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Quotes on Guns and related Items of Interest...
Sic Semper Tyrannis
(Thus ever to tyrants)
στην κόλαση με τους τύραννους!
(To HELL with Tyrants!)
Those whom will not make a STAND with those on the side of TRUTH,
will FALL with those on the side of the FALSE!
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"The great object is that every man be armed . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun."
- Patrick Henry,
(in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution.)
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When you disarm your subjects, you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.
- Niccolo Machiavelli
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War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
- John Stuart Mill
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We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people...it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
"Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would."
- John Adams, Boston Gazette, Sept. 5, 1763,reprinted in 3 The Works of John Adams 438 (Charles F. Adams ed., 1851).
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....federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.
"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
The 1982 United States Senate subcommittee, chaired by Orrin G. Hatch, on the Constitution report.
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"What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. . . Whenever Government means to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise a standing army upon its ruins."
- Elbridge Gerry, Debate, U.S. House of Representatives, August 17, 1789
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The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution.
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"As the military forces which must occasionally be raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (of amendment) in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
- Tench Coxe, Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them."
- Tench Coxe, Delegate to Continental Congress, Oct. 21, 1787
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When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.
The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.
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"The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people."
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With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves.
Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, July 6, 1775
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"The defense of one's self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law."
"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."
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily lives, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"All of us, I am sure, 10 years ago thought that the need for the man with the rifle would be passing away from the scene in the 1960s. And it is true that there are a good many Americans tonight who are stationed underground in a hardened silo whose duty is to watch some tables and some dials and a button. "But the very size and magnitude of these new great weapons have placed a new emphasis upon what we call rather strangely conventional war, and they have made it even more mandatory that we keep the man with the rifle."
- John F. Kennedy, Address given at the Marine Corp Barracks, Washington, D.C., July 12, 1962
(I guess his brother Edward must have forgotten that!)
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[The American Colonies were] all democratic governments, where the power is in the hands of the people and where there is not the least difficulty or jealousy about putting arms into the hands of every man in the country. [European countries should not] be ignorant of the strength and the force of such a form of government and how strenuously and almost wonderfully people living under one have sometimes exerted themselves in defence of their rights and liberties and how fatally it has ended with many a man and many a state who have entered into quarrels, wars and contests with them.
- George Mason, "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax Independent Company" in The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792, ed Robert A. Rutland (Chapel Hill, 1970).
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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.
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He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no
authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense,
incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek
the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature
to defend itself.
From a sermon given in Philadelphia in 1747
A NATION OF COWARDS - Jeffrey R. Snyder
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"The Evils of Tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
- John Hay 1872
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“There's no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”
- Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisk
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"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms."
- Richard Henry Lee
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The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...
- Samuel Adams
'The Father of the American Revolution'
He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of Christianity will change the face of the world.
- Benjamin Franklin, 1774, Ambassador to France
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The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
- Alexander Hamilton
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"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 militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all of 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, originally belonging to our forefathers, trampled under foot by Charles I. and his two wicked sons and successors, reestablished by the revolution of 1688, conveyed to this land of liberty by the colonists, and finally incorporated conspicuously in our own Magna Carta! And Lexington, Concord, Camden, River Raisin, Sandusky, and the laurel-crowned field of New Orleans, plead eloquently for this interpretation!"
- Nunn vs. State, 1 Ga. 243, 250, 25 - (1846).
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"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
(Where are leaders like you NOW, when needed the most!)
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Lord Jesus, thou who art the way, the truth, and the life; hear us as we pray for the truth that shall make all free. Teach us that liberty is not only to be loved but also to be lived. Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books. It costs too much to be hoarded. Help us see that our liberty is not the right to do as we please, but the opportunity to please to do what is right.
- Peter Marshall, Before the U.S. Senate
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"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
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Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
- John Jay, 1st Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
(One of the three men most responsible for the Constitution)
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...Alex Kozinski, a Federal Appeals Judge, (Ninth Circuit), and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."
"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
The doomsday provision
Oct 19, 2005
by John Stossel
"When the government fails to protect the people against robbers, kidnappers, and murderers, it is not only a legal right but an imperative moral duty, of the people to take their mutual defense into their own hands. And the constitution recognizes this right, when it declares that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed;" for "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" implies their right to use them when necessary for their protection."
- Lysander Spooner
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"The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong."
- Thomas Paine
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"They that are doing evil are the most fearful of retribution. If the tools for retribution are removed - there is no fear, but rather - boldness and tyranny!" -EDQ
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"God made man and God made woman, but Samuel Colt made them equal." -Unknown Author
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"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
- Sigmund Freud
"General Introduction to Psychoanalysis"
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"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 U.S. murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?"
- Andrew Ford
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"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."
- Orrin Hatch
This man is a TRUE Senator representing the BEST interests of the people!
"The Right to Keep and Bear Arms"
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"The people who condemn me for being on the board of directors of the NRA, are literally condemning the basic right of self-defence. How could a decent person ever recommend a law that only the decent people will be helpless? Gun control is about guaranteeing that good people will be helpless! Who could condone such a thing? This is perfect (he shouts), just keep talking! Michael Moore, keep talking! The more these assholes keep talking, the more people will buy guns and shoot bad guys. Good people should buy guns and when they are about to be car-jacked SHOOT THE MOTHERF**KER! ANY QUESTIONS?"
- Ted Nugent, 'From his dead hand' interview.
There are hundreds of millions of gun owners in this country, and not one of them will have an accident today. The only misuse of guns comes in environments where there are drugs, alcohol, bad parents, and undisciplined children. Period.
"To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic."
To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead. Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em.
Ted Nugent
How about Ted running for President? What do you say Mr. Nugent? (Maybe he would be able to break the 'Stranglehold' these politicians are putting on our RIGHTS!)
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"You want more gun control? Use both hands."
- Unknown
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"...the amendment, (2nd Amendment), broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse".
- brief filed by the Justice Department under John Ashcroft in 2002
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No man is enitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.
I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
- Douglas MacArthur
"I believe that guns don't kill people, husbands that come home early do."
- Larry the Cable Guy
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"Hell, when the man said Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, I just thought he was making a delivery!"
- James Wesley, Rawles
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WORDS OF WARNING;
"To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason
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"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
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"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe."
- Noah Webster
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"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms."
- James Madison
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"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
- William Pitt
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"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it."
- William Burroughs
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"Gun Control: The notion that Matthew Shepard tied to a fence post in the middle of Wyoming is morally superior to Matthew Shepard explaining to the local sheriff how his attackers got all those fatal bullet holes."
- Dan Weiner
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"Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
- Unknown
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Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God’s side.
Abraham Lincoln,
(when asked if he thought God was on our side.)
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"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's goodbye to the Bill of Rights."
Unknown
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That the United States was born out of an armed rebellion fueled, in large part, by resentment over excessive taxation is a bit of history that makes statists extremely uncomfortable. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that congressmen and senators who dream of an ever-expanding welfare state consistently vote to restrict individual gun ownership or even ban the production of certain classes of firearms.
Howard J. Fezell, Esq.
Originally appeared in the April, 1997 issue of AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE
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"I will give up my gun as soon as evil is finished walking to and fro on the face of the earth - but not even for a minute until that time has arrived!"
If someone is a 'middle of the road' type, on the subject of Gun Control. Every effort should be made, while attempting to knock them off the 'fence', to insure that they don't fall on the WRONG side! For we need all the help we can get!
- EDQ
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"Thus the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. 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. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves."
- Thomas Paine, Thoughts On Defensive War. Pennsylvania Magazine, July, 1775.
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"Tell the American people never to lose their guns. As long as they keep their guns in their hands, what's happened here will never happen there."
- a dying Chinese Citizen shot in Beijing
"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."
- Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
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“The rifle is the free man's weapon. The man who uses it well in the chase shows that he can at need use it also in war . . .”
President Theodore Roosevelt
(From the May 1958 issue of The American Rifleman)
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"We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it."
- Boris Yeltsin
(even the communists are coming around)
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"Democracy brought to others through the barrel of a gun is not democracy." Hope and Memory: Reflections on the 20th Century,
Tzvetan Todorov, Bulgarian philosopher
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"We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found."
- Tzvetan Todorov
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Gentlemen may cry, 'peace, peace'—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! Is life so precious, or peace so dear, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!
- Patrick Henry
to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775
(The Virginia ratifying convention met from June 2 through June 26, 1788. Edmund Pendleton, opponent of a bill of rights, weakly argued that abuse of power could be remedied by recalling the delegated powers in a convention). Patrick Henry shot back that the power to resist oppression rests upon the right to possess arms: "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. Henry sneered, O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone...Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation...inflicted by those who had no power at all?"
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"The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity."
- Thomas Szasz
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"The struggle for definition is veritably the struggle for life itself. In the typical Western two men fight desperately for the possession of a gun that has been thrown to the ground: whoever reaches the weapon first shoots and lives; his adversary is shot and dies. In ordinary life, the struggle is not for guns but for words; whoever first defines the situation is the victor; his adversary, the victim. For example, in the family, husband and wife, mother and child do not get along; who defines whom as troublesome or mentally sick?...[the one] who first seizes the word imposes reality on the other; [the one] who defines thus dominates and lives; and [the one] who is defined is subjugated and may be killed."
- Thomas Szasz
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He that keeps not his arms in time of peace will have none in time of war.
- Scottish Gaelic proverb
Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
- Henry David Thoreau
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Have the perfect solution for those who don't like guns...Some of the best ideas can hit you when you can't sleep at 4:15am! For those of you who do not like guns and are so rabid that you want to infringe on your fellow countrymens right to keep and bear them. Why don't you move to Australia? They speak English and are some decent, hardy people. We can work out an exchange program with the Aussies. They take the freedom despising whiners from the USA. And we will welcome in the Aussies that had their guns stolen from them by the wimps that run their government! It is such a pat answer to two problems half a world apart! I'm sure the same principle would be welcomed by freedom lovers from England! (If the wimpy gun whiner can't handle the Outback!). In fact, I'm so sure that this would work. That there are probably English and Aussies that would pay the fare for the wimps!
So Feinstein, Kennedy and Schumer pack your bags, your going to a place where you'll be appreciated! Because YOUR kind of politics aren't welcome here! (And by the way Kennedy, I've heard about your private gun collection - one of the biggest in the WORLD!). To bad you'll have to give it up in Australia! Hypocrite! - EDQ
GunShowOnTheNet.blogspot.com
It is a weak, morally and spiritually, bankrupt soul that would give up their right to self-protection. And put their total trust in government to provide that security. It indicates a personal lack of responsibility and a lazy mentality. To put faith in man as a source of security is a risky proposition. It is common knowledge, or should be, that man is subject to failure. Even God, who is omnipotent, will leave you 'wide-open' if your not in line with His terms. And will allow that you suffer consequences for foolishness.
- EDQ
*****
This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook.
A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders.
Larry Elder
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The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun.
R. Buckminster Fuller
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There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
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"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
Samuel Adams
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...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights...
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 29.
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"The fact you carry a spare tire in your car doesn't mean you're afraid you're going to get a flat," he said. "It's just that should that occur, you want to be prepared." (In reference to the ability to carry a concealed weapon)
Gene German, Certified Firearms Instructor
(From The Wisconsin State Journal Article 'Gun can save your life or get you sent to prison
00:00 am 10/23/05
PHIL BRINKMAN pbrinkman@madison.com
*****
There can by little doubt from this that when the Congress and the people spoke of a "militia", they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group such as what is today called the National Guard. The purpose was to create an armed citizenry, which the political theorists at the time considered essential to ward off tyranny. From this militia, appropriate measures might create a "well regulated militia" of individuals trained in their duties and responsibilities as citizens and owners of firearms.
- Orrin G. Hatch, Chairman of The 1982 United States Senate subcommittee on the Constitution report
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"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We'll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily - given the political realities - very modest. We'll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal.
- Pete Shields, (B.I.H.)
(Isn't that, by ANY definition, called conspiracy and subversion, Pete?)
founder of Handgun Control, Inc., New Yorker Magazine, June 26, 1976, pg. 53
(His shoes were filled by Sarah Brady, another who will B.I.H.)
(From Keep and Bear Arms)
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" This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins."
Ben Franklin
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"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger."
- Daniel Webster
*****
To trust arms in the hands of the people at large has, in Europe, been believed...to be an experiment fraught only with danger. Here by a long trial it has been proved to be perfectly harmless...If the government be equitable; if it be reasonable in its exactions; if proper attention be paid to the education of children in knowledge and religion, few men will be disposed to use arms, unless for their amusement, and for the defence of themselves and their country.
- Timothy Dwight,
Travels in New England and New York [London 1823]
*****
For Men, being all the Workmanship of one Omnipotent, and infinitely wise Maker; All the Servants of one Sovereign Master, sent into the World by his order and about his business, they are his Property, whose Workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure. And being furnished with like Faculties, sharing all in one Community of Nature, there cannot be supposed to be any such Subordination among us, that may Authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made for one anothers uses, as the inferior ranks of Creatures are for ours. Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his Station willfully; so by the like reason when his own Preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of Mankind, and may not unless it be to do Justice on an Offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the Preservation of Life, the Liberty, Health, Limb or Goods of another.
- John Locke, the thinker whose ideas led to Blackstone's Commentaries on English law and liberty and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence had this to say about why it is we have a right to defend our lives - with the deadly force of a gun if need be.
(From Citizen SOLDIER)
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
- Voltaire
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It doesn't require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires to people's minds.
- Samuel Adams
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