I Will Defend the Constitution

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence." — Charles A. Beard

"When seconds count between living or dying, the police are only minutes away." - Phillip Van Cleave (October 30, 2007) - Van Cleave is the president of the Virginia Citizen's Defense League (VCDL).

"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns."

"You cannot invade the mainland United
States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

“A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity” - Sigmund Freud

“An armed society is a polite society.” - Robert Heinlein

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."- Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the outcome of the vote."- Benjamin Franklin

“Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self-defense.” - John Adams

"Laws can't control the lawless" - Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President

“The right is absolute … government has no authority to forbid me from owning a firearm … the debate is not about guns. It is about freedom.” - California State Sen. Tom McClintock, 6/9/2001

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined." - Patrick Henry

“The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, and I know I’m not going to make very many friends saying this, but it’s about our right, all of our right to be able to protect ourselves from all of you guys up there.” - Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, appearing before Representative Charles Schumer’s committee hearings on the assault weapons ban

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams

“Though defensive violence will always be a ’sad necessity’ in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.” - St. Augustine

“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” - James Madison

“The fundamental force behind the Second Amendment is to empower the people and give them the greatest measure of authority over the tyranny of runaway government.” - U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer, 2002

Dangerous laws created by well intentioned people today can be used by dangerous people with evil intentions tomorrow.” - Alan Eppers

“We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.” - Thomas Jefferson

“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia’, the ’security’ of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms’, our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
- John F. Kennedy, April 1960

"The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - Thomas Jefferson

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” - Plato

"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one." - Jesus, Luke 22:36

"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

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance?” - Thomas Jefferson, 1787

"Power flows from the barrel of a gun" - Mao Zedong

"All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land." - William Kingdon Clifford

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." - Charles A. Beard

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than his own personal safety is a miserable creature." - John Stuart Mill

"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

"Gun control has cleared the way for seven major genocides since 1915, in which governments gone bad murdered 56,000,000 persons, including millions of children." - Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

"I sympathize with people who want to ban guns, but I can't agree with them. We have to be careful in our zeal to abolish guns that we don't wind up with counter-productive legislation that will leave armed only the people most likely to do harm with them." - Hugh Downs, veteran ABC newsman

"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 rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible." - Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, MN, campaigning for the 1960 Democratic Presidential Nomination

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." - George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.

"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms." - Constitutional scholar and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, 1840

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. - James Madison, The Federalist Papers

"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, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere, restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that's good!" - President George Washington, in a speech to Congress. 7 January, 1790

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson.

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun." - Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 386.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson

"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

"Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." - Mohandas Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446

The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. - Thomas Jefferson

"Assault is a type of behavior, not a type of hardware." - Alan Korwin

"These Sarah Brady types must be educated to understand that because we have an armed citizenry, that a dictatorship has not happened in America. These anti-gun fools are more dangerous to Liberty than street criminals or foreign spies." - Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor

"The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose." - James Earl Jones

"Guns are not always the answer, but obtaining a firearm has saved the lives of many... While I favor keeping guns out of the hands of felons, youths and the mentally impaired, I oppose adding more bureaucratic obstacles that attempt to fight crime by disarming its victims." - Peter Kasler, NY Times, 13 Jul 91

"A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders." - Larry Elder, radio personality

"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." - Thomas Jefferson

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

"Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." - Andrew Fletcher 1698

"To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding." — Jeff Snyder, author American Handgunner, Second Amendment Foundation Officer

"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" — Patrick Henry

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

"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

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or tenements)." — Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution (with his note added), 1776. Papers 1:353

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." — Richard Henry Lee, 1787

"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; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions." — Samuel Adams, Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788

"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." — James Madison, Federalist, No. 46.

"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?" — Patrick Henry

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." — George Mason

"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." — George Mason

"The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.’’
— James Earl Jones, Actor

"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 possible limits. ... 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." — St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court 1803

"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 bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States" — Noah Webster, 1888

"In a polity, each citizen is to possess his own arms, which are not supplied or owned by the state." — Aristotle

"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." — Heinrich Himmler

"We cannot be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." — B.J.Clinton, USA Today, 3/11/93

"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 ["something essential" lit. "without which not"] for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or police." - Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938

"We, the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution." — Abraham Lincoln

"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ...... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities." — Bill Clinton, 3-22-94

"They, the makers of the Constitution: conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.’’
‘‘Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding" — Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, 1928

"...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion." — Alexander Hamilton

"A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace." — James Madison, The Federalist Papers (No. 46).

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." — Justice Robert H. Jackson

"Four out of five politicians surveyed prefer unarmed, ignorant peasants." — Unknown