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2007 May 04
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"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." |
"All and everybody,
this is my claim,
fifty feet on the gulch,
cordin to Clear Creek District Law,
backed up by shotgun amendments." |
"Suppose one little old lady in ten carries a gun. Suppose that one in ten of those, if attacked by a mugger, succeeds in killing the mugger instead of being killed by him -- or shooting herself in the foot. On average, the mugger is much more likely to win the encounter than the little old lady. But -- also on average -- every hundred muggings produces one dead mugger. At those odds, mugging is an unprofitable business -- not many little old ladies carry enough money to justify one chance in a hundred of being killed getting it. The number of muggers declines drastically, not because they have all been killed but because they have, rationally, sought safer professions." |
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2007 May 03
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"Jim Creechan, a University of Alberta sociologist,
said some of the love of guns may have its roots in
Alberta's pervasive free-enterprise model of behaviour.
'It's the whole idea that the individual
is more important than the collective.'" |
"Firearms, especially long guns, occupy a noble place in Canadian history since they are no doubt responsible for the exploitation of a vast and wild territory that had long remained untouched. From 1534 until 1979 (!), the importance of firearms remained uncontested. More than a simple tool of everyday life, they became truly a phenomenon of civilization. At all times and whoever he was, the Canadian was directly in contact with firearms, and he cannot be imagined otherwise. Even today, this symbol of liberty remains intimately related to wide, open spaces, and to a tolerant society. It is the distinctive mark of today's and yesterday's America. Here, in New France, let's repeat it, it is not only soldiers and nobles who have the possibility or privilege to bear arms. Century-old Canadian customs recognize equally to everybody the legal and moral right to acquire a firearm and to use it freely and noncoercively." |
"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 have no power to disarm the militia.
Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier,
are the birth-right 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." |
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2007 May 02
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"... 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..." |
"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." |
"The highest number to which a standing army can be carried
in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls,
or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms.
This portion 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 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. ...
Besides the advantage of being armed, ...
the existence of subordinate governments ... forms a barrier
against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable
than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. ...
[The governments of Europe] are afraid to trust the people with arms. ...
Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America
with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend
the rights of which they would be in actual possession than
the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue
theirs from the hands of their oppressors." |
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2007 May 01
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"It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it." |
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. |
"Every citizen should be a soldier.
This was the case with the Greeks and Romans,
and must be that of every free state." |
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2007 April 30
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"The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people." |
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..." |
"The NRA believes America's laws were made to be obeyed and that our
Constitutional liberties are just as important today as 200 years ago.
And by the way, the Constitution does not say
Government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms.
The Constitution says 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed.' " |
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