Gun Quotes

Here are my favorite gun quotes. This quote sums up the key problem with gun-controllers arguments: they're unintentional hypocrites or fools. You can’t eliminate a tool, or knowledge of it. All that you can do is decide whether there should be a balance of power, or none. Some believe in that balance, others believe that the state is never wrong, especially if you ignore the History of all the times they’ve been wrong in the past.

❝ "If you are for gun control, then you are not against guns, because the guns will be needed to disarm people. Since you'll need the police's guns to take away other people's guns, you're very Pro-Gun. You just believe that only the Government (which is, of course, so reliable, honest, moral, and virtuous...) should be allowed to have guns. There is no such thing as gun control. There is only centralizing gun ownership in the hands of a small, political elite and their minions.' ❞

Stefan Molyneux

---

Liberty

• 

  ❝ Gun control defined: The theory that people who are willing to ignore laws against rape, torture, kidnapping, theft, and murder will obey a law which prohibits them from owning a firearm. ❞

  ' Unknown'

• 

  ❝ Don't think of it as `gun control', think of it as `victim disarmament'. If we make enough laws, we can all be criminals. ❞

  ' Unknown'

• 

  ❝ If the Government doesn't trust us with our guns, why should we trust them with theirs? ❞

  ' Unknown'

• 

  ❝ When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state". ❞

  ' Unknown'

• 

  ❝ A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. ❞

  Edward R. Murrow

• 

  ❝ “The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.” ❞

  Tacitus

• 

  ❝ “A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn’t own.” ❞

  Unknown

---

Founding Fathers

• “Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.” ~ George Washington
• “A free people ought to be armed.”~ George Washington
• "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good" ~ George Washington
• "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
• "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. 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, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
• "As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives [only] 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 to your walks." ~ Thomas Jefferson, writing to his teenaged nephew.
• "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."~ Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
• “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.” ~ Benjamin Franklin, 1759
• “Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.” ~ John Adams
• “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” ~ William Pitt, Nov. 18, 1783
• "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 inevitably ruined." ~ Patrick Henry, speech of June 5 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
• "To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." ~ George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788
• "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
• “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

more...

Legal

"The right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose is not a right granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” ~ Supreme Court: U.S. vs Cruikshank "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.” ~ Supreme Court: Cockrum v. State Supreme Court: D.C. versus Heller (and other rulings) concluded that the 2nd, "protects an individual's right to possess a firearm, unconnected to service in a militia". "The Second Amendment is not the right to shoot deer, it is to defend your liberties if we're taken over by tyrants" ~ Judge Andrew Napolitano (New Jersey Superior Court Judge, Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Brooklyn Law School) "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." ~ Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis "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 Joseph Story, 1840 Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest. ~ From the Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775. The [2nd Amendment] may be considered as the true palladium of liberty… The right of self defense is the first law of nature.... Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color of pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. ~ St. George Tucker (One of the first Judges and law professors to write about the 2A) No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. ~ Political Disquisitions, a British republican tract of 1774-1775 more...

Militia Meaning

Words change meaning over time. The militia means what it meant at the founding, not what the word evolved to mean today. At the time of the writing, the definition of militia was, "The whole body of civilians, that are NOT part of the regular army”. Since the Guard/Reserves are part of the regular army (or reserves), they are the unorganized militia (which was everyone else). Basically, anyone old enough to defend their home, town or country (that was not in the army already) was the militia. But even today, the meaning hasn’t changed as much as some think. Some people mistakenly think it means reserves or National Guard (established 1903, and subject to federal control) — but since those didn’t exist at the time of authoring, there is no way it could have been the type of body envisioned by the framers. Today’s legal definition is, the "militia" consists of "all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age”, with a few exclusions for medical, mental or job deferments (by their choice) (10 U.S.C. 311 and 32 U.S.C. 313). You don’t have to take my word for it, there are multiple Constitutional rulings and the words of the authors listed below more...

Militia Dependent

❝ A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed. ❞ 1st Amendment written as the 2nd Amendment Another common wrong-headed argument is that "you’d have to be in the militia to qualify for the 2nd’s protections". But they’re failing at English and what many English scholars have said about that argument. The "well regulated militia" phrase is an "nominative absolute” phrase which can be ignored. It is merely explanatory (descriptive) and dependent on the rest of the sentence (not the rest of the sentence is a dependent clause on it). Since you ignore nominative/descriptive clauses, the 2nd can be read, "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.” No one would read THAT as you have to be a well-schooled electorate in order to keep and read books. The right to keep and read books must not be infringed, so we can all participate in a well schooled electorate. "Shall not be infringed" is not the type of wording one puts in, when something is conditionally dependent on something else. more...

Individual Right

A recent distraction is, "before the NRA got to it, the 2nd Amendment wasn’t an individual right". That somehow this a right of the people (plural: meaning the collective), and thus not of individuals, thus the people can regulate it away. (The milia is "us", so "we" can say that "you’re" not the militia as an individual, and thus you don’t need your gun). However, six relevant Supreme Court decisions have recognized that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to keep and bear arms, not a collective one. There aren't really collective rights enumerated in the Constitution. The problem is pesky history: the reason the bill of rights was created is because in the ratification of the Constitution there was fighting over the wording of the enumerated rights of individuals. So they agreed to ratify the constitution AND get the bill of rights to enumerate what the individual rights were. So the whole reason why the Bill of Rights (including the 2nd) was written was to protect the individuals rights from the government. The Framers understood the concept of a "right" to apply ONLY to individuals. more...

Well Regulated

Well regulated, at the time (and for 100 years afterward) just meant "something being in proper working order”, well calibrated or functioning as expected. But even if we pretend that it did mean “government regulated” (which it doesn't), it would still be irrelevant, because it was part of a nominative/descriptive clauses, and thus whether the people should be able to keep and bear arms so they can choose to be part of a militia or not, doesn’t change that their right to do so, "shall not be infringed". Civic Responsibility There’s an even more expansive view, that “well regulated” points to the 2nd being more than just a 19th century usage of the term, "an individual right", but instead is the 18th century usage which means "civic right (civic responsibility)". This is even worse for gun controllers, because that view means that you not only had a right to bear arms to belong to a militia, but you also have a civic duty as a citizen to do so (almost mandatory service). Which implies that anyone is failing in their responsibilities as Americans to NOT buy guns and become part of a well functioning militia. So the gun-controllers are better off with it being an individual right, than it being a civic one. However, the invention that "well regulated" might be a back door to inventing new restrictions on the 2nd, wasn’t first heard until the 1960’s. (This was after the first wave of gun control in the 20’s and 30’s had only increased our crimes and shootings). So what this argument is arrogantly proclaiming is that in the 1960's they discovered a word ambiguity that the Founding Fathers, and their progeny, never knew of. Thus for the first ≈200 years of the country, every Historian, Linguist, Legal and Constitutional scholar or mind that had read these things, was too stupid to realize what the 2nd really meant, and thus we should ignore all that common sense and stare decisis (legal precedence, and history), because a few hippie progressives knew more than anyone and everyone else before them. Does anyone really buy that? more...

Famous People

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." ~ Mahatma Gandhi (Not exactly a founding father, but you brought him up without seeming to understand which side of this issue he'd be on) “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” ~ Dalai Lama (Seattle Times, 05-15-2001) ” … the right to defend one’s home and one’s person when attacked has been guaranteed through the ages by common law.” ~ Martin Luther King Love your country, but never trust its government. ~ Robert A. Heinlein. “A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.” ~ Sigmund Freud This is an abbreviated paraphrase of Dreams in Folklore (1958), p. 33, which read: "The representation of the penis as a weapon, cutting knife, dagger etc., is familiar to us from the anxiety dreams of abstinent women in particular and also lies at the root of numerous phobias in neurotic people." "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. ... 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 possible." ~ Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (1960) "Unless you are definite, you must not suppose that you are speaking a language that can become law." ~ Plato, "Laws", Book IV" (≈360BC) - NOTE: Gun-controllers don't know enough about the subject to be definite. more...

Opponents

This first one sums up the anti-gun position perfectly. (It went on to say that "Fear is what motivates most gun extremists, and it's misdirected"). It was a false-dichotomy fallacy, that misrepresents the argument, by a SciFi author with no knowledge of guns or gun control. But I do agree that fear of guns is the problem. It's those that fear their neighbors having a gun for sport or self defense, that are the intolerant extremists that cause friction in society by trying to take other people's liberty and property away. "People who feel safer with a gun than guaranteed medical insurance don't yet have a fully adult concept of scary." ~ William Gibson Here's many others with a like-minded view: The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings. ~ Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, August 1588 Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' ~ Mao Tse-tung, 1938, inadvertently endorsing the Second Amendment. “All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Communist Party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.” ~ Mao Tse-tung The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. ~ Adolf Hitler, April 11 1942 This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilised nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! ~ Adolf Hitler “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” ~ Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements .... They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results." ~ Benito Mussolini "The more complicated in the form of civilization, the more restrictive of freedom we must become". ~ Bonito Mussolini "Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe." ~ Dianne Feinstein "If I could have banned them all - 'Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns' - I would have!" ~ Diane Feinstein “If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves.” ~Joseph Stalin “I did not join the resistance movement to kill people, to kill the nation. Look at me now. Am I a savage person? My conscience is clear.” ~ Pol Pot “Armas para que? (“Guns, for what?”)” A response to Cuban citizens who said the people might need to keep their guns, after Castro announced strict gun control in Cuba. ~ Fidel Castro "My view of guns is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned." ~ Deborah Prothrow-Stith (Dean of Harvard School of Public Health) Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.~ Sarah Brady We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans... ~ Bill Clinton There is no reason for anyone in this country -- anyone except a police officer or military person -- to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. ~ Bill Clinton The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people. ~ Bill Clinton 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 It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school. ~ Joycelyn Elders "I don't care if you want to hunt, I don't care if you think it's your right. I say 'Sorry.' it's 1999. We have had enough as a nation. You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun I think you should go to prison." ~ Rosie O'Donnell (At about the time she said this, Rosie engaged the services of a bodyguard who applied for a gun permit.) "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." ~ Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas. ~ Joseph Stalin more...

Obama Gun Quotes
Q: Why was Obama the best gun salesman in History? A: Because people thought he wanted to restrict their gun rights. Q: Why did people think Obama wanted to restrict their guns? A: Because they listened to what he said. The left likes to pretend the informed are nuts to think Obama is anti-Gun, he just wants reasonable controls. The facts tell a different story. more...

Hillary Clinton: 2nd Amendment

While Hillary tries to play the moderate to those that don't know better, if you have any understanding of her background, you'd know she'd be on the least constitutional, and certainly least pro-2nd Amendment Presidents we've ever had. For me, that's reason enough to never have voted for her. But the denials of those on the left come in two flavors: ignorance or polemics (trying to spin). If you know what you're talking about, there's no doubt of where she stands, only doubt on how successful she'd be at her agenda. more...