"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, Walter
Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican, at 21,22,124 [Univ. of
Alabama Press,1975])
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men
capable of bearing arms." (Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer
[1788] at 169)
"The constitution ought to secure a genuine militia and guard against a select militia. ...All
regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing
select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests
and attachments to the community ought to be avoided."
(Richard Henry Lee)

“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. This is not to say that firearms should not be very
carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the
right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more
safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be
always possible.”

~ Hubert H. Humphrey
(1911-1978) US Vice-President, US Senator (D-MN)
In fact, an exhaustive study was made of this subject by the Senate Subcommittee on the
Constitution entitled The Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Its chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch said:
“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, and 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.” (quoted in The
Making of America, p.695)

Richard Henry Lee: “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.”
Samuel Adams : “The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to …
prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
arms.”
Patrick Henry : “The great object is that every man be armed…. Everyone who is able may
have a gun.”
The Founders knew the danger of standing armies :
Zacharia Johnson : “[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full
possession of them. The Virginia delegation’s recommended bill of rights included the following:
That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the
body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that
standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided as
far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the
military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” (Virginia
Ratifying Convention)
The Founders knew the schemes rulers use to disarm the people :
George Mason : [W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the
British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm
the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not
do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…I ask, who are the militia? They
consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be
the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future
day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor… (Virginia Ratifying
Convention)
The Founders asked who is to be trusted more–the people or the Congress?
Patrick Henry : “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 defence 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?” … (Virginia Ratifying
Convention)

“Itis interesting to hear certain kinds of people insist that the citizen
cannot fight the government. This would have been news to the men
of Lexington and Concord, as well as the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.
The citizen most certainly can fight the government, and usually wins
when he tries. Organized national armies are useful primarily for
fighting against other organized national armies. When they try to
fight against the people, they find themselves at a very serious
disadvantage. If you will just look around at the state of the world
today, you will see that the guerillero has the upper hand. Irregulars
usually defeat regulars, providing they have the will. Such fighting is
horrible to contemplate, but will continue to dominate brute strength.”
“One cannot legislate the maniacs off the street… these maniacs can
only be shut down by an armed citizenry. Indeed bad things can
happen in nations where the citizenry is armed, but not as bad as
those which seem to be threatening our disarmed citizenry in this
country at this time.”
“Owning a handgun doesn’t make you armed any more than owning a
guitar makes you a musician.”
“Remember the first rule of gunfighting… ‘have a gun.’”
“The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development,
and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to
the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not
only acceptable, but mandatory.”
“The media insist that crime is the major concern of the American
public today. In this connection they generally push the point that a
disarmed society would be a crime-free society. They will not accept
the truth that if you take all the guns off the street you still will have a
crime problem, whereas if you take the criminals off the street you
cannot have a gun problem.” - Jeff Cooper
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
Tacitus
“Nowhere else in the Constitution does a 'right' attributed to 'the
people' refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more,
in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention 'the people,'
the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political
community, not an unspecified subset...The Second Amendment
extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable
arms...The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes
the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be
infringed.'”
Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“Let us hope our weapons are never needed – but do not forget what the common
people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first
defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are
outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police,
the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government – and a few
outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.”

Edward Abbey
“But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding
that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct
of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such
rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.”

Jeff Snyder
“I would like to see every woman know how to handle [firearms] as naturally as they
know how to handle babies.”
Annie Oakley
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