
Southern aristocrats wanted armed militias mainly to control their slaves. So they wanted language in the new nation’s constitution protecting that right. By Nicolaus Mills, Daily Beast — Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, have highlighted once again the importance of the Supreme Court’s 2008 landmark decision District of Columbia v. Heller declaring that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a gun. Writing for the Court’s…