"It is left, therefore, to the juries, if they think the permanent
judges are under any bias whatever in any cause, to take on
themselves to judge the law as well as the fact. They never exercise
this power but when they suspect partiality in the judges, and by
the exercise of this power they have been the firmest bulwarks of
English liberty."
--(Letter to Abbe Arnoux, Paris, July 19, 1789).
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably
by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect
for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which
cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase
of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
-- Albert Einstein (1921)
"that the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of
themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of
peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up...."
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The
possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.
He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be
defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he,
who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own,
ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he
lives precariously, and at discretion."
-- James Burgh "Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public
Errors, Defects, and Abuses" (London, 1774-1775)
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the
establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever
Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people,
they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army
upon their ruins."
- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate
over the Second Amendment
(Governments derive)....."their just powers from the consent of the
governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive
of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
it, and to institute new Government. But when a long train of abuses
and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right,
it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide mew
Guards for their future security."
--The Declaration of Independence --
"I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what
Congress has done to them over the last 49 years, they would move
on Washington; they would not wait for an election.... It adds up
to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social
independence of the United States!"
- George W. Malone, U.S. Senator (Nevada), speaking before Congress in 1957.
"We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions
the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board
and the Federal Reserve Banks, herein-after called the FED. They
are not government institutions. They are private monopolies which
pray upon the people of these United States for the benefit of
themselves and their foreign customers..."
- Lewis McFadden,U.S. Congressman.
Asked if his "Assault Weapon" ban was constitutional: "The Hell
with the Constitution!"
ex-Assemblyman Michael Roos
"We are for Socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the
state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. We seek
the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied
class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism
is the goal."
-- Roger Baldwin, ACLU Founder (Source: "Trial and Error" by George Grant)
"In fact, the take-no-prisoners climate fostered by the NRA has even
led its hard-core adherents to attack our organization and to
threaten me personally! Agents of the gun lobby have sent false
information to some of our members. They've encouraged gun nuts to
tie up our phone lines, and filed nuisance complaints about us with
the Federal Election Commission.
-- Sarah Brady Letter of October 18, 1991
"My own cops on the street are outgunned by these assault weapons.
We NEED the Brady Bill!"
-Chief Steven Bishop KCMO PD testimony before the Schumer committee, April, 1991
"... gun control advocates who want to square their policy
preferences with the Constitution should squarely face the need to
deconstitutionalize the subject by repealing the embarrassing
amendment."
George Will March 21, 1991
"Nice guys who own guns aren't nice guys."
ex-Mayor Ed Koch (New York City)
"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
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ...
The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the
opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does
not belong to one of the above named organizations and who
unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded
as an enemy of the national government."
- SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
"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 1935
'Berlin Daily' (Loose English Translation)
April 15th, 1935
Page 3 Article 2
by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann
"Abschied vom Hessenland!"
"We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step
is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very
modest ... So then we'll have to start working again to strengthen
the law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again
and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf
but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in
the United States -- is going to take time .... The first problem is
to slow down the increasing number of guns being produced and sold in
this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And
the final problem is to make the possession of *all* handguns and
*all* handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen,
licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun
collectors -- totally illegal."
- Pete Shields, Chairman Emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc.
("The New Yorker", July 26, 1976)
"The people of the various provinces are
strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows,
spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these
elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends
to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official
agents, and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned
above and turn them over to the government."
Toyotomi Hideyoshi
"Disperse you Rebels - Damn you, throw down your Arms
and disperse."
Maj. John Pitcairn (British Army), Lexington, Massachusetts, April
19, 1775
"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute
master of all industry and commerce."
- James A. Garfield, U.S. President.
"Capital must protect itself in every way...Debts must be collected
and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through
a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will
be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the
law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People
without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well
known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism
of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can
get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no
importance to us except as teachers of the common herd."
-- Taken from the Civil Servants' Year Book,
"The Organizer" January 1934.
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our
banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would
be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
- Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
"(The United States) can't be so fixed on our desire to preserve the
rights of ordinary Americans..."
- President Bill Clinton March 1, 1993 during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ
"We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The
only question is whether World Government will be achieved by
conquest or consent."
- James Paul Warburg, Foreign Agent of the
Rothschild Dynasty and major player in the Federal Reserve Act fraud,
speaking before the United States Senate on February 17, 1950.
"All of us will ultimately be judged on the effort we have
contributed to building a NEW WORLD ORDER."
-- Robert Kennedy, former U.S. Attorney-General, 1967.
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by
any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to
disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made
under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in
any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it,
this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both."
- William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125-6 (2nd ed. 1829)
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them,
may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be
occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their
power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are
confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their
private arms."
(Tench Coxe in `Remarks on the First Part of the
Amendments to the Federal Constitution' under the Pseudonym
`A Pennsylvanian' in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette,
June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1)
"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 of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been
considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since
it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary
power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful
in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph
over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and
the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so
undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people
there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline,
and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid
of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly
armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is
certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust,
and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the
protection intended by this clause of our national bill of
rights."
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the
United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional
History of the Colonies and States before the Adoption of the
Constitution [Boston, 1833]
"...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who
know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?"
(Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention,
rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail,
Johnathan Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions
on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Vol.2 at 97 (2d ed.,
1888))
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in
full possession of them."
(Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646)
"Our goal at HCI is simple: to stop the out of control gun violence
that is claiming American lives in record numbers. We propose to do this
through a comprehensive plan of legislative action that includes the
licensing of handgun owners, registration of handgun purchases, and
mandatory safety training."
"For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from
what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
1844 Benjamin Disraeli, P.M. of Great Britain
"... By calling attention to a well-regulated militia for 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
fear of governmental tyranny, which gave rise to the 2nd amendment,
will ever be a major danger to our Nation, the amendment still
remains an important declaration of our basic military-civilian
relationship, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in
the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the 2nd
Amendment will always be important."
(Ref: AR 12-73 p.14)
"What would things been like (in Russia) if during periods of mass
arrests people had not simply sat there, pailing with terror at
every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the
staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly
set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?"
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"If we choose to violate the rights of the innocent in order to
discover and act against the guilty, then we have transformed our
country into a police state and abandoned one of the fundamental
tenets of a free society. In order to win the war on drugs, we must
not sacrifice the life of the constitution in the battle."
US District Judge H. Lee Sarokin
"If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds
contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto
himself; it invites anarchy. Nothing can destroy a government more
quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its
disregard of its own existence."
Justice Brandeis
"Treason never prospers, what's the reason?
If it prospers, none dare call it treason."
-- Sir John Harington
"If you will not fight for the right
when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when
your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment
when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a
precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have
to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to
perish than to live as slaves."
Sir Winston Churchill
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
- William Pitt (1759-1806) - House of Commons, 18 Nov. 1783
We must recollect...what it is we have at stake, what it is we have
to contend for. It is for our property, it is for our liberty, it is
for our independence, nay, for our existence as a nation; it is for
our character, it is for our very name as Englishmen, it is for
everything dear and valuable to man on this side of the grave.
William Pitt (1759-1806) - House of Commons, 22 July 1803
"A Militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people
themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms."
Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.
John Dryden (1631-1700)
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) - 'Liberty'
"The three aims of the tyrant are, one, the humiliation of his
subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will not conspire
against anybody;two, the creation of mistrust among them; for a
tyrant is not to be overthrown until men begin to have
confidence in one another-- and this is the reason why tyrants
are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their
power is endangered by them, not only because they will not be
ruled despotically, but also because they are too loyal to one
another and to other men, and do not inform against one another
or against other men--three, the tyrant desires that all his
subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one attempts what
is impossible and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny
if they are powerless."
-- Aristotle, Politics, Book V Chapter 11.
"The constitutions 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
a all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person,
freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom of the press."
Thomas Jefferson
"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
"For experience has already shown that the impeachment...is not
even a scarecrow...The constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the
hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form
they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth
in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent
is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the spirit of the
people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence
can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass."
(Letter to Spencer Roane, Poplar Forest, September 6, 1819).
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 89 (Dumbauld Ed. 1955).
"The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps
of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine
the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our
constitution from a coordination of a general and special government
to a general and supreme one alone. This will lay all things at
their feet...We shall see if they are bold enough to take the daring
stride their five lawyers have lately taken. If they do, then...I
will say, that 'against this every man should raise his voice,'
and more, should uplift his arm."
(Letter to T. Ritchie, 1820).
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 152-153 (Dumbauld Ed. 1955).
"I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always
oppressive. It places the governors indeed more at their ease at
the expense of the people. The late rebellion in Massachusetts
has given much more alarm than I think it should have done.
Calculate that one rebellion in thirteen States in the course of
eleven years is but one for each State in a century and a half. No
country should be so long without one. Nor will any degree of power
in the hands of the government prevent insurrections. In England,
where the hand of power is heavier than with us, there are seldom
half a dozen years without an insurrection. In France, where it is
still heavier but less despotic, as Montesquieu supposes, than in
some other countries and where there are always two or three
hundred thousand men ready to crush insurrections, there have been
three in the course of the three years I have been here, in every
one of which greater numbers were engaged than in Massachusetts."
(Letter to James Madison, Paris, December 20, 1787).
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 67-68 (Dumbauld Ed. 1955).
"And say, finally, whether peace is best preserved by giving energy
to the government or information to the people. This last is the
most legitimate engine of government. Educate and inform the whole
mass of people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to
preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it
requires no very high degree of education to convince them of
this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of
our liberty."
(Letter to James Madison, Paris, December 20, 1787).
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 68 (Dumbauld Ed. 1955).
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good
thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in
the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish
the encroachments on the rights of the people, which produced
them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican
governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not to
discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound
health of government."
(Letter to James Madison, Paris, January 30, 1787).
THE POLITICAL WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 67 (Dumbauld Ed. 1955).
"No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
(Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers,
334,[C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950])
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real
advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; what 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 those only 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, the most important of the
code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can
be violated with impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put
an end to personal liberty - so dear to men, so dear to the
enlightened legislator - and subject innocent persons to all the
vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make
things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they
serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man
may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They
ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes,
produced by the impression of a few isolated facts, and not by
thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a
universal decree."
--Cesare Beccaria, _On Crimes and Punishments_ 87-88 (H. Paulucci
transl. 1963). -- (Thomas Jefferson copied this passage in full in
his _Commonplace Book_ 314 (G. Chinard ed. 1926), which was "the
source book and repertory of Jefferson's ideas on government." Id. at
4.)
"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 ... The tree of liberty must be
refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson (letter to William S. Smith, 1787, in
Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover, ed., 1939).
...We do then most solemnly, before God and the world declare that,
regardless of every consequence, at the risk of every distress, the
arms we have been compelled to assume we will use with the
perseverance, exerting to their utmost energies all those powers
which our Creator hath given us, to preserve that liberty which He
committed to us in sacred deposit and to protect from every hostile
hand our lives and our properties."
Thomas Jefferson Ford ed., (1775)
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our
liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a
monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The
issuing power [of money --ed.] should be taken away from the
banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
-- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President.
"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 the constant companion of your walks."
Thomas Jefferson, Encyclopedia of T. Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed,
reissued 1967)
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us
carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted,
recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of
trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented
against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
(Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823,
The Complete Jefferson, p. 322)
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone
that approaches that jewel. Unfortunatly, nothing will preserve it
but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are
ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed."
-- Patrick Henry
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able
may have a gun." "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and
debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own
self defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our
possession and under our own 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, in the
Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates
and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,...taken in
shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed.
Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386)
"Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation, brought about by
the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no
power at all? You read of a riot act in a country which is called
one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors can not
assemble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the
engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America."
-- Patrick Henry, (The World's Famous Orations, vol 1, Pg. 67-76).
"The right of the people to keep (to have and to hold, openly or
concealed) and bear (carry, transport and use) firearms (weapons
of self-defense, including the handgun which predated the rifle
and has existed for self-defense since the 1500's) shall not be
infringed (invalidated, limited, abridged). A well regulated
militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms,
is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."
James Madison
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess
over the people of almost every other nation... Notwithstanding
the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe,
which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the
governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper
No. 46.
"A government that does not trust it's lawabiding citizens to keep
Federalist Papers
"That the said Constitution shall never be 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, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they
be properly armed."
(Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8)
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to
enslave them, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." "I
ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except a few
public servants."
George Mason
"Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution
of the United States upon preserving the Constitution of the United
States as our Fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United
States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts,
not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who
pervert the Constitution."
Abraham Lincoln
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact
in controversy."
-John Jay, 1st Chief Justice U.S. supreme Court, 1789
"The jury has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law
and fact."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, U.S. supreme Court Justice, 1902
"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be
decided."
-- Harlan F. Stone, 12th Chief Justice U.S. supreme Court, 1941
"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts."
-Samuel Chase, U.S. supreme Court Justice, 1796, Signer of the
unanimous Declaration
That's only part of what he said in his First Thanksgiving
Proclamation before the Congress on October 3, 1789. He went on to
say: "...and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint
committee requested me to recommend to the people of the United
States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by
acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty
God, especially a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of
November, next to be devoted by the people of these States to the
service of that great and glorious Being Who is the beneficent Author
of all the good that was, or will be ...that we may then all unite in
rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care
and protection of the people of this country previous to there
becoming a nation... And also that we then unite in most humbly
offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of
Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other
transgressions... to render our National Government a blessing to
all the people by constantly being a governmment of wise, just and
Constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and
obeyed...(and) to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion
and virtue, and the increase of science among us...given under my
hand at the City of New York, the 3rd day of October in the Year of
Our Lord 1789.
-- George Washington
"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 is good"
George Washington
"A free people ought..to be armed..."
-- George Washington, speech of January 7, 1790
"When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour"
-- President George Washington
"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm ... is an
unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and
bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed
men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the
penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of
constitutional privilege."
Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)
" `The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed.' The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women
and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every
description, and not such merely as are used by the milita, shall not
be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree;
and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and
qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the
security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or
Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which
contravenes this right."
Nunn vs. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251(1846)
"The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons
to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to
enact any law to the contrary. The exercise fo a right guaranteed
by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the
sheriff."
People vs. Zerillo, 219 Mich. 635, 189 N.W. 927, at 928 (1922)
"The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to
every free people and should not be whittled down by technical
constructions."
State vs. Kerner, 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)
"The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or
the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State
government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the
citizen, and `is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A
law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is
above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power."
Cockrum v. State, 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)
"The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted
into a crime."
-- Miller v US, 230 F 2d 486, 489.
Term "the people" as used in Fourth Amendment refers to a class of
persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise
developed sufficient connection with the United States to be
considered part of community. U.S.C.A. Const.Amend. 4.
-- U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 110 S.Ct. 1056, 494 U.S. 259, 108 L.Ed.2d 222, 58
U.S.L.W. 4263
The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is
it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.
The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be
infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the
powers of the national government.
-- U.S. v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 2 Otto 542, 23 L.Ed. 588 (1875)
For, in principle, there is no difference between a law prohibiting
the wearing of concealed arms, and a law forbidding the wearing such
as are exposed; and if the former be unconstitutional, the latter
must be so likewise. But it should not be forgotten, that it is not
only a part of the right that is secured by the constitution; it is
the right entire and complete, as it existed at the adoption of the
constitution; and if any portion of that right be impaired,
immaterial how small the part may be, and immaterial the order of
time at which it be done, it is equally forbidden by the
constitution."
Bliss vs. Commonwealth, 12 Ky. (2 Litt.) 90, at 92,
and 93, 13 Am. Dec. 251 (1822)
"Only the rare taxpayer would be likely to know that he could refuse
to produce his records to IRS agents. Who would believe the ironic
truth that the cooperative taxpayer fares much worse than the
individual who relies upon is Constitutional rights."
- Observation by a U.S. Court of Appeals U.S. vs. Dickerson, 413
F. 2d., 1111
"The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of
its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge..."
-- U.S. vs. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139. (1972)
"Another source of power in government is a military force. But
this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists
among the people, or which they can command; otherwise, this force
would be annihilated on first exercise of acts of oppression. Before
a standing army can rule, the people must be DISARMED, as they are in
almost every kingdom in 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 in `An Examination into the Leading
Principles of the Federal Constitution', 1787, a pamphlet aimed at
swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification, in Paul Ford, ed.,
Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56(New York,
1888))
"THE POWERS OF THE SWORD ARE IN THE HANDS OF THE YEOMANDRY OF AMERICA
FROM SIXTEEN TO SIXTY....Who are the militia? are they not ourselves?
... Congress have no power to disarm the militia....Their swords, and
every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth right of
an American. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of
the federal or state governements, but, where I trust in God it will
ever remain, in the hands of the people.
-Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788
Gazette February 20,1788
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