Liberty Quotes - Daily Email History

"Since independence in the fourteenth century, the Swiss have been required to keep and bear arms, and since 1515, have had a policy of armed neutrality. Its form of government is similar to the one set up by our Founders -- a weak central government exercising few, defined powers having to do mostly with external affairs and limited authority over internal matters at the canton (state) and local levels."

~ Benedict D. LaRosa  

"Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...?
I ask, who are the militia?  They consist of now of the whole people,
except a few public officers."

~ George Mason  

"The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions."

~ State vs. Kerner  

"Self-defence is a part of the law of nature;
nor can it be denied the community,
even against the king himself..."

~ John Locke  

"Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of himself and the state."

~ Michigan Constitution  

"There's no valid evidence whatsoever to indicate that depriving law-abiding American citizens of the right to own firearms would in any way lessen crime or criminal activity. ... The National Sheriffs Association unequivocally opposes any legislation that has as its intent the confiscation of firearms ... or the taking away from law-abiding American citizens their right to purchase, own, and keep arms."

~ National Sheriffs Association  

"That is reserved expressly to the States and is not granted to the Federal Government by our national charter. The Federal Government has nothing to do under the Constitution with the preservation of public order. To pass this bill is to pass a bill for an unconstitutional purpose, under the guise of regulating interstate commerce."

~ George Huddleston  

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."

~ Hubert H. Humphrey  

"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  

"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.'"

~ Alanna Mitchell  

"[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."

~ Alexander Hamilton  

"A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprise of an aspiring prince."

~ Edward Gibbon  

“[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain,
the British Parliament was advised by an artful man,
who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people;
that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them;
but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and
let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.”

~ George Mason  

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined;
to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite."

~ George Washington  

"Switzerland, on the other hand, insists that every male of military age must keep a powerful, fully automatic assault rifle in his home. Every home must be armed -- by law -- and some even keep mortars. Yet Switzerland has one of the most law-abiding citizenry, the lowest crime rate, and least violence of any country in the free world. And it has remained free for over a thousand years. Compare it to New York and Washington where handguns are completely banned. In fact, in Washington, Chief of Police Maurice Turner recently said that the District of Columbia gun ban law had completely failed, and he has called for armed citizen's police auxiliary to help restore order."

~ Donald S. McAlvaney