Actually, since before Reconstruction

St. Martin of the Empty Holster

The 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to American blacks did so in part because full citizenship would:

"...give to persons of the negro race ...the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which [the nation's] citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

And we can't have that, now can we?

Actually, the main problem is that one needs a "permit" in order to do what the Dred Scott decision, appalling as it was, correctly noted was the universally-recognized right of the American citizen: to keep and carry arms wherever they went.  The day you need a permit to speak in private upon a subject is the day you should be required to get a government permit to carry a gun in public.