100+ Gun Rights Quotes | InspiringQuotes.us

source: Richard Henry Lee, Mercy Otis Warren (1962). “An Additional number of letters from the Federal farmer to the Republican, leading to a fair examination of the system of government, proposed by the late Convention: to several essential and necessary alterations in it; and calculated to illustrate and support the principles and positions laid down in the preceding letters. Together with Oberservations on the new Constitution, and on the Federal and State Conventions by a Columbian patriot”

topic: 4th Of July, Men, People, Strong Arms, Amendment 1

Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. [...] 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

topic: Gun, Men, People, Strong Arms, Militia

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

- Daniel Webster

source: Daniel Webster, James Rees (1839). “The beauties of the Hon. Daniel Webster: selected and arranged, with a critical essay on his genius and writings”, p.30

topic: Mean, Men, Promise, Limited Government, Pro Gun

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

- Mao Zedong

topic: Military, Gun, Political, Military Power, Political Power

Wherever standing armies are kept up, 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

source: William Blackstone, St. George Tucker (1996). “Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Virginia: With an Appendix to Each Volume, Containing Short Tracts Upon Such Subjects as Appeared Necessary to Form a Connecte”, p.300, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

topic: Army, Gun, Color, 2 Amendment, Patriotic Gun

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

source: "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3". Book by Jonathan Elliot, 1836.

topic: Real, Hands, Differences, Handguns, Propriety

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that 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 only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

- Cesare Beccaria

source: Cesare Beccaria (1963). “On Crimes and Punishments”, Pearson College Division

topic: Real, Sacrifice, Men, Disarming, Bearing Arms

A sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer.

- Seneca the Younger

source: "Moral Letters to Lucilius (Letter LXXXVII)". Book by Seneca the Younger, 1920.

topic: Gun, Bearing Arms, 2 Amendment, Pro Gun, Pro Gun Control

If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of criminal acts 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

source: "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms - Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary". Book by Dennis DeConcini and Orrin Hatch, February 1982.

topic: Gun, Law, Drawing, Pro Gun, 2 Amendment

In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.

- Stephen Halbrook

source: "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right". Book by Stephen Halbrook, 1984.

topic: Writing, Gun, Rights, Thesis, Guarded

The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

- Joseph Story

source: Joseph Story (1833). “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”, p.708

topic: Country, Strong, People, Insurrection, 2 Amendment

Whereas, 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; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.

- Richard Henry Lee

source: "An Additional Number of Letters to the Republican". Letters by the Federal Farmer (pseudonym of Richard Henry Lee), Letter XVIII, teachingamericanhistory.org. January 25, 1988.

topic: Men, Practice, People, Nra, Strong Arms

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 band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

- Noah Webster

source: Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

topic: Army, Europe, Law, Handguns, Pretense

A strong body makes the mind strong.

- Thomas Jefferson

topic: Strong, Exercise, Mind, Mind Games, Mind And Body

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

- James Madison

source: James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, James Brown Scott (1999). “The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787: Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America”, p.690, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

topic: Gun, Libertarian Party, Assault Weapons, Fifth Amendment, Militia

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earlthy blessings - give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! . . . Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

- Patrick Henry

source: Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, June 5, 1788.

topic: Freedom, Jealous, Blessing, Individual Liberty, Guards Up

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience.

- John Adams

topic: Gun, Rights, Second Amendment, 2 Amendment, Police Protection

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

- George Mason

topic: People, Liberty, Libertarian, Founding, 2 Amendment

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.