"Right to Bear Arms" Famous Quotes!

[Rich-D]

Please feel free to add to the list!

“But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Jesus Christ Luke 22:36:

"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks."
Thomas Jefferson 1785

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals...[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
Albert Gallatin A Representative and Senator-elect from Pennsylvania, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2.

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."
Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787). NOTE: In 1783, Noah Webster produced the first American Dictionary.

"Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it."
Richard Henry Lee, United States Senator from Virginia
The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.


Rich

[d90king]

Great list, I am sure it will be growing shortly.

[KCShooter]

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order." - Adolf Hitler, April 11, 1942,
Quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Translation: Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)


(Next time some anti-gunner decides to throw out a quote, tell 'em Hitler felt the same way, see how that goes over!)

[d90king]

I will be adding to this a little bit each day. :D

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. - George Washington

"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
-James Madison, Federalist Papers, No. 46.

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." [sic]
-John Quincy Adams

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
-Thomas Jefferson

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty
than to those attending too small a degree of it."~Thomas Jefferson, 1791

"Having a gun and thinking you are armed is like having a piano and thinking you are a musician" Col. Jeff Cooper (U.S.M.C. Ret.)

[dogdollar]

Gun control is an outcome of godless materialism
"The premise of the gun control agenda is that people can’t control things, but that things control people. At the root of the gun control agenda, as with the sex education agenda and so many other liberal agendas, is a denial of our moral nature. And that denial of our moral nature rests ultimately on a denial of the existence of God and of a relationship between God and human things. So the gun control agenda is a natural outcome of the agenda of godless materialism."


Control people’s passions - not the things they use
"[Gun control proponents] propose controlling the things we use, as if this will control people. Violence is not a function of the things; it’s a function of the heart. If the heart is wrong, then violence will come out of the heart as a consequence -- and if a gun isn’t handy, a machete will do. What is in control is not the thing, but the human being that allows his evil passions to control his actions, and thus lead to the awful situations we have seen from Indonesia to Littleton."


Columbine killers lacked moral development - not gun laws
"The gun control mentality is that guns are in control of situations, and when we see kids like those in Columbine High School, we shouldn’t see human beings who have gone off the right moral road because their consciences and self-discipline have not been properly developed. Instead, we should see guns in control of the situation, and then we should react against the guns. “Gun violence” should be called human violence, leaving us at least the dignity of being responsible for our own sins."

Alan Keyes

[dogdollar]

"Liberals tolerate rallies on behalf of cop-killers, but they prohibit law-abiding citizens working at community centers in Binghamton, N.Y., from being armed to defend themselves from disturbed, crack-addicted America-haters like Jiverly Wong.

It’s something in liberals’ DNA: They think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control.

The demand for more gun control in response to any crime involving a gun is exactly like Obama’s response to North Korea’s openly belligerent act of launching a long-range missile this week: Obama leapt to action by calling for worldwide nuclear disarmament."

Ann Coulter

[BRSmith]

Can this be made a sticky? I'll have to find some quotes and add them here.

[Rich-D]

• “The great object is, that every man be armed…. Every one who is able may have a gun.” (Elliot p.3:386)
• “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.” During Virginia Ratification Convention 1788 (Elliot p.3:45)
PATRICK HENRY (’Liberty or Death’ Speech, member of Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia, member Virginia convention to ratify U.S. Constitution, urged creation of Bill of Rights for Constitution )

• “And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the right of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; …or to prevent the people from petitioning , in a peaceable and orderly manner; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” (Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, p86-87)
SAMUAL ADAMS (Signed Declaration of Independence, organized the Sons of Liberty, participated in Boston Tea Party, Member of Continental Congress, Governor of Massachusetts)

• “Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped.” (Federalist Papers #29)
ALEXANDER HAMILTON (Member of Continental Congress, commanded forces at Yorktown, New York delegate to the Constitutional Convention, wrote Federalist Papers, 1st Secretary of Treasury.

• “The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” (Elliot, 3:645-6)
ZACHARIA JOHNSON (delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention)


Rich

[Rich-D]

"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
Sigmund Freud, General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, An Autobiography, page 446

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms, disarm only those who are neither inclined, nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants. They serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson, 1764

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn't."
Ben Franklin

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature ... laws not preventive but fearful of crimes."
Marquis Beccaria, of Milan.

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
The Dalai Lama


Rich

[d90king]

The quote button disappeared ..... When the list gets bigger I will sticky it and condense to one post.

[piobaireachd]

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." - Robert A. Heinlein

[kenhwind]

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future."
Adolf Hitler 1935

"I ask sir, who is the militia? It is the whole people...To disarm the people, that is the best and most effective way to enslave them..." - George Mason

Senater Dodd (not the current one his Dad) was in Army Intelligence during WW II and authored the GCA 1968, his inspiration was the Nazi Gun Control Act of 1935

[Rich-D]

"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu, Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote." Ben Franklin

"There Is No Greater High Than Defeating Armed Felons" Rich-D

[KCShooter]

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future."
Adolf Hitler 1935This one is actually a "bogus" quote.

There's a few other bogus quotes listed here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcbogus.html

[kenhwind]

This one is actually a "bogus" quote.

There's a few other bogus quotes listed here: http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcbogus.html
Thank you for the verification, had I actually known that I would not have posted it.
And Dodds inspiration was the 1938 German guncontrol act. and that I should have known.

[denton]

But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. It is so ordered.


Antonin Scalia, Heller decision

[Rich-D]

"Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins." -- Former Mafia hit man turned informant Sammy "the Bull" Gravano

Rich

[Rich-D]

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." -- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitlers Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942. [Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)


Rich

[Rich-D]

"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, and the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 - establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control crime." Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) quoted from "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution." U.S. Government Printing Office, Feb 1982, p. vii.


Rich

[dogdollar]

"Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed... Whenever government becomes destructive to life, liberty, or property [i.e., the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it... It is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
— American Declaration of Independence (1776)

[Rich-D]

"Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain. Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation. "

Charles Krauthammer,The Washington Post, Friday, April 5, 1996, page A19 op-ed piece entitled "Disarm The Citizenry"
........................................................................................................

Does anyone doubt that the AWB Ban is not a purely symbolic goal in the quest to subjugate the 2nd Amendment. And even more important, deny the natural right to self defense.

Rich

[kenhwind]

The United States of America is a Rebublic, we are not a Democracy. We have a Democratic legislature.

[d90king]

The United States of America is a Rebublic, we are not a Democracy. We have a Democratic legislature.
It is sad that when they did a poll, north of 80% of the public polled responded that we are a democracy.

[Rich-D]

You folks are correct in that the USA is not a pure democracy, wherein every citizen votes on every issue. We have a representative form of government.
However, Dictionary definitions ( which add to the confusion) are as follows:

Dictionary,com
1. government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
2. a state having such a form of government: The United States and Canada are democracies.
3. a state of society characterized by formal equality of rights and privileges.
4. political or social equality; democratic spirit.
5. the common people of a community as distinguished from any privileged class; the common people with respect to their political power.

Mirriam-Webster
1 a: government by the people ; especially : rule of the majority b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States <from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy — C. M. Roberts>
4: the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5: the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges


Rich

[Rich-D]

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”
Thomas Jefferson

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.”
Thomas Jefferson 1762-1826
3rd US President (1801-09). Author of the Declaration of Independence.

[Chilo45]

Quote:
Originally Posted by kenhwind
The United States of America is a Republic, we are not a Democracy. We have a Democratic legislature.

It is sad that when they did a poll, north of 80% of the public polled responded that we are a democracy.

More than 80% of Americans are not even educated any longer (to the standards that most of us were held to - I'm 60 and educated in Catholic grade school / a public high school system that cared about teaching / a college education in the 70's where I chose to LEARN rather than experiment ) - so their opinion in polls is to be questioned. These same 80% can't even locate Nebraska on a map (unless they were born there and too many still get it wrong).

As a Republic, I want us to return to the method of representation that our forefathers had intended - serve your country for 3 years and then not again until 4 years had passed, giving representation of the people as equal a chance as possible.

But instead we have career politicians who will even change party affiliation to try and stay in Washington. It is wrong and the main reason we have as many laws and associated problems.

[Rich-D]

"Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ‘We the people.’ ‘We the people’ tell the government what to do, it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the people’ are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the people’ tell the government what it is allowed to do. ‘We the people’ are free."
— Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address


Rich

[Rich-D]

It certainly supports the fact that strict gun laws would make the law abiding criminals.

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged

Rich

[tbone1964]

hmm what ever happened to " and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Rich-D]

Democracy
hmm what ever happened to " and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A Republic stands for a government which is operated by elected Representatives. In a Democracy every adult citizen with the right to vote, is entitled to vote on every issue.