The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans’ fundamental civil liberty to keep and bear arms. Despite the efforts of the revisionists, the fact is that the Founders intended this to be a broad, open-ended right for all adult citizens. It wasn’t for an ‘organized’ militia; all men are the militia!
To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.— George Mason
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws…[that] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.— Cesare Beccaria, “On Crimes and Punishments”, 1764
Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control.— Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)
Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government.— Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)
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.— President George Washington
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.— Adolf Hitler
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.— Mahatma Gandhi
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?…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?— Governor Patrick Henry (VA)
Having a computer doesn’t make you a hacker. Having a lighter doesn’t make you an arsonist. And having a gun doesn’t make you a killer.— Anonymous, The Chattanoogan, 7/7/2009
The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.— President James Monroe (Democratic-Republican)
Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms…the benefits of them will be left equally free and open to all.— President Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)
It is a fact, too—although a curious one—that the sale of small arms to gun enthusiasts or sportsmen produces a greater sense of moral outrage in western society than is produced by the sale to psychotic despots of weaponry capable of killing thousands.— Margaret Thatcher
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.— Second Amendment, United States Constitution
The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90mph, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.— Sam Cohen
…the [National Rifle] Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.— President John F. Kennedy (D)
There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword.— G. K. Chesterton, Heretics
