Actually, the earliest gun control laws in the US date back to the French Black Codes in Louisiana, which were written in 1751.
Clayton Cramer's article on the history of gun control is good reading for context.
As was pointed out the last time this thread was active, it's not so much about guns as it is about disarmament in general. The idea that people should be disarmed for their own good by their betters goes back throughout recorded history. It's a bad piece of social engineering that says we can make people better by banning instruments.