About The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

"God created men and women in all sizes, but it was Samuel Colt who made them all equal." -- old American adage

"A lot of people who didn't understand the need for civilians to bear arms on Sept. 10 were pretty clear on the issue by Sept. 12." -- Tim Slagle

"90 percent of violent crimes are committed without a handgun. Of those committed with a handgun, 93 percent of the guns used were obtained through unlawful means. Registration and waiting times are of little value in deterring criminals." -- Dr. Walter E. Williams
[For those who may be mathmatically-challenged, that means LESS THAN ONE OUT OF 100 violent crimes involved handguns obtained by lawful means. -- ed.]

"The trouble with so-called 'sensible gun laws' is that they make absolutely no sense. The politicians who pass them are asking Americans to believe that a cunning serial killer will walk into a gun store, produce a valid ID, and buy a firearm that can be traced directly to him. The American people may be scared, but they're not scared senseless." -- George Getz, www.LP.org

"What sort of a brain-dead idiot does it take to actually believe that gun laws will prevent criminals from obtaining and carrying guns?" -- Neal Boortz

"If a law could keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be virtually no violent crime at all." -- Harry Browne

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his palace, his possessions are safe.” -- Jesus at Luke 11:21

"70,000,000 gun owners in America behaved peacefully today..." -- relayed by Shonda Ponder

"The guns I plan to purchase have been selected for two reasons. First, I do not actually need any of them. Second, the guns are all pretty." -- Mike Adams, HERE

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." -- Henry St. George Tucker, in Blackstone'ss 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right to bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." -- Hubert Horatio Humphrey, 1960

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily lives, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." -- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"Nowadays it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as 'the state militia,' but 200 years ago any band of paid, semiprofessional part-time volunteers, like today's Guard, would have been called 'a select corps,' or 'select militia' -- and viewed in many quarters as little better than a standing army. In 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, 'the militia' referred to all citizens capable of bearing arms." -- Prof. Akil Reed Amar of the Yale School of Law here

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed" -- Noah Webster

"Their swords, and every other terrible instrument of the soldier, are the birth right of an American. ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- Tench Coxe, noted federalist and friend of James Madison, writing in defense of the proposed Constitution, in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
-- Mohandas Ghandi.

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." -- George Washington

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms…" -- Samuel Adams, Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, printed in "Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts", at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)

"The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens to 'keep and bear arms'. If it had, there would have been wording such as 'the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'." -- Ken Konecki on Usenet, on 27 Jul 1992

"Suppose the Second Amendment said, 'A well-educated Electorate, being necessary for self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.' Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?" -- Georgetown University professor Robert Levy

"A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall not be infringed." -- a cynical look at how gun-grabbers read the second amendment, from Vin at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8786/drega.htm

"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military." -- William Burroughs (b. 1914) author, "The War Universe"

"I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco..." -- P.J. O'Rourke, author of "Parliament of Whores"

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1848 ... "And how does an unarmed people do that?" -- Rick Jennings

"The People are responsible for being the Fourth 'check and balance' upon the power of government. If we fail to restrain our political leaders by threat of mortal accountability then we are assured of political leaders who will act with impunity against us." -- Peter Finn

"Being unarmed, among the other harm it brings you, causes you to be despised." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est." ("A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hands.") -- Seneca (Lucius Annaes Seneca "the youngeer", ca. 4 BC - 65 AD)

"He [Jesus] said to them, '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.' " (Luke 22:36)

"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned." -- Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1, Section 21, which is older than the U.S. Constitution, which was based, in large part, upon it.

"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year ... if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 29

"[T]he advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 46

[And The People must MAINTAIN their ABILITY to do such altering, abolishing and instituting]: “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” -- Thomas Jefferson, (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, p. 334, 1950)

"The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1891

"Only a government that does not trust its citizens would refuse them the right to bear arms." -- Curt Weldon

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence." -- Often attributed to George Washington, aalthough no one has been able to corroborate the attribution. Again, attribute it to yourself if you want to use it. Using unverifiable quotations plays into the hands of the enemies of gun rights, as they can then focus only on the quotations.

"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned." -- Sometimes attributed to James Madison, but no one has been able to corroborate that he ever said it or wrote it (Actually, it comes from the Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1, Section 21, which is older than the U.S. Constitution, which was based, in large part, upon it.) One more time: you can always attribute an unsourced quote to yourself if you want to use it. Using unverifiable quotations plays into the hands of the enemies of gun rights, as they can then focus only on the quotations. Whatever, you CAN easily find the source for this one: "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1891

"My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed-where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once." -- Justice Alex Kozinski in his dissent on the case of Silveira v. Lockyer, United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, 2003

"If your most basic right is the right to life, then it seems obvious to me that you have the right to defend your life. Guns are, in this century, the most effective means of doing so - so effective that every genocide has only been carried out against victims who were disarmed by their governments." -- William G. Hartwell

"All too many of the other great tragedies of history -- Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few -- were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations."-- Justice Alex Kozinski, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

"The Founding Fathers of the United States thought they had found a way to successfully head off the degeneration of governments into pathological monstrosities: ensure that the people remain armed, and teach them that it is part of their duty as free citizens to check the arrogance of government — by threat of armed revolt or by actual revolution, if need be. Thomas Jefferson would have asked why the Jews and Gypsies of Germany allowed themselves to be disarmed by Nazi gun-confiscation laws without rising in revolt — and, more pointedly, why the soi-disant civilized nations of the world did not see the confiscation of civilian weapons as a sure harbinger of the Holocaust to come." -- Eric S. Raymond

"The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government." -- The Supreme Court of the United States, in U.S. v. Cruikshank

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." -- Thomas Jefferson

"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." -- Richard Henry Lee

"...arms... discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ... Horrid mischief would ensue were [the law-abiding] deprived the use of them." -- Thomas Paine

“I would never invade the United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” -- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese naval forces and architect of the Pearl Harbor, Early in World War II

"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- Eric Blair, aka George Orwell

"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." -- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

"It is your responsibility to protect yourself and your family from criminals. If you rely on the government for protection, you are going to be at least disappointed and at worst injured or killed." -- from "A message from the sheriff" on the back of a victims' rights pamphlet by five-term San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters (L) of Telluride, Colorado

"We recall that the Framers' militia was not an elite fighting force but the entire citizenry of the time ... Since the Second Amendment explicitly declares that its purpose is to preserve a well-regulated militia, the right to bear arms was universal in scope. The vision animating the amendment was nothing less than popular sovereignty applied in the military realm. The Framers recognized that self-government requires the People's access to bullets as well as ballots. The armed citizenry (militia) was expected to protect against not only foreign enemies, but also a potentially tyrannical federal government. In short, the right to bear arms was intended to ensure that our government remained in the hands of the People." -- Prof. Akil Reed Amar of the Yale School of Law and Alan Hirsch who, like Amar, is a former editor of the Yale Law Journal, in For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1998).

"To the framers, it was simple enough. Recognition of the right of all law-abiding persons to have firearms would promote a militia, which
is superior to a standing army for protection of liberty. Promotion of the militia was a serious federal purpose, but the right was not limited to militia use." -- Second Amendment expert Stephen P. Halbrook, Research Fellow, The Independent Institute

"In a new draft article, 'St. George Tucker’s Second Amendment: Deconstructing 'The True Palladium of Liberty' [pdf],' Stephen P. Halbrook takes the reader step-by-step through Tucker's monumentally influential annotated American Blackstone, the most important legal treatise of the Early Republic. Analyzing Tucker's Blackstone, and other writings by Tucker, Halbrook shows that Tucker explicitly recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right, including the right to posses firearms for personal self-defense, unrelated to militia duty." -- David Kopel

Santa Cruz is a very pretty coastal town in the Bay Area of California, and as such is usually a sanctuary for left-wingers and their various causes. Oddly enough, the Santa Cruz Sentinel had a favorable article yesterday about parents who buy guns for their children and teach them responsible handling. The article even quoted a
gun-control advocate who admitted, "If there’s going to be a gun in the house, the parents who teach their kids how to handle it are doing the right thing."

Another excerpt from the article: "...children who grow up in hunting families develop a deep respect for guns and their dangers. When such a child receives his or her own gun, the weapon itself delivers only half the thrill; the other half comes from the trust it conveys."

Hmmm..."trust" and "respect." Sounds like good old-fashioned American family values to me.
-- Neal Boortz at
http://www.boortz.com/dec20-01.htm

"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."
-- The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1982, p. vii

“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised...to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia... ” -- George Mason (In Virginia's Ratifying Convention, Elliot p.3:379-380)

“Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense... ” -- John Adams, A Defense of the Constitution of the Government of the USA, p.471

"The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals." -- James Monroe, November 16, 1818

“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.” -- Sam Adams (Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, p86-87)

“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...” -- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” -- Tench Cox (introduction to his discussion, and support, of the 2nd Amend) "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution", Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789, pg.2

"The simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process. In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went"). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble."All too many of the other great tragedies of history -- Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few -- were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here." -- Federal Appellate Judge Alex Kozinski, once a refugee from Romanian tyranny himself, in his stinging dissent (one of six) of the May 6, 2003 "Silveira vs. Lockyear" decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which upheld the constitutionality of California’s so-called "Assault Weapons Control Act." The full text of Judge Kozinski's dissent can be found here -- it starts on page 2, and ends on page 6 of this pdf file:
http://snipurl.com/hx7o
"There are now two circuits in conflict over the meaning of the Second Amendment (the Ninth and the Fifth). The stage thus may be set for a momentous Supreme Court decision." -- Liberator Online, Vol. 8, No. 7

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." -- Joseph Stalin

"One step at a time..."

"We're going to have to take one step
at a time, and the first step is necessarily
-- given the political realities -- going to
be very modest. Our ultimate goal -- total
control of handguns in the United States
-- is going to take time.
... The first problem is to slow down the
increasing number of handguns being
produced.... The second problem is to get
handguns registered. And the final
problem is to make the possession of all
handguns and all handgun ammunition --
except for the military, policemen,
licensed security guards, licensed
sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors
-- totally illegal."

-- Nelson T. (Pete) Shields,
founder of Handgun Control, Inc., in
New Yorker Magazine, July 26, 1976.

Gangsters For Gun Control

   "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
pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull
the trigger [without one].
     We'll see who wins."

-- Mobster Sammy "The Bull"
Gravano, interviewed by Howard

Blum in Vanity Fair, September 1999

"If you want to be a dictator, you've got
a problem: you need a way to keep the
population under control. Actually, you need
two ways. The first is you've got to have the
guns and your opponents must not. If you're
the dictator, a buncha people are not going to
like it, either because they want to be the
dictator, or they don't want anyone being the
dictator, or they don't want you (or anyone)
dictating to them. Ask yourself: Is there any
example of a dictator--Great Helmsman, Dear
Leader, Father of the People, whatever--right
or left, hard-hat or tin-pot, who faced an
armed citizenry and survived? No."

-- D. L. Brooks

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly
make would be to allow the subjected people
to carry arms. History shows that all
conquerors who have allowed their subjected
peoples to carry arms have prepared their own
downfall by so doing. 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.”

– Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938

translation:
Jews Forbidden to Possess Weapons
By Order of SS Reichsfuhrer Himmler
Munich, November 19 [1938]

The SS Reichsfuhrer and German Police
Chief has issued the following Order:
Persons who, according to the Nuremberg
law, are regarded as Jews, are forbidden
to possess any weapon. Violators will be
condemned to a concentration camp and
imprisoned for a period of up to 20 years.

"Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box." -- Ambrose Bierce

"Liberty is preserved with 4 boxes: soap, jury, ballot, and cartridge." -- Dan Skinner

"...observe that genocide has not occurred where the citizenry is armed..." -- Carl P. Close

"There IS no exemption in the law. There is NO 'gun-show loophole.' It does NOT exist." -- Neal Boortz, 12-21-2001

"Statistics quoted by anti-gun, pro-gun-control freaks are 43 times more likely to be fiction than fact." -- Bert Rand

"The Second Amendment does not stand for the right to hunt, but to overthrow a corrupt government." -- "Standing United"

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?" -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again." -- Edith Hamilton

"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust." -- Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24

"The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew government power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies." -- Rick Gaber

"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, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1982, p. vii.

"Anyone who thinks that government -- any government -- has the right to disarm its citizens is not a libertarian." -- David F. Nolan, Founder, Libertarian Party

"If someone decides to start shooting everyone in sight, let's wait for the police to arrive even if it takes two hours for the cops to respond to a 911 call. Let's let the criminal keep shooting and reloading and shooting and reloading until the police arrive. No need for us to have any weapons of our own." -- Charles Champion, tongue planted firmly and angrily in cheek, in a message to the Libertarian Party of Florida egroup, May 26, 2000"

For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special." -- James Bovard

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? ... If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" -- Patrick Henry

"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 ruined." — Patrick Henry, Virginia's Ratification convention, 1788 "The great object is that every man be armed." -- Patrick Henry, during the Constitutional convention, as quoted in Elliot's Debates, 1836

"I am warning people not to stand against men with rifles when you are unarmed. Get the firepower, one way or another, and learn how to use it, then you may have a chance at liberty -- you can not have it, or keep it, without firepower. And that remains true even if you win some soldiers over to your side with appeals to their reason." -- Paul Marks

"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty, now we bleat like sheep for security." -- Norman Vincent Peale

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger in the end is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” -- Helen Keller

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey

"As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure." -- Thomas Paine, Dissertations on First Principles of Government
" In other words, 'Gun control' isn't just 'victim disarmament'; more precisely, it is 'making the world safe for control-freak politicians and bureaucrats (and, yes, for criminals and gangs, too, by the way)'." -- Bert Rand

Big-government worshipping gun-controllers never admit it -- that their real agenda is to "make the world safe for control-freak politicians and bureaucrats." They know it would make too many people wake up and think. Instead, however, they pathetically believe they've trumped all gun rights arguments anyway -- by gleefully dishing up their ridiculous "final argument," which is: "...but guns were invented for killing!" -- to which, I submit, the proper response is: "DUH! -- and THAT'S EXACTLY why a hundred-pound woman (or a 125-pound shopkeeper) can scare away 600 pounds of male attackers. Did you think pepper spray would do that?? Hmmm?" Besides, you can never 'UN-INVENT' technology, including guns or anything else, fer criminey sake. Cheese! Some people seem to be totally brain-dead!

"Gun Control is BRASS. BRASS=Breathe, Relax, Acquire your target, Sight alignment, Squeeze the trigger..." -- George Bagley

“[B]etween an armed and an unarmed man, there is no comparison whatsoever . . . An unarmed man is, by definition, a dependent. He is incapable of securing his own safety. He must depend on someone else to defend him against attack, whether from a stray dog, a lone criminal, an organized gang, or a foreign army. He rightly fears any separation from society, because solitude separates him from those who can defend him and singles him out as a target for those who might wish to harm him. He is tied by his interest in self-preservation to whoever assumes the burden of defending him. His need to be defended puts him at the mercy of his defender, and over time, he by neccesity becomes their subject." -- Nicolo Machievelli, The Prince

"Much of the American left fools itself that civilian firearms don't matter in the political power equation, but conservatives know better." -- Eric Raymond

"Guns cause crime like wet sidewalks cause rain, cameras cause pornography, and spoons cause Rosie to be fat and stupid." -- Neal Boortz