The Gun Thread

"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 ..."
-- Patrick Henry, Elliot p. 3:50-53, in Virginia Ratifying Convention demanding a guarantee of the right to bear arms

"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."
-- Zacharia Johnson, delegate to Virginia Ratifying Convention, Elliot, 3:645-6

"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 always possible."
-- Hubert H. Humphrey, Senator, Vice President, 22 October 1959

"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, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833

" ... most attractive to Americans, the possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave, it being the ultimate means by which freedom was to be preserved."
-- James Burgh, 18th century English Libertarian writer, Shalhope, The Ideological Origins of the Second Amendment, p.604

"The right [to bear arms] is general. It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the laws, are liable to the performance of military duty, and are officered and enrolled for service when called upon.... f the right were limited to those enrolled, the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether by the action or the neglect to act of the government it was meant to hold in check. The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose. But this enables the government to have a well regulated militia; for to bear arms implies something more than mere keeping; it implies the learning to handle and use them in a way that makes those who keep them ready for their efficient use; in other words, it implies the right to meet for voluntary discipline in arms, observing in so doing the laws of public order."
-- Thomas M. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law, Third Edition [1898]

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress ... to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.... "
--Samuel Adams








We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the Colonists.


--Patrick Henry





"Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians." -Alexander Hope, from the novel "Hope" by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman





If you have the right to own a gun you are a citizen.
If you don't have the right to own a gun you are a subject.





"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... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding."

-Jeff Snyder, author American Handgunner, Second Amendment Foundation Officer





No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people
to retain thier right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against TYRANNY IN GOVERNMENT
----THOMAS JEFFERSON





http://freedomkeys.com/r2kba.htm



"Imagine that! The Supreme Court actually found that ALL of the amendments in the Bill of Rights protect the rights of individuals, not just nine of them. What a country!" -- Neal Boortz, June 30, 2008


"God created men and women in all sizes, but it was Samuel Colt who made them all equal." -- old American adage


"A lot of people who didn't understand the need for civilians to bear arms on Sept. 10 were pretty clear on the issue by Sept. 12." -- Tim Slagle





"90 percent of violent crimes are committed without a handgun. Of those committed with a handgun, 93 percent of the guns used were obtained through unlawful means. Registration and waiting times are of little value in deterring criminals." -- Dr. Walter E. Williams
[For those who may be mathmatically-challenged, that means LESS THAN ONE OUT OF 100 violent crimes involved handguns obtained by lawful means. -- ed.]





"The trouble with so-called 'sensible gun laws' is that they make absolutely no sense. The politicians who pass them are asking Americans to believe that a cunning serial killer will walk into a gun store, produce a valid ID, and buy a firearm that can be traced directly to him. The American people may be scared, but they're not scared senseless." -- George Getz, www.LP.org





"What sort of a brain-dead idiot does it take to actually believe that gun laws will prevent criminals from obtaining and carrying guns?" -- Neal Boortz



"If a law could keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be virtually no violent crime at all." -- Harry Browne





"An armed society is a polite society."-- Robert A. Heinlein





“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his palace, his possessions are safe.” -- Jesus at Luke 11:21





Criminals prefer unarmed victims. Dictators require unarmed subjects.





"70,000,000 gun owners in America behaved peacefully today..." -- relayed by Shonda Ponder





"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. 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." -- Henry St. George Tucker, in Blackstone'ss 1768 Commentaries on the Laws of England





"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right to bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is just one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible." -- Hubert Horatio Humphrey, 1960

"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


Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to
keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
-- U.S. Constitution, Amendment II





"The militia of the United States consists of all able bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . . under 45 years of age who are . . . citizens of the United States." -- Title 10, Section 311(a), UNITED STATES CODE





“I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people ... To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -- George Mason (who opposed ratification oof the Constitution without the Bill of Rights)





"Nowadays it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as 'the state militia,' but 200 years ago any band of paid, semiprofessional part-time volunteers, like today's Guard, would have been called 'a select corps,' or 'select militia' -- and viewed in many quarters as little better than a standing army. In 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, 'the militia' referred to all citizens capable of bearing arms." -- Prof. Akil Reed Amar of the Yale School of Law here



"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed" -- Noah Webster





"Their swords, and every other terrible instrument of the soldier, are the birth right of an American. ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or the state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- Tench Coxe, noted federalist and friend of James Madison, writing in defense of the proposed Constitution, in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788





"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."
-- Mohandas Ghandi.





"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

"And that the said Constitution be never 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, Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, printed in "Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts", at 86-87 (Peirce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)





"The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens to 'keep and bear arms'. If it had, there would have been wording such as 'the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'." -- Ken Konecki on Usenet, on 27 Jul 1992





"Suppose the Second Amendment said, 'A well-educated Electorate, being necessary for self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.' Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?" -- Georgetown University professor Robert Levy





"A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall not be infringed." -- a cynical look at how gun-grabbers read the second amendment, from Vin at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8786/drega.htm



"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military." -- William Burroughs (b. 1914) author, "The War Universe"





"I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco..." -- P.J. O'Rourke, author of "Parliament of Whores"





"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1848 ... "And how does an unarmed people do that?"-- Rick Jennings





"The People are responsible for being the Fourth 'check and balance' upon the power of government. If we fail to restrain our political leaders by threat of mortal accountability then we are assured of political leaders who will act with impunity against us." -- Peter Finn





"Being unarmed, among the other harm it brings you, causes you to be despised." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato (427-347 B.C.)





"Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est." ("A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hands.") -- Seneca (Lucius Annaes Seneca "the youngeer", ca. 4 BC - 65 AD)





"He [Jesus] said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.' " (Luke 22:36)



The Spirit of Resistance


"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356


"Governments, wherein the will of every one has a just influence... has its evils,... the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. [I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.] Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:64


"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere." -- Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787


"I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is medicine necessary for the sound health of government." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:65


"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms." -- Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith regarding the Shays Rebellion, 1787. ME 6:372


"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356


-- from http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0300.htm


"[A]ll power is inherent in the people ... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed," -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Cartwright, 1824



"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." -- Declaration of Independence





"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned." -- Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1, Section 21, which is older than the U. S. Constitution, which was based, in large part, upon it.





"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year ... 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 the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 29

"[T]he advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 46





[And The People must MAINTAIN their ABILITY to do such altering, abolishing and instituting]: “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, (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, p. 334, 1950)





"The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay





"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 usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1891





"Only a government that does not trust its citizens would refuse them the right to bear arms." -- Curt Weldon

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence." -- Often attributed to George Washington, although no one has been able to corroborate the attribution. Again, attribute it to yourself if you want to use it. Using unverifiable quotations plays into the hands of the enemies of gun rights, as they can then focus only on the quotations.





"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned." -- Sometimes attributed to James Madison, but no one has been able to corroborate that he ever said it or wrote it (Actually, it comes from the Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1, Section 21, which is older than the U.S. Constitution, which was based, in large part, upon it.) One more time: you can always attribute an unsourced quote to yourself if you want to use it. Using unverifiable quotations plays into the hands of the enemies of gun rights, as they can then focus only on the quotations. Whatever, you CAN easily find the source for this one: "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 usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1891





"My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. 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." -- Justice Alex Kozinski in his dissent on the case of Silveira v. Lockyer, United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, 2003

"If your most basic right is the right to life, then it seems obvious to me that you have the right to defend your life. Guns are, in this century, the most effective means of doing so - so effective that every genocide has only been carried out against victims who were disarmed by their governments." -- William G. Hartwell


"All too many of the other great tragedies of history -- Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few -- were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations."-- Justice Alex Kozinski, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals





"The Founding Fathers of the United States thought they had found a way to successfully head off the degeneration of governments into pathological monstrosities: ensure that the people remain armed, and teach them that it is part of their duty as free citizens to check the arrogance of government — by threat of armed revolt or by actual revolution, if need be. Thomas Jefferson would have asked why the Jews and Gypsies of Germany allowed themselves to be disarmed by Nazi gun-confiscation laws without rising in revolt — and, more pointedly, why the soi-disant civilized nations of the world did not see the confiscation of civilian weapons as a sure harbinger of the Holocaust to come." -- Eric S. Raymond

"The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government." -- The Supreme Court of the United States, in U.S. v. Cruikshank



“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -- Alexander Hamilton





"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." -- Thomas Jefferson





"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





"...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 [the law-abiding] deprived the use of them." -- Thomas Paine





“I would never invade the United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” -- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese naval forces and architect of the Pearl Harbor, Early in World War II





"That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- Eric Blair, aka George Orwell

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764





"It is your responsibility to protect yourself and your family from criminals. If you rely on the government for protection, you are going to be at least disappointed and at worst injured or killed." -- from "A message from the sheriff" on the back of a victims' rights pamphlet by five-term San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters (L) of Telluride, Colorado





"We recall that the Framers' militia was not an elite fighting force but the entire citizenry of the time ... Since the Second Amendment explicitly declares that its purpose is to preserve a well-regulated militia, the right to bear arms was universal in scope. The vision animating the amendment was nothing less than popular sovereignty applied in the military realm. The Framers recognized that self-government requires the People's access to bullets as well as ballots. The armed citizenry (militia) was expected to protect against not only foreign enemies, but also a potentially tyrannical federal government. In short, the right to bear arms was intended to ensure that our government remained in the hands of the People." -- Prof. Akil Reed Amar of the Yale School of Law and Alan Hirsch who, like Amar, is a former editor of the Yale Law Journal, in For the People: What the Constitution Really Says About Your Rights (N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1998).

That was before Jesus.

"In a new draft article, 'St. George Tucker’s Second Amendment: Deconstructing 'The True Palladium of Liberty' [pdf],' Stephen P. Halbrook takes the reader step-by-step through Tucker's monumentally influential annotated American Blackstone, the most important legal treatise of the Early Republic. Analyzing Tucker's Blackstone, and other writings by Tucker, Halbrook shows that Tucker explicitly recognized the Second Amendment as an individual right, including the right to posses firearms for personal self-defense, unrelated to militia duty." -- David Kopel



"To the framers, it was simple enough. Recognition of the right of all law-abiding persons to have firearms would promote a militia, which
is superior to a standing army for protection of liberty. Promotion of the militia was a serious federal purpose, but the right was not limited to militia use." -- Second Amendment expert Stephen P. Halbrook, Research Fellow, The Independent Institute



“...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it ever 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." -- Daniel Webster





"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 crime."
-- The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Report of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1982, p. vii





Santa Cruz is a very pretty coastal town in the Bay Area of California, and as such is usually a sanctuary for left-wingers and their various causes. Oddly enough, the Santa Cruz Sentinel had a favorable article yesterday about parents who buy guns for their children and teach them responsible handling. The article even quoted a gun-control advocate who admitted, "If there’s going to be a gun in the house, the parents who teach their kids how to handle it are doing the right thing."





Another excerpt from the article: "...children who grow up in hunting families develop a deep respect for guns and their dangers. When such a child receives his or her own gun, the weapon itself delivers only half the thrill; the other half comes from the trust it conveys."





Hmmm..."trust" and "respect." Sounds like good old-fashioned American family values to me.
-- Neal Boortz at http://www.boortz.com/dec20-01.htm



“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the people's liberty teeth keystone... the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable... more than 99% of them by their silence indicate that they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference. When firearms go, all goes, we need them every hour.” -- George Washington, Address to 1st session of Congress
“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, (The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, p. 334, 1950)





“Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised...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, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia... ” -- George Mason (In Virginia's Ratifying Convention, Elliot p.3:379-380)





“Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense... ” -- John Adams, A Defense of the Constitution of the Government of the USA, p.471





"The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals." -- James Monroe, November 16, 1818





“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the right of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; ...or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” -- Sam Adams (Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, p86-87)

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed...” -- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787





“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.” -- Tench Cox (introduction to his discussion, and support, of the 2nd Amend) "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution", Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789, pg.2

"The simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process. In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went"). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble."All too many of the other great tragedies of history -- Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few -- were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here." -- Federal Appellate Judge Alex Kozinski, once a refugee from Romanian tyranny himself, in his stinging dissent (one of six) of the May 6, 2003 "Silveira vs. Lockyear" decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which upheld the constitutionality of California’s so-called "Assault Weapons Control Act." The full text of Judge Kozinski's dissent can be found here -- it starts on page 2, and ends on page 6 of this pdf file: http://snipurl.com/hx7o



"There are now two circuits in conflict over the meaning of the Second Amendment (the Ninth and the Fifth). The stage thus may be set for a momentous Supreme Court decision." -- Liberator Online, Vol. 8, No. 7



"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." -- Joseph Stalin





"One man with a gun can control 100 without one." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin





"I'm not for gun control; I'm for self control." -- Ambassador Alan Keyes





"Free men don't ask permission to bear arms." -- Glen Aldrich





"Democracy is defended in 3 stages. Ballot Box, Jury Box, Cartridge Box." -- Ambrose Bierce





"Liberty is preserved with 4 boxes: soap, jury, ballot, and cartridge." -- Dan Skinner

"...observe that genocide has not occurred where the citizenry is armed..." -- Carl P. Close





"There IS no exemption in the law. There is NO 'gun-show loophole.' It does NOT exist." -- Neal Boortz, 12-21-2001





"Statistics quoted by anti-gun, pro-gun-control freaks are 43 times more likely to be fiction than fact." -- Bert Rand





"The Second Amendment does not stand for the right to hunt, but to overthrow a corrupt government." -- "Standing United"

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." -- Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928





"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?"


– Alexander Solzhenitsyn





"When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again." -- Edith Hamilton





"There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust." -- Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24



"One step at a time..."


"We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time. ... The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced.... The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all
handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal."


-- Nelson T. (Pete) Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc., in New Yorker Magazine, July 26, 1976.





Gangsters For Gun Control


"Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger [without one]. We'll see who wins."


-- Mobster Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, interviewed by Howard


Blum in Vanity Fair, September 1999




"If you want to be a dictator, you've got a problem: you need a way to keep the
population under control. Actually, you need two ways. The first is you've got to have the guns and your opponents must not. If you're the dictator, a bunch of people are not going to like it, either because they want to be the dictator, or they don't want anyone being the dictator, or they don't want you (or anyone)
dictating to them. Ask yourself: Is there any example of a dictator--Great Helmsman, Dear Leader, Father of the People, whatever--right or left, hard-hat or tin-pot, who faced an armed citizenry and survived? No."


-- D. L. Brooks





“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own
downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or police.”


– Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938
Translation: Jews Forbidden to Possess Weapons By Order of SS Reichsfuhrer Himmler
Munich, November 19 [1938]





The SS Reichsfuhrer and German Police Chief has issued the following Order: Persons who, according to the Nuremberg law, are regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess any weapon. Violators will be condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a period of up to 20 years.





"The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew government power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies." -- Rick Gaber





"Give a good man great powers and crooks grab his job." -- Rick Gaber





"But when shall we be stronger? ...Will it be when we are totally disarmed...?"-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775





"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 crime." -- Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) quoted from "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Report of the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 1982, p. vii.

"Anyone who thinks that government -- any government -- has the right to disarm its citizens is not a libertarian." -- David F. Nolan, Founder, Libertarian Party

"If someone decides to start shooting everyone in sight, let's wait for the police to arrive even if it takes two hours for the cops to respond to a 911 call. Let's let the criminal keep shooting and reloading and shooting and reloading until the police arrive. No need for us to have any weapons of our own." -- Charles Champion, tongue planted firmly and angrily in cheek, in a message to the Libertarian Party of Florida egroup, May 26, 2000"





For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special." -- James Bovard





"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

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." — Patrick Henry, Virginia's Ratification convention, 1788 "The great object is that every man be armed." -- Patrick Henry, during the Constitutional convention, as quoted in Elliot's Debates, 1836





"I am warning people not to stand against men with rifles when you are unarmed. Get the firepower, one way or another, and learn how to use it, then you may have a chance at liberty -- you can not have it, or keep it, without firepower. And that remains true even if you win some soldiers over to your side with appeals to their reason." -- Paul Marks





"Americans used to roar like lions for liberty, now we bleat like sheep for security." -- Norman Vincent Peale





“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger in the end is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing.” -- Helen Keller





"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves." -- Edward R. Morrow





"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." -- Edward Abbey

"As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure." -- Thomas Paine, Dissertations on First Principles of Government



" In other words, 'Gun control' isn't just 'victim disarmament'; more precisely, it is 'making the world safe for control-freak politicians and bureaucrats (and, yes, for criminals and gangs, too, by the way)'." -- Bert Rand





Big-government worshiping gun-controllers never admit it -- that their real agenda is to "make the world safe for control-freak politicians and bureaucrats." They know it would make too many people wake up and think. Instead, however, they pathetically believe they've trumped all gun rights arguments anyway -- by gleefully dishing up their ridiculous "final argument," which is: "...but guns were invented for killing!" -- to which, I submit, the proper response is: "DUH! -- and THAT'S EXACTLY why a hundred-pound woman (or a 125-pound shopkeeper) can scare away 600 pounds of male attackers. Did you think pepper spray would do that?? Hmmm?" Besides, you can never 'UN-INVENT' technology, including guns or anything else, for criminey sake. Some people seem to be totally brain-dead!

"Gun Control is BRASS. BRASS=Breathe, Relax, Acquire your target, Sight alignment, Squeeze the trigger..." -- George Bagley

“etween an armed and an unarmed man, there is no comparison whatsoever . . . An unarmed man is, by definition, a dependent. He is incapable of securing his own safety. He must depend on someone else to defend him against attack, whether from a stray dog, a lone criminal, an organized gang, or a foreign army. He rightly fears any separation from society, because solitude separates him from those who can defend him and singles him out as a target for those who might wish to harm him. He is tied by his interest in self-preservation to whoever assumes the burden of defending him. His need to be defended puts him at the mercy of his defender, and over time, he by necessity becomes their subject." -- Nicolo Machievelli, The Prince





"Much of the American left fools itself that civilian firearms don't matter in the political power equation, but conservatives know better." -- Eric Raymond





"There IS no exemption in the law. There is NO 'gun-show loophole.' It does NOT exist."-- Neal Boortz





"Guns cause crime like wet sidewalks cause rain, cameras cause pornography, and spoons cause Rosie to be fat and stupid." -- Neal Boortz





A little old lady mentioned she carried a firearm. She was asked what she was afraid of. She replied, “Nothing”.

I think we get it brother...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365103/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook

by Stephen P. Halbrook December 2, 2013 4:00 AM

The Weimar Republic’s well-intentioned gun registry became a tool for evil. The perennial gun-control debate in America did not begin here. The same arguments for and against were made in the 1920s in the chaos of Germany’s Weimar Republic, which opted for gun registration. Law-abiding persons complied with the law, but the Communists and Nazis committing acts of political violence did not.

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for “public safety.”

The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group. In 1933, the ultimate extremist group, led by Adolf Hitler, seized power and used the records to identify, disarm, and attack political opponents and Jews. Constitutional rights were suspended, and mass searches for and seizures of guns and dissident publications ensued. Police revoked gun licenses of Social Democrats and others who were not “politically reliable.” During the five years of repression that followed, society was “cleansed” by the National Socialist regime. Undesirables were placed in camps where labor made them “free,” and normal rights of citizenship were taken from Jews.

The Gestapo banned independent gun clubs and arrested their leaders. Gestapo counsel Werner Best issued a directive to the police forbidding issuance of firearm permits to Jews.

In 1938, Hitler signed a new Gun Control Act. Now that many “enemies of the state” had been removed from society, some restrictions could be slightly liberalized, especially for Nazi Party members. But Jews were prohibited from working in the firearms industry, and .22 caliber hollow-point ammunition was banned.

The time had come to launch a decisive blow to the Jewish community, to render it defenseless so that its “ill-gotten” property could be redistributed as an entitlement to the German “Volk.” The German Jews were ordered to surrender all their weapons, and the police had the records on all who had registered them. Even those who gave up their weapons voluntarily were turned over to the Gestapo. This took place in the weeks before what became known as the Night of the Broken Glass, or Kristallnacht, occurred in November 1938. That the Jews were disarmed before it, minimizing any risk of resistance, is the strongest evidence that the pogrom was planned in advance.

An incident was needed to justify unleashing the attack. That incident would be the shooting of a German diplomat in Paris by a teenage Polish Jew. Hitler directed propaganda minister Josef Goebbels to orchestrate the Night of the Broken Glass.

This massive operation, allegedly conducted as a search for weapons, entailed the ransacking of homes and businesses, and the arson of synagogues. SS chief Heinrich Himmler decreed that 20 years be served in a concentration camp by any Jew possessing a firearm. Rusty revolvers and bayonets from the Great War were confiscated from Jewish veterans who had served with distinction. Twenty thousand Jewish men were thrown into concentration camps, and had to pay ransoms to get released. The U.S. media covered the above events.

And when France fell to Nazi invasion in 1940, the New York Times reported that the French were deprived of rights such as free speech and firearm possession just as the Germans had been. Frenchmen who failed to surrender their firearms within 24 hours were subject to the death penalty. No wonder that in 1941, just days before the Pearl Harbor attack, Congress reaffirmed Second Amendment rights and prohibited gun registration.

In 1968, bills to register guns were debated, with opponents recalling the Nazi experience and supporters denying that the Nazis ever used registration records to confiscate guns. The bills were defeated, as every such proposal has been ever since, including recent “universal background check” bills.

As in Weimar Germany, some well-meaning people today advocate severe restrictions, including bans and registration, on gun ownership by law-abiding persons. Such proponents are in no sense “Nazis,” any more than were the Weimar officials who promoted similar restrictions. And it would be a travesty to compare today’s situation to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Still, as history teaches, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

— Stephen Halbrook is a research fellow with the Independent Institute and the author of the new book, Gun Control in the Third Reich: Disarming the Jews and “Enemies of the State.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365103/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook

I have always had guns in my house and raised two families with kids. Never was there any danger involved. The guns were secured from the very young. When they got a little older they learned about gun safety and respect. If they wanted to learn to shoot them, they had that too.

Wrong, grasshopper.... statistically a car is MUCH more dangerous to have around. Statistically, 5 gallon buckets are more dangerous to have around when there are children in the house.

Absolutely not. I know what lies ahead for me. Am I anxious to needlessly speed that process up? No. Am I willing to stand by and let a criminal harm or end the life of one of my loved ones, or friends? No.

Yes, Captain Obvious. Parents shouldn't toss the car keys to a child and say "here... go have fun", either.
Adults should act responsibly.

And, if parents didn't own cars, children wouldn't get killed by parents backing over them in the driveway. And if parents didn't own swimming pools, children would not drown in them.... to the tune of 175, 000 PER YEAR.

There have been MANY quotes from people WAY more learned than you or I that explain why we should never give up our right to own firearms. You should read each of those quotes, and really think about what was said... and who said it. Perhaps some of that knowledge, born of experience will sink in.

Look.... I get it. You don't like guns. For some unfathomable reason, you think a "Christian" shouldn't own one. Jesus even told his followers to bring swords with them....

I firmly believe that if you are afraid of owning a gun, you should NEVER own one. Doesn't bother me in the least.

Your trying to force your phobias on all other folks DOES bother me. Keep your misguided paranoia to yourself, please...

I have noticed this in liberals recently if they have an unreasonable/irrational fear they expect everyone else to respond as though they do as well rather than recognizing it and dealing with it maturely.
No offense intended in that statement. We are all expected to grow and mature in our faith and relationship with one another and in Christ, giving over to the enemy who would have us live in fear of an inanimate object is far from that.

for each one of us in our journeys, we must simply 'listen' to The Holy Spirit according to our circumstance' -
yes, you can have your own opinions, but you can't know the circumstances of other private lives -
hence, learn to accept and be open to your brothers and sisters as they struggle and learn how to survive,
hopefully they are listening and obeying The Holy Spirit's guiding...

each of us have our own journey to conquer...

Actually since we are hidden in Christ, and He is us, we don't have an opinion, we have a position based on His Word and direction. Were we to believe our opinion mattered we would be exalting ourselves, Jesus asks 1st place in our lives, He is clear we are to fear not. If we fear we are not complete in Him as we need to be. Fear is not of G-d.
We are or should be, being conformed to the image of the son, I hope we can all look back 5 or 10 years or so and see how we are each closer to Jesus than we were then.
John 16-13 tells us when Holy Spirit comes, He will guide, speak, and show.
Watching for His leading, prompting and showing as He stretches us from events from the Creator to lifestyle, much like the prophets in the old testament, they carried the Spirit of G-d with them, and stronger over time, as we know from scripture when we draw near to G-d,He will draw near to us.
His Will becomes our will, then He will supply all our needs, over and above what we could imagine.
That is how Jesus can say, My yoke is easy, My burden is light.
what say you?
blessings

Nothing was before Jesus, He has always been.
Was there in the creation.

It should be easier to walk in His Power now that He indwells us.

of course it is 'easier' but not complete, as it is our brand new journey -
we are in a new stage of our growth which will eventually lead us into
the Holiness of His True reality...

The problem of being "complete" is always down here, never up there, He has finished His Work.

Amen,
but we have not...