Right To Bear Arms Quotes - Page 6

• 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

  Being Strong, Nature, Character

  Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

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• A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

  George Mason

  Army, Gun, People

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• 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

  Inspirational, Gun, British Rule In India

  Mahatma Gandhi, General Press (2014). “My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.681, GENERAL PRESS

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• Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Law Courts, Government, Libertarian Party

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings.

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi

  War, Uprising, Gun Rights

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• The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.268

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

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Sacrifice, Gun

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• Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.

  Huey Newton

  Taken, Men, Gun

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• The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them.

  Tench Coxe

  Powerful, People, Second Amendment

  "An American Citizen: An Examination of the Constitution of the United States IV". Publication by Tench Coxe, teachingamericanhistory.org. October 21, 1788.

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

  Hubert H. Humphrey

  Gun, America, Government

  "Know Your Lawmaker". Guns magazine, p. 4, February 1960.

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• A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms.

  Richard Henry Lee

  4th Of July, Men, Gun

  Richard Henry Lee, Mercy Otis Warren (1962). “An Additional number of letters from the Federal farmer to the Republican, leading to a fair examination of the system of government, proposed by the late Convention: to several essential and necessary alterations in it; and calculated to illustrate and support the principles and positions laid down in the preceding letters. Together with Oberservations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions by a Columbian patriot”

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• What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter to William Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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• He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

  Thomas Paine

  Pain, Freedom, Fear

  Thomas Paine (2016). “THOMAS PAINE Ultimate Collection: Political Works, Philosophical Writings, Speeches, Letters & Biography (Including Common Sense, The Rights of Man & The Age of Reason): The American Crisis, The Constitution of 1795, Declaration of Rights, Agrarian Justice, The Republican Proclamation, Anti-Monarchal Essay, Letters to Thomas Jefferson and George Washington…”, p.1336, e-artnow

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• The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Gun, Rights, People

  "The Federalist Papers". Book by Alexander Hamilton, essay No. 69, 1787 - 1788.

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• 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

  Real, Gun, Differences

  Speech on the Federal Constitution, Virginia Ratifying Convention, on June 09, 1788. "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution". Book edited by Jonathan Elliot, volume 3, p. 168-169, 1836.

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• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of 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.

  Noah Webster

  Army, Gun, Power

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

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• Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

  Alexander Hamilton

  People, Second Amendment, Littles

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.156, Hackett Publishing

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• 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. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

  Cesare Beccaria

  Real, Sacrifice, Men

  Cesare Beccaria (1963). “On Crimes and Punishments”, Pearson College Division

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• The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.

  Fisher Ames

  Gun, Rights, Government

  Fisher Ames, John Thornton Kirkland (1854). “Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence”, p.54, Burt Franklin

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• The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjugated races to possess arms.

  Adolf Hitler

  Mistake, Gun, People

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• Self-defense is a part of the law of nature;
  nor can it be denied the community,
  even against the king himself.

  William Barclay

  Kings, Equality, Self

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• The National Rifle Association is always arguing that the Second Amendment determines the right to bear arms. But I think it really is the people's right to bear arms in a militia. The NRA thinks it protects their right to have Teflon-coated bullets. But that's not the original understanding.

  Robert Bork

  Thinking, Always Arguing, People

  "Advocates: Point and Counterpoint, Laurence Tribe and Robert Bork Debate the Framers' Spacious Terms". Miriam Bensimhorn, Life Magazine (Special Issue), Fall 1991.

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• The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are
  neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that
  those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will
  respect the less important and arbitrary ones... 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.

  Cesare Beccaria

  Men, Gun, Law

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• Karate is the best thing you can do for your child.

  Chuck Norris

  Graduation, Art, Children

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