The following quotes are in the public domain. Many you've seen before, I hope some are new to you.

"A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted."
"In Switzerland, where the citizens are most armed, they are most free."
Niccolo Machiavelli


Quotations relating to the Second Amendment

The first ten amendments to the constitution, the Bill of Rights, were added before the constitution was ratified. In deed, ratification almost certainly would not have happened without them. Most of the following group of comments were made to assure the people and the ratification conventions that the individual rights would not be resticted.

"The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals … It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
Albert Gallatin
New York Historical Society
October 7, 1789


"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason
Co-author of the Second Amendment
during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788


"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves …"
Richard Henry Lee
writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Letter XVIII, May, 1788.


"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full posession of them."
Zachariah Johnson
Elliot's Debates, vol. 3 "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution."


"… the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms"
Philadelphia Federal Gazette
June 18, 1789, Pg. 2, Col. 2
Article on the Bill of Rights


"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
Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, August 20, 1789, "Propositions submitted to the Convention of this State"


The Founding Fathers on Arms

"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
George Washington
First President of the United States


"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside … Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."
Thomas Paine


"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
writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic, Letter XVIII, May, 1788.


"The great object is that every man be armed." and "Everyone who is able may have a gun."
Patrick Henry
American Patriot


"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
American Patriot


"Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not."
Thomas Jefferson
Third President of the United States


"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; … "
Thomas Jefferson
letter to Justice John Cartwright, June 5, 1824. ME 16:45.


"The best we can help for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton
The Federalist Papers at 184-8


The Founding Fathers on Maintaining Freedom

"The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution."
Thomas Jefferson
Third President of the United States


"There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. "
Noah Webster
American Lexicographer


"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
Edmund Burke
British Statesman, 1784


"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."
Thomas Jefferson
to James Madison


"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Ben Franklin
American Statesman


Later Quotes on Gun Control

"The ruling class doesn't care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake."
Malcolm Wallop
former U.S. Sen. (R-WY)


"An armed man is a citizen. A disarmed man is a subject."
Anon.
Seen on a bumper sticker


"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."
Suzanna Gratia-Hupp
Texas State Rep.


"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure."
Albert Einstein
"The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically had proved to be always possible."
Senator Hubert Humphrey
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
Ronald Reagan

 

Gun Control - Dictatorships

National Socialist Germany

"If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things."

"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!"
Adolph Hitler
Chancellor, Germany, 1933


"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches us that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so."
Adolph Hitler
Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters, 1941-1942.
"The authority of the (state) is not limited by checks and controls, by special autonomous bodies or individual rights. The concept of personal liberties of the individual as opposed to the authority of the state had to disappear. There are no personal liberties of the individual which fall outside of the realm of the state. The Constitution is therefore not based upon a system of inborn and inalienable rights of the individual."
Ernst Huber
1933 speech to National Socialist Workers (NAZI) Party, quoted in The Ominous Parallels, Leonard Peikoff (Stein & Day, N.Y. 1982) p.6.
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately...The S.S., S.A., and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them, therefore, anyone who does not belong to one of the above organizations and who unjustifiably keeps his weapon...must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."
SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz
(March, 1933).
"I see creeping fascism in America, just as in Germany, a drip at a time: a law here, a law there, all supposedly passed to protect the public. The German people really believed that only hoodlums owned such (unregistered) guns. What fools we were. It truly frightens me to see how the government, media, and some police groups in America are pushing for the same mindset."
Theodore Haas
survivor of Dachau and the Holocaust.

Communist Russia

"Citizens! Turn in your weapons."
English translation of Soviet Union Poster (1919).
"The State, in its criminal code, forbids citizens to have firearms or other weapons, but does not undertake to defend them."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago.

Communist China

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Only the Communist Party may have guns."
Mao Tse-tung

Communist Cuba

"Armas para que?" ("Guns for what?")
Fidel Castro
1959, in a speech urging the people to turn in their guns because they were no longer needed with him in control.
"In today's Cuba, only those who hold absolute power over the people are armed."
Max Jorge
(Cuban exile).

Pro Gun Control - Here and Now

The President (Bill Clinton) says he favors “No guns of any kind, even old replica guns are acceptable. No swords or deadly knives can be permitted.”
Protocols of the White House, November 11, 1993

"Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sara Brady
Chairman, Handgun Control Inc, to Senator Howard Metzenbaum
The National Educator, January 1994, Page 3.


"Gun registration is not enough."
Janet Reno
Attorney General, December 10, 1993 (A.P.).
"The most effective means of fighting crime in the United States is to outlaw the possession of any type of firearm by the civilian population."
Janet Reno
Attorney General
1991 speech to B'nai B'rith in Fort Lauderdale (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 25, 1996, p. 3B).
"What good does it do to ban some guns? All guns should be banned."
Sen. Howard Metzanbaum

"We're going to have to take this 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 all guns—is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered, and the final problem is to make possession of all handguns, and all handgun ammunition totally illegal."
Nelson T. (Pete) Shields, III
founding Chair of Handgun Control, Inc.
"The only real justification (for the assault weapons ban) is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation."
Charles Krauthammer
"To Control Crime, Control Guns" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 7, 1996, p.3B,).
“It’s a diversionary tactic,” Pelosi said. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You demonize — we call it the wrap-up smear,” Pelosi said. “You smear somebody with falsehoods and all the rest, and then you merchandise it.

“And then you (reporters) write it, and then they’ll say ‘See? It’s reported in the press that this, this, this and this,’ so they have that validation that the press reported the smear, and then it’s called the ‘wrap-up smear.’ Now I’m going to merchandise the press’s report on the smear that we made.

“It’s a tactic. And it’s self-evident.”

Nancy Pelosi recorded on CSPAN, June, 2017


Read the Testimony of Darrell Scott.

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