Blackstone's Commentaries on English Common Law are the basis of the rights of both Englishmen in the Colonies and Americans after the revolution. The Constitution, all our laws, our "rights", and separation of powers are highly influenced by Blackstone's Commentaries. Blackstone discusses the right to keep & bear arms as follows.....
"Another important source further illustrating this point is William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, in which he explains the underlying purpose of the right to keep and bear arms as understood in the English common law. According to Blackstone, [Page 209] the liberties of Englishmen are reducible into three principal rights: the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property. However, Blackstone asserted that any declaration of these rights would be meaningless "if the constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment."
The common law, therefore, developed barriers against infringement upon these rights. According to Blackstone, whenever the government infringed upon any of the three principal rights, the people could employ certain auxiliary rights to ameliorate the problem. First, the people had the right to apply to the court system for redress of injuries. Second, the people had the right to "petition the king, or either house of parliament, for the redress of grievances." However, if these branches of government failed to provide the necessary relief, then the people had the right of having and using arms for their defense and self-preservation "when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."
According to Blackstone, English common law recognized the right to own guns as a way for an individual to protect himself and "the three great and primary rights" in the face of an actual violation or attack by a tyrannical government. In essence, under the common law, individual gun ownership is to serve as the final safeguard when the government fails to protect the rights of the people."