dollars. That same year, Louisiana passed an even more comprehensive act banning concealed weapons. Indiana adopted a ban on concelaed weapons in 1820. Said New York's Governor De Witt Clinton: "Our present criminal code does not sufficiently provide against the consequences which may result from carrying secret arms and weapons." In the ensuing decades, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, and Ohio enacted laws against concealed weapons.