Second Amendment Quotes - Page 5

• The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world not destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside ... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them ... the weak will become prey to the strong.

  Thomas Paine

  Strong, Gun, Weak Will

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

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• The balance of power is the scale of peace.

  Thomas Paine

  Balance, Arms, Gun Rights

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

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• Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

  Patrick Henry

  Death, Sweet, Freedom

  Speech in Virginia Convention, Richmond, Va., 23 Mar. 1775.

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• Gun registration is not enough.

  Janet Reno

  Gun, Enough, Registration

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• God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Years, Twenties, Rebellion

  Thomas Jefferson (1861). “Correspondence”, p.318

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• ....there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.

  James Burgh

  Army, Differences, People

  James Burgh (1774). “Political Disquisitions: Or, An Enquiry Into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses”, p.476

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• Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

  Alexander Hamilton

  People, Littles, Right To Bear Arms

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, J.R. Pole (2005). “The Federalist”, p.156, Hackett Publishing

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• The Second Amendment only protects the people who want all the guns they can have. The rest of us, we've got no Second Amendment. What are we supposed to do?

  Louise Slaughter

  Gun, People, Want

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• This [a state militia system] 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.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Army, Right To Bear Arms, Founding Fathers Gun

  John Church Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton (1860). “History of the Republic of the United States of America: As Traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and of His Contemporaries”, p.140

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• Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.... 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

  Military, Government, Europe

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.221

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• By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' 'the security of the nation,' and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy... The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Father, Military

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• Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.

  John Adams

  Strength, Peace, Patriotic

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• The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia.

  Tench Coxe

  Gun, Arms, Framers

  The Pennsylvania Gazette, February 20, 1788.

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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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• That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience.

  John Adams

  Gun, Rights, Liberty

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• The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic.

  Joseph Story

  Gun, Liberty, Bears

  Joseph Story (1833). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.708

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• In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms... If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the 18th century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis.

  Stephen Halbrook

  Writing, Gun, Rights

  "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right". Book by Stephen Halbrook, 1984.

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• A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.

  George Washington

  Wisdom, Military, Independent

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1837). “The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.8

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• 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.

  St. George Tucker

  Army, Gun, Color

  William Blackstone, St. George Tucker (1996). “Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States, and of the Commonwealth of Virginia: With an Appendix to Each Volume, Containing Short Tracts Upon Such Subjects as Appeared Necessary to Form a Connecte”, p.300, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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• No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion.

  James Burgh

  Gun, Thinking, People

  James Burgh (2009). “Political Disquisitions”, p.390, Applewood Books

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• No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Use, Arms, Founding Fathers Gun

  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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• The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.

  Robin Williams

  Funny, Humor, Politics

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• I have a lot of guns on my ranch. I don't use them for hunting. I'm not a hunter. It's for protection. The Second Amendment was designed for tyranny.

  Chuck Norris

  Gun, Hunting, Hunters

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• When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Gun, Government, People

  P. J. O'Rourke (2015). “Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader”, p.694, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.

  Suzanna Hupp

  Taken, Gun, Government

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