The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.
The great object is that every man be armed.
Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.
The 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.
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.
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.
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.
For an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
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.
To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
All power is inherent in the people.
Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?
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.
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience.
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?
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.
or simply: