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2015 December 11
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"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." |
"SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." |
"A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use." |
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2015 December 10
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"If the author of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers ... and United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he ... should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists." |
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -
kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour -
with the cry of grave national emergency.
Always, there has been some terrible evil at home,
or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up
if we did not blindly rally behind it by
furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded.
Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened,
seem never to have been quite real." |
"One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't." |
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2015 December 09
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"After a shooting spree,
they always want to take the guns
away from the people
who didn't do it.
I sure as hell
wouldn't want to live in a society
where the only people
allowed guns
are the police and the military." |
"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world 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 people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion." |
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2015 December 08
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"Waiting periods are only a step.
Registration is only a step.
The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." |
"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." |
"In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so? Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism -- including, of course, legal despotism? Finally, is not liberty the restricting of the law only to its rational sphere of organizing the right of the individual to lawful self-defense; of punishing injustice?" |
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2015 December 07
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"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 only those 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 strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty... 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." |
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