I have quoted many of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. These thoughts of the Founding Fathers will help you immensely in gaining a better and more comprehensive understanding of what they meant when they wrote and ratified the Second Amendment.
You may use these quotations and snippets as you see fit. I do not own these quotes, one cannot own quotations. However, if you use my work, I only ask that you mention www.SaveTheGuns.com somewhere in your work or dissertation.
ENJOY.
"I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole body of the people except for a few public officials. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."George Mason
"I ask what is the purpose of the militia? To offset the need of large standing armies, the bane of liberty."Elbridge Gerry
"Altho' a large standing Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a Country, yet a few Troops, under certain circumstances, are not only safe, but indispensably necessary. Fortunately for us our relative situation requires but few. The same circumstances which so effectually retarded, and in the end conspired to defeat the attempts of Britain to subdue us, will now powerfully tend to render us secure. Our distance from the European States in a great degree frees us of apprehension, from their numerous regular forces and the Insults and dangers which are to be dreaded from their Ambition."George Washington May 1, 1783.
"I hope, therefore, a bill of rights will be formed to guard the people against the Federal government as they are already guarded against their State governments, in most instances."Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1788. ME 7:98
"Let us contemplate our forefathers and posterity and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event."Samuel Adams speech, 1771
"I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm house."Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Jacob J. Brown (1808)
"God grants Liberty only to those who live it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."Daniel Webster (1782-1852) (Secretary of State under three U.S. Presidents)
"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
"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
"Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.""M.T. Cicero" 1788
"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."Blackstone's 1768 "Commentaries on the Laws of England"
"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 Coxe, June 18, 1789
"The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms has justly been considered 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, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."Joseph Story, United States Supreme Court Justice, 1833
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."Edmund Burke, Speech at country meeting of Buckinghamshire, 1784
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."Thomas Jefferson
"The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the 'government', not to 'society'; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage."Joel Barlow, Advice to the Privileged Orders, 1792-93
"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 to John Cartwright, 1824
"To each of my Nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Washington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of my swords or Cutteaux of which I may be Possessed; and they are to choose in the order they are named. These Swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheathe them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self defense, or in the defense of their Country and its rights; and in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands, to the relinquishment thereof."George Washington from his Last Will and Testament
"An act against the Constitution is void. An act against natural equity is void."James Otis (1725-1783)
"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..."Noah Webster, An Examination of The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia 1787
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined."Patrick Henry, Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention
"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796
"The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."George Washington
"[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, Advice to the Privileged Orders, 1792-93
"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms never, never, never! You cannot conquer America."William Pitt, Speech, November 18, 1777
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776
"Arms in the hands of individual citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense..."John Adams, A Defense of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America, 1788
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (1744-1814)
"(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."James Madison, The Federalist, Number 46
"None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important."Thomas Jefferson 1803
"Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia is put in the hands of Congress?"Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot Debates 48.
"The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops."James Madison, The Federalist, Number 46, January 29, 1788
"I ask what is the purpose of the militia? To offset the need of large standing armies, the bane of liberty."Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts
"The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people."Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts June 12, 1789
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government."Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #28
"... as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain more for its support, and the other to pay less. And this has alone occasioned great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the Princes, or enslaving of the people. Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever ..."Benjamin Franklin, before the Constitutional Convention, (June 2, 1787)
"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."Thomas Paine
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution June 8, 1789
"They tell us that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Three million people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us."Patrick Henry, 1775
"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense."John Adams
"The power of the sword, say the minority of Pennsylvania, is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for the powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from 16 to 60. 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? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."Tench Coxe, writing as "the Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 1788 (Alexander Hamilton's Chief Assistant in the Treasury Department)
"All persons shall bear arms, and every male person shall have in continual readiness a good musket or other gun, fit for service."Connecticut Gun Code of 1650
"Suppose that we let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal: still it would not be going to far to say that the State governments with the people at their side would be able to repel the danger...half a million citizens with arms in their hands"James Madison, The Federalist Papers
"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."Virginia Declaration of Rights 13 (June 12, 1776), drafted by George Mason
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States....Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America"Gazette of the United States October 14, 1789
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."Thomas Jefferson's advice to his 15 year-old nephew
"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can."Samuel Adams
"...[A]rms 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, Thoughts On Defensive War, 1775
"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, Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788
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 those only 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, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if so dear to the enlightened legislator - and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? 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. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree.Criminologist Cesare Beccaria On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
"... of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny."James Monroe
"...It is always dangerous to the liberties of the people to have an army stationed among them, over which they have no control...The Militia is composed of free Citizens. There is therefore no danger of their making use of their power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them."Samuel Adams
"The constitution ought to secure a genuine militia and guard against a select militia. ....all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments to the community ought to be avoided."Richard Henry Lee
"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
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."John Adams
"...if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to 'bind me in all cases whatsoever' to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?"Thomas Paine
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."James Madison
"I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole body of the people except for a few public officials. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."George Mason
"The militia, who are in fact the effective part of the people at large, will render many troops quite unnecessary. They will form a powerful check upon the regular troops, and will generally be sufficient to over-awe them"Tench Coxe, An American Citizen IV, October 21, 1787
"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."Patrick Henry
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large, is that they be properly armed."Alexander Hamilton
"The said Constitution [shall] 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 of Massachusetts -- U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788
"Are we at least brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own 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, 3 Elliot Debates 168-169.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."Thomas Jefferson, in letter to William S. Smith, 1787
"No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state.... Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen."State Gazette (Charleston), September 8, 1788
"...but 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 use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."Alexander Hamilton Federalist 29
"While the people have property, arms in their hands, and only a spark of noble spirit, the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny."Rev. Nicholas Collin, Fayetteville Gazette (N.C.), October 12, 1789
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe."Noah Webster
"Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature and have been carried to so great lengths as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon the inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense, and as Mr. Blackstone observes it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."From "A Journal of the Times", calling the citizens of Boston to arm themselves in response to British abuses of power, 1769
"And we do each of us, for ourselves respectively, promise and engage to keep a good firelock in proper order, and to furnish ourselves as soon as possible with, and always keep by us, one pound of gunpowder, four pounds of lead, one dozen gunflints, and a pair of bullet moulds, with a cartouch box, or powder horn, and bag for balls."George Mason's Fairfax County Militia Plan, 1775
"Altho' a large standing Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a Country, yet a few Troops, under certain circumstances, are not only safe, but indispensably necessary. Fortunately for us our relative situation requires but few. The same circumstances which so effectually retarded, and in the end conspired to defeat the attempts of Britain to subdue us, will now powerfully tend to render us secure. Our distance from the European States in a great degree frees us of apprehension, from their numerous regular forces and the Insults and dangers which are to be dreaded from their Ambition."George Washington May 1, 1783
"...As there is not the least doubt at present, that the principle Object of the Enemy is to get Possession of the City of Philadelphia, it is absolutely necessary, that every Person able to bear Arms (except such as are Conscientiously scrupulous against it in every Case), should give their personal Service, and whenever a part of the Militia is required only, either to join the Army or find a Man in their place. In order to effect this, I beg you will order the whole Militia of your State to be enrolled and compleatly equipp'd; that one half at least may proceed to join the Army with all possible expedition..."George Washington--to Pennsylvania Safety Council, January 19, 1777
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