From: [gt 6190 a] at [prism.gatech.EDU] (Stephen Burr)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Quotable Quotes (Part 2)
Date: 2 Jul 93 16:05:25 GMT
Here's Part 2. Hope you had fun with the first part.
"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."
- The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,
proposed Sept. 25, 1789; ratified Dec. 15, 1791.
"...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of
individuals...I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty,
subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating
in their purpose."
- Robert Heinlein, in a 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet"
"A constitutional right that cannot be practiced is not right at all;
it's an illusion."
- Senate Majority leader George Mitchell (D Me), January 22,
1993, in a speech to NARAL concerning abortion, but can be
used for any constitutional right.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear
arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyrrany in
government."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee
against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny which
now appears remote to in America, that historically has proven to be
always possible."
- Senator Hubert Humphrey
"The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people
of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
arms"
- Alexander Hamilton
"The right of the citizen 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 usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will
generally, even if these are successful in the first instince, enable
the people to resist and triumph over them."
- Chief Justice Joseph Story
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword
because the whole body of the people are armed."
- Noah Webster
"...arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and
preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would
ensue were [law-abiding citizens] deprived of the use of them."
- Thomas Paine
"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 ratifi-
cation, indicates that what is protected is an individual right
of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
- Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the
Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate,
97th Congress, Second Session ( February 1982 )
"Americans have a right and advantage of being armed -- unlike
the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid
to trust the people with arms."
- James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244.
"The Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting
in concert for the common defense .... And ... these men were
expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of
the kind in common use at the time."
- Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. v. Miller (1939).
"The states cannot, even laying the Constitutional provision
out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms
so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource
for maintaining public security, and disable the people from
performing their duty to general government."
- Supreme Court of the U.S., Presser v. Illinois (1886).
"... 'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in
select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the
Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the
the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms ...."
- Supreme Court of the U.S., U.S. v. Uerdugo-Uriquidez (1990).
"The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be
infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the
people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of
a free country ...."
- James Madison, I Annuals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effective way
to enslave them ...."
- George Mason ( Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia,
1776, which became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights )
3 Elliot, Debate at 380.
"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, Proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776
1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
"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).
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed;
as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme
power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword;
because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute
a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on
any pretense, raised in the United States."
- Noah Webster, "An Examination into the Leading Principles
of the Federal Constitution" (1787), in Pamphlets on the
Constitution of the United States (P. Ford, 1888).
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of
people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when
young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Initiator of the Declaration of
Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed
the Bill of Rights.
"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who
is able may have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification
of the U.S. Constitution.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is
that they be properly armed."
- Alexander Hamilton
"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, "Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789
"No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements."
- Thomas Jefferson, from the Virginia Constitution, Third Draft
"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, 1982 Senate Report
--
Stephen Burr | "Didn't you wonder why you kept getting checks
Georgia Tech, | for doing absolutely nothing?" - Bart Simpson
Atlanta Georgia, 30332 | "I thought it was because the Democrats were
[gt 6190 a] at [prism.gatech.edu] | back in power again." - Grandpa Simpson