'Polity of the Puritans'

"...Nevertheless, with all these defects, the colony was admirably governed in the main. One great right of freemen, the right of bearing arms, a highly necessary right to men planted suddenly among wild beasts and savages, was certainly not taken from the people. On the contrary, the government took care that all should be duly trained to self-defence. There is no man who bears a head, says Wood, (New Englands Prospect, 1639,) but bears military arms; even boys of fourteen years of age are practised with men in military discipline every three weeks. And they practised to some effect, as the records of the time prove, and as the Pequods learned to their cost...."
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- John Lothrop Motley, (1814–1897). 'Polity of the Puritans'. (Concerning early colonial times). [The North American review. Vol. 69, Issue 145, Oct. 1849]. Son of Thomas Motley, born in Dorchester, Mass. Graduated Harvard in 1831. American historian, and briefly a Secretary of Legation to Russia.
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That's odd, could have sworn there was a guy who had written a book a little while back, (Michael Bellesiles's Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture), claming that very few of the colonist's had guns. And that gun ownership was even rare in early America. Mr. Motley certainly seems to refute that, doesn't he?