Quotes

""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.""

Quote by Noah Webster on armed citizenry vs standing army

""FOR A PEOPLE WHO ARE FREE, AND WHO MEAN TO REMAIN SO, A WELL-ORGANIZED AND ARMED MILITIA IS THEIR BEST SECURITY.""

Quote by Thomas Jefferson on well-organized and armed militia

""And 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.""

Quote by Thomas Jefferson on spirit of resistance

""Let the right to bear arms be esteemed sacred, never to be surrendered. Let the ordinary military duty be esteemed a pleasure and not an imposed task or disgusting toil. Remember you are then preparing yourselves to defend your happy country from the foes of its liberties and glory. In the countries of tyrants the citizen is not permitted to bear arms, formidable to none but tyrants. Citizen Soldiers, should ever a foreign or domestic tyrant insult you by daring to command you to deliver up your arms, may you send him back the Spartan answer, Come and take them!""

Quote by Moses Hall Jr. on revolutionary veteran

""It will be on all hands admitted, that the freedom of a state must be ultimately protected by a military force of some description or other; and that its efficacy will ever depend upon order and discipline—Without these, to use the phrase of an able statesman, the largest body of armed men will ever be a contemptible mob, easily dispersed. They never will be able to sustain a serious charge from half their number of troops of a contrary description. It follows then, that our citizens must submit to such discipline as will constitute them a well regulated military force, or commit the protection of their lives, liberty and property, into the hands of standing troops; which, by the experience of all ages, has been found to be a dangerous measure.""

Quote by Maryland Gazette on well regulated military force

""The phrase 'well-regulated' was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Establishing government oversight of the people's arms was not only not the intent in using the phrase in the 2nd amendment, it was precisely to render the government powerless to do so that the founders wrote it.""

Quote by "Well-Regulated" Definition on historical usage

""That article of the constitution of the United States, respecting the militia, expressly directs, that Congress shall 'provide for arming' the militia. They have not done it. The National Legislature have neglected what they ought have done the moment it was in their power, to have apportioned arms, accoutrements, &c. to the amount, at least, of one-sixth of the number of the enrolled militia; established arsenals for their preservation, with magazines of powder and ball, and camp equipage, &c. But, instead of doing this, Congress, by their militia law of 1792, order every citizen enrolled to provide himself with arms, &c. and in five years require all muskets to have bores sufficient for balls of the eighteenth part of a pound... The amendment of the constitution of the United States, cited, secures 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms;' nor will the constitution of the United States, or the rights of the States, or of the people, be infringed, and I am very confident not endangered, if the concurrent authority of the National Government is exercised to provide arms, establish magazines, &c. and to arm indeed the great body of the militia of the United States.""

Quote by Governor Joseph Bloomfield on congressional militia duty

""[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.""

Quote by James Madison on armed americans vs governments

""The need for community security had produced a traditional duty to be armed at English law, but it took the religious and political turmoil of seventeenth-century England to transform that duty into a political right. The attempts by Stuart Kings Charles II and James II to disarm large portions of the population, particularly Protestants and suspected political opponents, met with popular resistance and helped implant into English and later American constitutional sensibilities the belief that the right to possess arms was of fundamental political importance. These efforts led to the adoption of the seventh provision of the English Bill of Rights in 1689: 'That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.'""

Quote by English Bill of Rights (1689) on historical foundation

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."

Quote by Quote #2: Citizen on soldiers

"THE CONSTITUTIONS OF MOST OF OUR STATES ASSERT THAT ALL POWER IS INHERENT IN THE PEOPLE; THAT THEY MAY EXERCISE IT BY THEMSELVES, IN ALL CASES TO WHICH THEY THINK THEMSELVES COMPETENT, (AS IN ELECTING THEIR FUNCTIONARIES EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE, AND DECIDING BY A JURY OF THEMSELVES, BOTH FACT AND LAW, IN ALL JUDICIARY CASES IN WHICH ANY FACT IS INVOLVED) OR THEY MAY ACT BY REPRESENTATIVES, FREELY AND EQUALLY CHOSEN; THAT IT IS THEIR RIGHT AND DUTY TO BE AT ALL TIMES ARMED; THAT THEY ARE ENTITLED TO FREEDOM OF PERSON; FREEDOM OF RELIGION; FREEDOM OF PROPERTY; AND FREEDOM OF THE PRESS."

Quote by Thomas Jefferson on popular sovereignty and arms

""In both New-England, and New-York, every man is permitted, and in some, if not all the States, is required to possess fire arms. To trust arms in the hands of the people at large has, in Europe, been believed, and so far as I am informed universally, to be an experiment, fraught only with danger. Here by a long trial it has been proved to be perfectly harmless: neither public nor private evils having ever flowed from this source, except in instances of too little moment to deserve any serious regard.""

Quote by Timothy Dwight on new england arms experience