Disarming Quotes

• Because you won't get gun control by disarming law abiding citizens. There's only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up, and if you don't actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time.

  Ronald Reagan

  Real, Gun, Thug

  "Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan".

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• 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.

  Joseph Story

  Gun, Tyrants, People

  Joseph Story (1865). “A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States: Containing a Brief Commentary on Every Clause, Explaining the True Nature, Reasons, and Objects Thereof; Designed for the Use of School Libraries and General Readers”, p.264

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• It is always disarming to treat with the enemy, so to speak.

  Morley Safer

  Enemy, Speak, Treats

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• Disarming Iraq is legal under a series of U.N. resolutions. Iraq is in flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

  Jose Maria Aznar

  Iraq, Resolution, Violation

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• What the UN inspectors can do is demonstrate to the world, help the Iraqi government demonstrate to the world that the Iraqis are cooperatively disarming if that is in fact what the Iraqi government decides to do.

  Douglas J. Feith

  Government, World, Facts

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  To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

  George Mason

  Strength, Peace, Gun

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• 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.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Gun, Law

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• [The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression.

  Joel Barlow

  Gun, Men, Hands

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• Understanding the long, sordid history of gun control in America is key to understanding the dangers of disarming.

  Niger Innis

  Gun, Keys, America

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• I think romance is anything honest. As long as it's honest, it's so disarming.

  Kristen Stewart

  Romantic, Thinking, Long

  "Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart's Wild Ride". Interview with Laura Brown, www.harpersbazaar.com. November 4, 2009.

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• I've been very sensitive for a long time to the repeated pattern, during economic hard times or after a war, of the United States' essentially unilaterally disarming.

  Robert M. Gates

  War, Hard Times, Long

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• The time has come to end the deadly experiment of disarming peaceable, law-abiding citizens near schools.

  Steve Stockman

  School, Law, Abiding

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• Melody is disarming. It's anarchic!

  Mika

  Melody

  "Mika meets Dita Von Teese: 'I've had to work hard to stay like this'". Interview with Paul Lester, www.theguardian.com. October 11, 2012.

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• 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

  Mistake, Race, Gun Control

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• The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are
  neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that
  those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will
  respect the less important and arbitrary ones... 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.

  Cesare Beccaria

  Men, Gun, Law

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• 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.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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• False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

  Cesare Beccaria

  Real, Sacrifice, Men

  Cesare Beccaria (1963). “On Crimes and Punishments”, Pearson College Division

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• To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.

  Richard Henry Lee

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Richard Henry Lee (1978). “Letters from the Federal farmer to the Republican”, Univ of Alabama Pr

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• When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British parliament was advised by an artful man [Sir William Keith], 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 to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.

  George Mason

  Men, Gun, America

  George Mason's address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788.

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• Gun control has proved to be a grievous failure, a means of disarming honest citizens without limiting firepower available to those who prey on the law-abiding. Attempting to use the legal system to punish the weapon rather than the person misusing the weapon is similarly doomed to fail.

  Doug Bandow

  Mean, Gun, Law

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• 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

  Gun, Numbers, Government

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• Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe.

  Noah Webster

  Country, Army, Gun

  Noah Webster (1787). “An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed by the Late Convention Held at Philadelphia: With Answers to the Principal Objections that Have Been Raised Against the System”, p.43

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• 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

  Gun, America, Government

  "Know Your Lawmaker". Guns magazine, p. 4, February 1960.

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• The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.

  William Rawle

  Gun, Power, People

  "A view of the Constitution of the United States of America". Book by William Rawle, 1829.

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• It is unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the dangers and threats posed by those who would flout the law. It is at just such times that the constitutional right to self-defense is most precious and must be protected from government overreach.

  Rick Scott

  Government, Self, Law

  "Gov. Rick Scott rejects request to ban concealed weapons outside GOP convention in Tampa", www.foxnews.com. May 2, 2012.

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