The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons.more Colorado Constitution quotes |
[The state] cannot disarm any class of persons or deprive them of the right guaranteed under section 13, article 2 of the Constitution, to bear arms in defense of home, person, and property. The guaranty thus extended is meaningless if any person is denied the right to possess arms for such protection....more Colorado Supreme Court quotes |
A governmental purpose to control or prevent certain activities, which may be constitutionally subject to state or municipal regulation under the police power, may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms. Even though the governmental purpose may be legitimate and substantial, that purpose cannot be pursued by means that broadly stifle fundamental personal liberties when the end can be more narrowly achieved.more Colorado Supreme Court quotes |
Eight days after taking over the reins of his country, a beloved leader urged everyone to turn in their arms - “There is no longer an enemy,” he said. A slogan, “Arms—What For?” appeared throughout the nation. Thirty days later he ordered his militia to turn in their arms. Promised elections are cancelled, the loved leader becomes a tyrant and his people lose all rights, including freedom of speech and press, becoming a totalitarian state for the next 35 years. For those Americans currently willing to agree to have some of their rights curtailed for temporary security, I’d urge them to look south -- to Cuba.more Yvonne M. Conde quotes |
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The people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defense. And as, in times of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the Legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the Civil authority, and be governed by it.more Massachusetts Constitution quotes |
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The right of any person to keep or bear arms in defense of his own home, person, and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall not be called in question, but nothing herein contained shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons.more Montana Constitution quotes |
Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes.more Nevada Constitution quotes |
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The right is general.
It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision
that the right to keep and bear arms
was only guaranteed to the militia;
but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent.
The militia, as has been explained elsewhere,
consists of those persons who, under the law,
are liable to the performance of military duty,
and are officered and enrolled for service
when called upon. . . .
[I]f the right were limited to those enrolled,
the purpose of the guarantee might be defeated altogether
by the action or the neglect to act
of the government it was meant to hold in check.
The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is,
that the people, from whom the militia must be taken,
shall have the right to keep and bear arms,
and they need no permission or regulation of law
for that purpose.more Thomas Cooley quotes |
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In the Jim Crow South, for example, government failed and indeed refused to protect blacks from extra-legal violence. Given our history, it's stunning we fail to question those who would force upon us a total reliance on the state for defense.more Robert J. Cottrol quotes |
Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as 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 article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.more Tench Coxe quotes |
Positive laws are tyrannical. One's individual rights -- whether they be life, liberty, or property -- must be sacrificed by the state in order to fulfill the positive rights of another. For example, if housing is considered a "right," then the state will have to confiscate wealth (property) from those who have provided shelter for themselves in order to house those who have not. ... True justice is realized when our lives, and property are secure, and we are free to express our thoughts without fear of retribution. Just laws are negative in nature; they exist to thwart the violation of our natural rights. Government ought to be the collective organization -- that is, the extension -- of the individual's right of self-defense, and its purpose to protect our lives, liberties, and property.more Mark Da Vee quotes |
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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.more Dalai Lama quotes |
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The sentiment that modern day ordinary Canadians do not need firearms for protection is pleasant but unrealistic. To discourage responsible deserving Canadians from possessing firearms for lawful self-defence and other legitimate purposes is to risk sacrificing them at the altar of political correctness.more Don Demetrick quotes |
There are all kinds of devices invented for the protection and preservation of countries: defensive barriers, forts, trenches, and the like... But prudent minds have as a natural gift one safeguard which is the common possession of all, and this applies especially to the dealings of democracies. What is this safeguard? Skepticism. This you must preserve. This you must retain. If you can keep this, you need fear no harm.more Demosthenes quotes |
Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients.more Alan Dershowitz quotes |
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Because this right [of self-defense] cannot be effectively exercised with bare hands, the right to keep and bear arms is the only efficient way to secure the fundamental right of self-defense.more Robert Dowlut quotes |
You will ruin no more lives as you ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound, and that! -- and that! -- and that! -- and that!more Sir Arthur Conan Doyle quotes |
Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith and Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed.more Lt. Lowell Duckett quotes |
The strength of the constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are constitutional rights secure.more Albert Einstein quotes |
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It is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
When dealing with a legal matter - always remember that you are your own best advocate. No one will care as much about the case as you do. Use lawyers but remember - you must take primary responsibility for a successful outcome.more Grant D. Fairley quotes |
I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I walked to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon and I made the determination if somebody was going to try and take me out, I was going to take them with me.more Dianne Feinstein quotes |
The freemen of America will remember, that it is very easy to change a free government into an arbitrary, despotic, or military one: but it is very difficult, almost impossible to reverse the matter -- very difficult to regain freedom once lost.more Freeman’s Journal quotes |
Every friend of freedom... must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.more Milton Friedman quotes |
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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.more Gazette of the United States quotes |
What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. ...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.more Elbridge Gerry quotes |
In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all - security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.more Edward Gibbon quotes |
The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.more Emma Goldman quotes |
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.more Barry Goldwater quotes |
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No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction.... Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this class of weapon in crime than ever before.more Colin Greenwood quotes |
As George Orwell pointed out, people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.more Richard Grenier quotes |
In 1928, Germany enacted its Gesetz uber Schusswaffen und Munition (Law on Firearms and Ammunition), which required firearms and ammunition acquisition permits and record keeping for all transactions. Through this legislation, the police acquired knowledge of all firearm owners, which was used to the Nazis' advantage when they took power in 1933. The Nazi Waffengesetz (Weapons Law) of 1938, signed by Adolph Hitler, built upon the previous registration systems and strictly regulated handguns. ... On the first day the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia, they put up posters in every town ordering the inhabitants to surrender all firearms, including hunting guns. The penalty for disobedience was death. The Nazis were able to use local and central registration records of firearms owners and hunters to execute the decree. Lists of potential dissidents and other suspects were already prepared, and those persons disappeared immediately. The Nazi commander of Belgium and Netherlands proclaimed that "[t]he surrender of weapons and other implements of war has been ordered by special proclamation.... Hunting guns are [also] to be surrendered ...." The Nazi head of Norway decreed that "[a]ll arms and munitions must be handed over" because only licensed officials and persons with police permits retained the right to possess arms.more Stephen P. Halbrook quotes |
Before the advent of Hitler or Stalin, who took their power from the German and the Russian people, measures were thrust upon the free legislatures of those countries to deprive the people of the possession and use of firearms, so that they could not resist the encroachments of such diabolical and vitriolic state police organizations as the Gestapo, the Ogpu, and the Cheka. Just as sure as I am standing here today, you are going to see this measure followed by legislation, sponsored by the proponents of such encroachment upon the rights of the people, which will eventually deprive the people of their constitutional liberty which provides for the possession of firearms for the protection of their homes. I submit to you that it is a serious departure from constitutional government when we consider legislation of this type. I predict that within 6 months of this time there will be presented to this House a measure which will go a long way toward taking away forever the individual rights and liberties of citizens of this Nation by depriving the individual of the private ownership of firearms and the right to use weapons in the protection of his home, and thereby his country.more Edwin Arthur Hall quotes |
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government...more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
[I]t is a truth which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger, when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense...more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
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We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.more Alexander Hamilton quotes |
