They’re not defending “historical tradition.” They’re inventing it.

Colonial Virginia didn’t keep guns out of church. It ordered them in.

In 1755, Virginia’s militia law let a county’s militia commander order his listed soldiers to go to church armed, and fined any soldier who ignored the order five shillings:

“And further, it shall and may be lawful, for the lieutenant, or other chief officer of the militia in the county, to order all soldiers listed therein, to go armed to their respective parish churches.”
— “An Act for the better regulating and training the Militia,” Va. Acts, Aug. 1755, ch. II, § VIII, 6 Hening, Statutes at Large 534 (1819)

Any state that bans peaceable carry in houses of worship and calls it historical tradition has to answer for this.