Individual vs Collective

Perhaps the most important firearms rights debate in the US is the nature of the Second Amendment to the Constitution which reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Now there are two ways to read this. The first is that the right only purtains to the militia and this indicated firearms ownersship is a collective right of the people as a whole, but not individuals. The second is the "militia" of the time included, by law, all able-bodied males between the years of 18 and 45. This means that the 2nd Amendment is a highly individual right and "the people" should be taken in an individual context just like all the other amendments.

Historically the individual interpretation was dominant until after the civil war. After that the collective interpretation became prominent, mostly in order to control black firearms ownership.

The Smallest Minority has more on this debate with specific citations from legal opinions.

UPDATE: Michael Dean asked a good question in the comments, so let me go into a little more detail on the roots of gun control.

The switch from individual to collective interpretation was so that the government could more deeply regulate firearms. This was especially a problem in the post civil war period because the 14th and 15th amendments extent the Bill of Rights to apply to state law as well.

Many gun control laws (outside of the odd local ordinance or two) originated in attempts to control black gun ownership in the post-bellum south. This article talks about it. There are a lot more like it.

For that matter a lot of anti-gun rhetoric comes from racist sources. For instance "saturday night special" comes from the (thankful fallen into disuse) expression "Nigger-town Saturday Night". A Saturday Night Special was a cheap gun that could be bought, used to shoot someone, and then thrown away to dispose of evidence.

Modern gun control is still discriminatory though because it has a disparate effect on ownership rates between blacks and whites. Areas with larger Black populations (like a lot of cities) tend to have more gun control than white populated areas. This has lead to blacks having much lowers firearm ownership rates than whites. Depending on what you think of firearms ownership this is not a good thing.

Keep in mind gun control is never really about guns. It is about controlling people. People who mean well and pass gun control laws are trying to control criminals and violent behavior. People that don't mean well are trying to control their opposition.