Founding Fathers Gun Quotes

• 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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• 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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  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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• No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Second Amendment, Use, Arms

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.180, Cosimo, Inc.

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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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• 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 of the use of them.

  Thomas Paine

  Motivation, Fear, Gun

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• The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Gun, Rights, People

  "The Federalist Papers". Book by Alexander Hamilton, essay No. 69, 1787 - 1788.

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• The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjugated races to possess arms.

  Adolf Hitler

  Mistake, Gun, People

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• If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

  Dalai Lama

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Dalai Lama urges students to shape world" by Hal Bernton, community.seattletimes.nwsource.com. May 15, 2001.

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• Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.

  George Washington

  Gun, Fake, Second Amendment

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• No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people.

  William Rawle

  Gun, People, Giving

  William Rawle (1829). “A view of the Constitution of the United States of America”, p.125

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• Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.

  John F. Kennedy

  Freedom, Sacrifice, Gun

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• Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?

  Patrick Henry

  Gun, Aggravation, Second Amendment

  "The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution: Volume 3". Book by Jonathan Elliot, 1836.

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• The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.

  Albert Gallatin

  Gun, Rights, People

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  The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.458, Penguin

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• Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Real, Moving, Gun

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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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• We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

  Ayn Rand

  Gun, Government, Historical

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.320, Penguin

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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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• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  Benjamin Franklin, William-Temple Franklin (1818). “Memoirs of the Life and Writings of (the Same), Continued to the Time of His Death by William Temple Franklin. - London, H. Colburn 1818”, p.270

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• Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.

  Thomas Paine

  Gun, Order, Law

  Thomas Paine (2014). “Selected Writings of Thomas Paine”, p.4, Yale University Press

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• 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; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.

  Samuel Adams

  Army, Rights, People

  Debates of the Massachusetts Convention, 1788.

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• The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Freedom, Giving Up

  Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784

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• Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Gun, British Rule In India

  Mahatma Gandhi, General Press (2014). “My Experiments with Truth: An Autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi”, p.681, GENERAL PRESS

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• One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Love, Strength, Hope

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.331

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