Posted on 11/06/2003 6:19:06 PM PST by PsyOp
Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense. - John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787-88.
To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws. - John Adams, ibid.
And that 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; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possesions. - Samuel Adams, ibid.
The commonwealth is theirs who hold the arms: the sword and sovereignty ever walk hand-in-hand together. - Aristotle.
Those who possess and can wield arms are in a position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not. - Aristotle.
The farmers have no arms, the workers have neither land nor arms; this makes them virtually the servants of those who possess arms. In these circumstances the equal sharing of offices and honors becomes an impossibility. - Aristotle.
Let us then enunciate the functions of a state and we shall easily elicit what we want: First there must be food; secondly, arts for life requires many instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, in order to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against external assailants ... - Aristotle, Politics, c.334-23 B.C.
Citizenship ought to be reserved for those who carry arms. - Aristotle, ibid.
Those who are in sovereign control of arms are in a sovereign position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not. -Aristotle, ibid.
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 -so dear to men, 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. - Cesare Beccaria, ibid.
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.... 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. - Cesare Beccaria, ibid.
He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. - The Bible, New Testament, Luke 11:36.
For target shooting, that's okay. Get a license and go to the range. For defense of the home, that's why we have police departments. - James Brady, Parade Magazine, June 26, 1994.
We must get rid of all the guns. - Sarah Brady, speaking on behalf of HCI with Sheriff Jay Printz & others on "The Phil Donahue Show", September, 1994.
Unless they're a fugitive or a felon, or adjudicated mentally ill, we're not against them buying guns at all. - Sarah Brady, October 1997.
They are looking only to protect gun owners' quote - and I stress that - rights, because I don't believe gun owners have rights. The Second Amendment has never been interpreted that way. Now I am not for taking guns away or denying guns to law-abiding citizens, but I don't think it's a constitutional right that they have, and every court case that's ever come down has shown that. - Sarah Brady, "Handguns in America", Hearst Newspapers Special Report, October, 1997.
No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion. And though for a while, those, who have the sword in their power, abstain from doing him injury, yet by degrees he will be awed. - James Burgh, Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses, 1774.
Do I wish America had never stockpiled millions upon millions of guns in the first place? Yes. Do I wish it were possible to keep guns from criminals through licensing and registration? Emphatically yes. But public policy cannot be based on wishes.
The key to Columbine and the other acts of savagery in modern America is, to borrow a Vietnam-era phrase, a matter of "hearts and minds," not guns. We have a huge job of soul searching to do as a nation. Is it the flaccid morality we've preached? Is it the entertainment we permit? Is it the collapse of the family? Is it the sunset of the traditional, religious understanding of life? These are not answers. But they seem good places to start. - Mona Charen, ibid.
We have always had bullies. Yet for hundreds of years, kids endured bullying without resorting to murder. We have always had guns, and young people arguably had greater access to them 50 years ago than they do today. Yet our parents' generation would no more take a gun to school and shoot their tormentors than fly to Mars.
Yes, it was partly because they believed in God and the Ten Commandments. But more immediately, they feared the certain terrible judgment of their families, friends and neighbors. Fear of what the neighbors would think is a great and powerful weapon of civilization, and judgment is its indispensable sword.
Most Americans today pride themselves on being "nonjudgmental." It hasn't yet dawned on most of them that the body count in our high schools is their reward. - Mona Charen, "How to Stop School Shootings," townhall.com, March 27, 2001.
There's no correlation between tough gun laws and lower crime. Indeed all the liberal prognostication on Florida's "right to carry" law, the first in the nation in 1987, proved wrong. Not only did Florida's streets not turn into public shooting galleries, as liberals predicted, but 24 other states have followed suit. There has been no discernible increase in violence as a result and not a single conviction of a permit-holder for killing an innocent party. Linda Chavez, ibid.
And indeed, gentlemen, there exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our own lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right. - Cicero.
Civilized people are thought by logic, barbarians by necessity, communities by tradition; and the lesson is inculcated even in wild beasts by nature itself. They learn that they have to defend their own bodies and persons and lives from violence of any and every kind by all the means within their power. - Cicero.
We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to own firearms... - President Bill Clinton, USA TODAY, March 11, 1993.
I feel very strongly about it [the Brady Bill]. I think - I also associate myself with the other remarks of the Attorney General. I think it's the beginning. It's not the end of the process by any means. - President Bill Clinton, on the Brady Bill, August 11, 1993.
You don't need an Uzi to go deer hunting, and you don't need an AK-47 to shoot skeet. They are military weapons, not meant for a day in the country and certainly not meant for a night on the street. - President Bill Clinton, April 6, 1998.
Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to encounter an escaped tiger from the zoo than to confront an assault weapon in the hands of of a drug-crazed killer on the streets... - Joseph Constance, Deputy Police Chief, Trenton, NJ, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, August, 1993.
Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets. - Joseph Constance, ibid.
The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles. - Jeff Cooper.
One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that "violence begets violence." I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy. - Jeff Cooper, "Cooper vs. Terrorism", Guns & Ammo Annual, 1975.
The honorable gentleman then urges an objection respecting the miitia, who, he tells us, will be made instruments of tyranny to deprive us of our iberty. Your militia, says he, will fight against you. Who are the militia? Are we not militia? Shall we fight against ourselves? No, Sir; the idea is absurd. We are also terrified by the dread of a standing army. It cannot be denied that we ought to have a means of defense, and be able to repel an attack. - Francis Corbin, ibid.
This might not be a big deal, except that I always get a little suspicious when I'm being lied to. My assumption is that only by claiming that rampage killings have suddenly increased--falsely as it turns out--can even the Times justify its demand for stupid counterintuitive emergency measures like raising taxes--whoops!--I mean tighter gun control. - Ann Coulter, ibid.
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, October 21, 1787.
The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistable. 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. - Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, February 20, 1788.
The powers 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 sixteen to sixty. 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 right 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 the state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. - Tench Coxe, ibid.
As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people 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 article in their right to keep and bear their private arms. - Tench Coxe, Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution, under the Pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789.
I'm a moderate on gun control. From a political point of view I'm a radical. I'd like to abolish guns, but from a balancing of constitutional perspective, I would favor the Brady Bill. I'm in favor of registration. I'm in favor of broad controls on guns. - M. Alan Dershowitz.
[Those] who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right [are] courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like. - M. Alan Dershowitz.
The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these kinds of cases is that they are not trusted. They are detested, and I have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists. They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern. - Congressman Dingell (D-Mich), The Congressional Record, February 8, 1995.
The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these kinds of cases is that they are not trusted. They are detested, and I have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists. They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern. Now, if you want a more recent event, take a look at what they did in Waco, TX. Is that a defensible event? Scores of Americans were killed because of ineptitude by BATF acting under legal process, as they said, and that whole matter is going to be suppressed after scores of Americans have been killed because of the ineptitude and crass misbehavior of the BATF. - U.S. Congressman John D. Dingell, ibid.
Gun control laws will primarily be obeyed by law-abiding citizens and risk making it less likely that good people have guns compared to criminals. Deterrence is important and disarming good people relative to criminals will increase the risk of violent crime. If we really care about saving lives we must focus not only on the newsworthy events where bad things happen, but also on the bad things that never happen because people are able to defend themselves. - ibid.
Few people would voluntarily put up a sign in front of their homes stating, ``This home is a gun free zone.'' The reason is very simple. Just as we can deter criminals with higher arrest or conviction rates, the fact that would-be victims might be able to defend themselves also deters attacks. Not only do guns allow individuals to defend themselves, they also provide some protection to citizens who choose not to own guns since criminals would not normally know who can defend themselves before they attack. - ibid.
Police are extremely important at deterring crime, but they simply cannot be everywhere. Individuals also benefit from being able to defend themselves with a gun when they are confronted by a criminal. - ibid.
The Clinton administration wants to raise the age at which citizens can posses a handgun to 21, and they point to the fact that 18- and 19-year-olds commit gun crimes at the highest rate. Yet, Department of Justice numbers indicate that 18- and 19-year-olds are also the most likely victims of violent crimes including murder, rape, robbery with serious injury, and aggravated assault. The vast majority of those committing crimes in this age group are members of gangs and are already breaking the law by having a gun. This law will primarily apply to law-abiding 18- to-21-year-olds and make it difficult for them to defend themselves. - ibid.
Gun locks may prevent some accidental gun deaths, but they will make it difficult for people to defend themselves from attackers. We believe that the risks of accidental gun deaths, particularly those involving young children, have been greatly exaggerated. In 1996, there were 44 accidental gun deaths for children under age 10. This exaggeration risks threatening people's safety if it incorrectly frightens some people from having a gun in their home even though that is actually the safest course of action. - ibid.
With the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face. The new legislation is ill-advised. - ibid.
Of seeming arms to make a short essay,
Then hasten to be drunk, - the business of the day.
- ibid.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children.
This is not a way of life.... Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging itself on a cross of iron. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech. April 16, 1953.
Celebrity Million Mom March organizer Rosie O'Donnell appeared on ABC's "This Week With Sam and Cokie." Cokie Roberts asked, "In Washington, we have about the toughest gun laws that there are in the country. And yet we have shootings all the time. At the National Zoo just the other day, a child was shot. What good does it do?"
Incredibly, O'Donnell responded, "Well, there are 200 million guns in America and 20,000 gun laws. But the guns are winning. There are also 20,000 loopholes. There are loopholes for every single law. You know, basically, when you have a lethal weapon, and you have no registration and no license in order to use it, you're looking for chaos, and you're headed towards chaos and that's exactly where we are today." Does Ms. O'Donnell suggest that 200 million anti-gun laws, one for every firearm in the country, would just about do the trick? - Larry Elder, "Guns and Rosie", May 18, 2000.
What about licensing and registration? Supporters claim that this enables police to track down the owner of a gun used in a crime. Great, assuming the shooter was lawful enough to A) register his handgun, and B) leave it at the crime scene so that authorities might trace it back to him. Not very likely. Bad guys don't buy guns legally. They steal them or purchase them through the black market. - ibid.
A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders. Because of the difference in physical strength between men and women, guns provide women with a way to level the playing field. Former Manhattan assistant district attorney David Kopel says, "When a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery--from drawing a knife to shouting for help, to fleeing--produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.... In the 1960s, the Orlando (Florida) police responded to a rape epidemic by training 2,500 women to use guns. The next year, rape fell 88 percent and burglary by 25 percent." - ibid.
Dr. Phil said, "America kills more kids with guns than any other industrialized nation," later adding, "There are five children a day killed with guns through either accidents or suicides. Five children a day in America are killed with guns." The five children per day figure adds up to over 1,800 per year.
Hold tape.
Dr. Phil never defined what he meant by "children." Independence Institute researcher Dave Kopel notes that many of the reported gun deaths involving "children" include those aged 14 through 19, many of them gangbangers. If, by children, Dr. Phil meant 10 and under, approximately 50 children--or less than one child per state per year under 10--die from handgun violence. - Larry Elder, "Kids, Guns, And Dr. Phil," townhall.com, November 29, 2002.
As usual with programs stacked against guns, Dr. Phil failed to even address the number of children saved by handguns per year. In other words, how many kids remain with us because Mommy or Daddy--or in some cases a child--used a gun to defend the household. According to the Department of Justice, Americans use guns for defensive purposes 1.5 million times a year. And, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention--a division of the Justice Department--the government found that children taught appropriate use of guns by their parents turn out to be far less likely to use those guns for criminal purposes than those without such instruction....
Some suggestions: Don't go to your gun store for psychological counseling; and don't go to a mental health therapist for advice on guns. - ibid.
That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.... - ibid.
After the murder of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland by one of her first-grade classmates, Gore asked what it would take to wake up Congress to the urgent need for more regulation. "Shootings in kindergarten? Shootings in nursery school?"
The child who killed Kayla has a father in jail and a mother on drugs, and lived in a crack house with his uncle. Clearly, we need a new law to make drug dealers behave responsibly with their illegal handguns. - ibid.
In 1993, McCarthy's husband was killed and her son critically wounded by the Long Island Railroad gunman. Colin Ferguson's rampage was triggered by the anti-white racism spewed by the likes Louis Farrakhan and Khalid Muhammad. (The latter even suggested that God guided Ferguson's hand.)
McCarthy blames not the racists who incited her husband's killer but the weapon he used. It's so much easier to demonize an object than confront human evil. - ibid.
Each new gun law is the magic bullet, so to speak, guaranteed to counter criminals who, by definition, ignore legal enactments. After it passes, we hear no more about it, as it's on to the next proposal, which it is urged, will accomplish what the last law--and all those that preceded it- failed to achieve. - ibid.
Even with all the controls on the books--the manufacture and sale of firearms may be our most regulated industry--there are guns in half of American homes.
For some, this is intolerable. They have a mystical faith in the notion that fewer guns equal less crime, despite the fact that in the '90s the number of guns in circulation went up while the crime rate declined.
So, prohibitionists have decided to attack ownership at the source. Various suits seek to hold gun-makers liable for "defective and unreasonably dangerous" products and sales techniques that "create a public nuisance." - Don Feder, "Gun Suits Seek To End Private Ownership," townhall.com, August 15, 2001.
If Colt and Smith and Wesson are responsible for the ways their products are used, perhaps they should be paid a bonus every time one of their guns is used to accomplish good. - ibid.
Guns perform exactly as advertised. You put a bullet in the chamber, pull the trigger and a potentially lethal projectile issues from the barrel. However--and this should be axiomatic--a gun does not have a will of its own. The instruments fashioned by the firearms industry can be used offensively or defensively, for recreation or homicide, depending on the owner's will. - ibid.
The goal of gun liability suits is to put manufacturers out of business. When his city sued, then Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell gloated that gun-makers "don't have deep pockets'' and thus couldn't absorb high-dollar verdicts.
Politicians and ideologues behind this litigation are opposed to gun ownership. Since they can't convince individuals not to buy guns, or persuade legislators to enact controls that amount to prohibition, they hope to end private ownership by eliminating the supply.
This is undemocratic, coercive and utopian. In other words, worthy of the likes of Sarah Brady, Ted Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein. - ibid
Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe. - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, quoted by the Associated Press, November 18, 1993.
If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them... "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in," I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't there. - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, speaking about her authorship of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," February 5, 1995.
This is a munitions manufacturer owned by the State of Israel, and by advancing this export, the Israeli government is putting the official imprimatur of its people on the commercial sale of weapons designed not for hunting, but for combat; not to protect, but to kill. It is my hope that the Israeli government will lead the way and set an example that others will follow. - U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California, letter to President Bill Clinton regarding Israeli Military Industries, September 17, 1997.
Before more taxpayer money is used to entice yet another rusty revolver out of the old shoebox under the bed, we need proof that buybacks reduce crime. Until then, its proponents are just shooting blanks. - ibid.
He that is armed is always master of the purse of him that is unarmed. - Andrew Fletcher, 1688.
And I cannot see, why arms should be denied to any man who is not a slave, since they are the only true badges of liberty. - Andrew Fletcher, 1688.
Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave. - Andrew Fletcher, 1698.
If you've got a gun law that criminals will obey, why not just turn it into a murder law that criminals will obey-then we won't have to worry about the gun part. - Andrew Ford.
Without either the First or Second Amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms. - Andrew Ford.
True, guns can cause terrible accidents if not properly cared for, but so can chain saws -- and I have one of those in the attic.
Maybe maternal guilt is why I react so negatively to politicians like Sen. Charles Schumer, who according to USA Today actually threatened to revoke tax breaks for any landlord with the nerve to rent space to the NRA for a new sports cafe and video sports shooting arcade, a perfectly legal enterprise....
Excuse me,... but have you been to some of the video arcades on Times Square lately? I have. After the blood-spurting body blasts and gunning-down-girl games now regnant, NRA video games inviting families to target imaginary clay pigeons would be positively wholesome. - ibid.
There is no reason for anyone in this country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution. - Michael Gartner, president of NBC News, January, 1992.
We don't need more concealed weapons in our malls, in our movie theaters, and our streets. We need fewer concealed weapons in our society. - Vice President Al Gore, on concealed weapons licences, Houston Chronicle, May 27, 1999.
[N]obody is talking about taking guns away from hunters or sportsmen or banning all guns. Nobody is talking about that. - Al Gore, Larry King Live, September 17, 1999.
I think that we should ban so-called junk guns. I think we should ban assault weapons like the weapons used here [in Fort Worth], yes. I think that the kinds of weapons that have no legitimate use for hunting or the kind of weapon that a homeowner would use, I think they should be banned, yes, those kind of weapons. - Al Gore, on the 1999 Fort Worth shooting (the "assault weapons" being referred to are semi-automatic handguns), Larry King Live, September 17, 1999.
These automatic, semiautomatic handguns and assault weapons, they really have no place in our society. - Al Gore, Larry King Live, September 17, 1999.
Let me make a point here, in case this isn't becoming extremely clear. My state has gun control laws. It did not keep Hennard from coming in and killing everybody! What it did do, was keep me from protecting my family! That's the only thing that cotton pickin' law did! OK! Understand that! That's ...that's so important! - Dr. Suzanne Gratia, Killeen Texas Luby's massacre survivor, 1994.
Somewhere along the line I made one of my stupidest decisions... I was afraid that ... if ... somebody caught me with the gun in my purse, I could lose my license to practice, lose my ability to make a living. So I took the gun out of my purse and I left it in my car ... which the laws in my state are kinda wishy- washy on ...and I thought, 'Heck, if I needed it, it's probably going to be when I'm out on the road ... in the middle of nowhere and, you know, my car's broke down or something ... - Dr. Suzanne Gratia, Killeen Texas Luby's massacre survivor, 1994.
A Beretta in hand is worth any number of theories in the bumbling hands of the Department of Transportation and Obfuscation. - ibid.
How could the terrorists know which crews were packing heat? How could they hope to overcome it? Suddenly box cutters might no longer seem the ideal weapon. No wonder three-quarters of the country's airline pilots, according to one poll, want the right to bear arms. - ibid.
But can we trust pilots with weapons? Goodness, we trust them with the whole plane, why not sidearms?...
What might comfort passengers is knowing that their cockpit crew is armed, unlike those on the planes that were hijacked and turned into guided missiles Sept. 11. - ibid.
There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people were not "brainwashed" about gun ownership and had been well armed. ... Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half starved group of Jews took 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazis. - Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor.
These Sarah Brady types must be educated to understand that because we have an armed citizenry, that a dictatorship has not happened in America. These anti-gun fools are more dangerous to Liberty than street criminals or foreign spies. - Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor.
When the perfect order and discipline which are essential to regular troops are contemplated, and with what ease and precision they execute the difficult manuevers indispensable to the success of offensive or defensive operations, the conviction cannot be resisted that such troops will always have a decided advantage over the more numerous forces composed of uninstructed militia or undiscipllined recruits. - Alexander Hamilton.
...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion. - Alexander Hamilton.
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers.
The American Militia, in the course of the late war, have by their valor on numerous occasions, erected eternal monuments to their fame; but the bravest of them feel and know, that the liberty of their country could not have been established by their efforts alone, however great and valuable they were. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #25. December 21, 1787.
We take into our view the aid to be derived from the militia, which ought always to be counted upon, as a valuable and powerful auxiliary. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #26. December 22, 1787.
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. - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #28, December 28, 1787.
Where in the name of common sense are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist #29, January 9, 1788.
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 the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens. - ibid.
If standing armies are dangerous to liberty, an efficacious power over the militia, in the body to whose care the protection of the State is committed, ought as far as possible to take away the inducement and the pretext to such unfriendly institutions. - ibid.
It requires no skill in the science of war to discern that uniformity in the organization and discipline of the militia would be attended with the most beneficial effects, whenever they were called into service for the public defense.... And it would fit them much sooner to acquire the degree of proficiency in military functions, which would be essential to their usefulness. - ibid.
The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day or even a week that will suffice for the attainment of it.... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year. - ibid.
On the militia bill, and in a variety of minor cases, he [Jefferson] has leaned as much as possible to the States; and he lost no opportunity of sounding the alarm, with great affected solemnity, at encraochments, mediated on the rights of the States, and of holding up the bugbear of faction in the government having designs unfriendly to liberty. - Alexander Hamilton, letter to Edward Carrington. May 26, 1792.
The militia of a nation is either an army in the field or ready for the field upon occasion. - James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, 1656.
If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976--establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime. - Senator Orrin Hatch, Senate Report, 1982.
The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. - ibid.
...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals... I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of democratic political institutions, and self defeating in their purpose. - Robert Heinlein, in a letter concerning "Red Planet", 1949.
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous men. - Robert A. Heinlein, Methuselah's Children, 1958.
Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least to be cheap and is never free of cost. - Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers, 1959.
Anyone who clings to the hostorically untrue--and thoroughly immoral--doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms. - ibid.
The gun-violence problem is more than the problem of guns in the hands of bad people. Its also a problem of guns in the hands of good people. - Dennis Henigan, Gun control attorney, quoted in a New York articale by Peter J. Boyer. Houston Chronicle, May 24, 1999.
Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people. - Patrick Henry, speech , 1782.
Are we at last 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 own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense is the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety, as in our own hands? - Patrick Henry, in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836.
I have thus candidly submitted to you, Mr. Chairman, and this committee, what occurred to me as proper amendments to the Constitution, and the declaration of rights containing those fundamental, inalienable privileges, which I conceive to be essential to liberty and happiness. I believe that, on a review of these amendments, it will still be found that the arm of power will be sufficiently strong for national purpose, when these restrictions shall be a part of the government. - Patrick Henry, speech, 1788.
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force you are ruined... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun. Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own self 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, The Virginia Ratifying Convention, June, 1788.
O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone... Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation...inflicted by those who had no power at all? - Patrick Henry, The Virginia Ratifying Convention, June, 1788.
I feel myself distressed, because the necessity of securing our personal rights seems not to have pervaded the minds of men; for many other valuable things are omitted [from the Constitution].... Another most fatal omission is with respect to standing armies. In your Bill of Rights of Virginia, they are said to be dangerous to iberty; and it tells you that the proper defense of a free State consists in militia; and so I might go on to ten or eleven things of immense consequence, secured in your Bill of Rights, concerning which that proposal is silent. - Patrick Henry, speech. 1788.
When the means of great violence [guns/weapons] are wide spread, nothing is more dangerous to the powerful than that they create outrage, and injustice will certainly ignite retaliation in kind. - ibid.
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to posess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. - Adolf Hitler, quoted in, Trevor-Roper, Hitler's Table Talks 1941-1944, 1953.
It is each individual that must ultimately be his own protector. - Thomas Hobbes.
The right men have by nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no covenant be relinquished. - Thomas Hobbes.
The sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves. - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651.
A man cannot lay down the right of resisting them, that assault him by force, to take away his life. Because a man cannot tell, when he seeth men proceed against him by violence whether they intend his death or not. - ibid.
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.... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible. - U.S. Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, (D-Minn), 1960.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. - Thomas Jefferson.
No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms. - Thomas Jefferson, Draft Virginia Constitution, 1776.
If we are made in some degree for others, yet, in a greater, we are made for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling, and indeed ridiculous to suppose that a man had less rights in himself than one of his neighbors, or indeed all of them put together. This would be slavery, and not that liberty which the Bill of Rights has made inviolable, and for the protection of which our government has been charged. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, 1782.
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, 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 your constant companion of your walks. - Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785.
I will now tell you what I do not like [about the Constitution]. First, the omission of a bill of rights, providing clearly, and without the aid of sophism, for freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land, and not by the laws of nations. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1787.
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them.... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Colonel William S. Smith, November 17, 1787.
I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away; and Congress will have a right to take away trials by jury in all civil cases. Let me add, that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 20 December 1787.
There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation, and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors, that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot, but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to David Humphreys, 1789.
The declaration of rights, is, like all other human blessings, alloyed with some inconveniences, and not accomplishing fully it's object. But the good in this instance, vastly overweighs the evil. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1789.
One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. - Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796.
I am relying, for internal defense, on our militia men solely, till actual invasion, and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such degradations as we have experienced; and not for a standing army in time of peace, which may ever awe the public sentiment. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799.
A well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them. - Thomas Jefferson, 1st inaugural address. March 4, 1801.
A statement has been formed by the secretary of war, on mature consideration, of all the posts and stations where garrisons will be expedient, and of the number of men requisite for each garrison. The whole amount is considerably short of the present military establishment. For the surplus no particular use can be pointed out. For defence against invasion, their number is as nothing; nor is it conceived needful or safe that a standing army should be kept up in time of peace for that purpose. Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them, is the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these, collected from the parts most convenient, in numbers proportioned to the invading foe, it is best to rely, not only to meet the first attack, but if it threatens to be permanent, to maintain the defence until regulars may be engaged to relieve them. These considerations render it important that we should at every session continue to amend the defects which from time to time show themselves in the laws for regulating the militia, until they are sufficiently perfect. Nor should we now or at any time separate, until we can say we have done everything for the militia which we could do were an enemy at our door. - Thomas Jefferson, First Annual Message, December 8, 1801.
None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important, but especially so at a moment when rights the most essential to our welfare have been violated. - Thomas Jefferson, letter. February 25, 1803.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed milita is their best security. - Thomas Jefferson, 1808.
[The] governor [is] constitutionally the commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms. - Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811.
Are we not men? Yes; but our men are so happy at home that they will not hire themselves to be shot at for a shilling a day. Hence we can have no standing armies for defense, because we have no paupers to furnish the materials. The Greeks and Romans had no standing armies, yet they defended themselves. The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and obige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1814.
We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. - Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.
And what is our resource for the preservation of the constitution? Reason and Argument? You might as well reason and argue with the marble columns encircling them. The representatives chosen by ourselves? They are joined in the combinations, some from incorrect views on government, some from corrupt ones, sufficient in voting together to outnumber the sound parts; and with majorities of only one, two, or three, bold enough to go forward in defiance.
Are we then to stand to our arms....? No. That must be the last resource, not to be thought of until longer and greater sufferings. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to W.B. Giles. 1825.
What in the name of conscience will it take to pass a truly effective gun-control law? Now in this new hour of tragedy, let us spell out our grief in constructive action. Lyndon B. Johnson, speech following the assassination of Robert Kennedy, June 6, 1968.
I am pleased to accept Life Membership in the National Rifle Association and extend to your organization every good wish for continued success. - John F. Kennedy, March 20, 1961.
The traditional conceptualization of victims as either passive targets or active collaborators overlooks another possible victim role, that of the active resister who does not initiate or accelerate any illegitimate activity, but uses various means of resistance for legitimate purposes, such as avoiding injury or property loss.
Victim resistance can be passive or verbal, but much of it is active and forceful. Potentially, the most consequential form of forceful resistance is armed resistance, especially resistance with a gun. This form of resistance is worthy of special attention for many reasons, both policy-related and scientific. The policy-related reasons are obvious: if self-protection with a gun is commonplace, it means that any form of gun control that disarms large numbers of prospective victims, either altogether, or only in certain times and places where victimization might occur, will carry significant social costs in terms of lost opportunities for self-protection. - Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," Northwestern University School of Law, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 1995.
Research has consistently indicated that victims who resist with a gun or other weapon are less likely than other victims to lose their property in robberies[3] and in burglaries.[4] Consistently, research also has indicated that victims who resist by using guns or other weapons are less likely to be injured compared to victims who do not resist or to those who resist without weapons. This is true whether the research relied on victim surveys or on police records.... - ibid.
Huge numbers of Americans not only have access to guns, but the overwhelming majority of gun owners, if one can believe their statements, are willing to use a gun defensively. In a December 1989 national survey, 78% of American gun owners stated that they would not only be willing to use a gun defensively in some way, but would be willing to shoot a burglar. The percentage willing to use a gun defensively in some way, though not necessarily by shooting someone, would presumably be even higher than this. - ibid.
In a ten state sample of incarcerated felons interviewed in 1982, 34% reported having been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim." From the criminals' standpoint, this experience was not rare.
How could such a serious thing happen so often without becoming common knowledge? This phenomenon, regardless of how widespread it really is, is largely an invisible one as far as governmental statistics are concerned. Neither the defender/victim nor the criminal ordinarily has much incentive to report this sort of event to the police, and either or both often have strong reasons not to do so. Consequently many of these incidents never come to the attention of the police, while others may be reported but without victims mentioning their use of a gun. - ibid.
While only 14% of all violent crime victims face offenders armed with guns, 18% of the gun-using victims in our sample faced adversaries with guns. Although the gun defenders usually faced unarmed offenders or offenders with lesser weapons, they were more likely than other victims to face gun-armed criminals. This is consistent with the perception that more desperate circumstances call forth more desperate defensive measures. The findings undercut the view that victims are prone to use guns in "easy" circumstances which are likely to produce favorable outcomes for the victim regardless of their gun use. Instead, gun defenders appear to face more difficult circumstances than other crime victims, not easier ones. - ibid.
A gun allows either criminals or victims to handle a larger number of adversaries. Many victims facing multiple offenders probably would not resist at all if they were without a gun or some other weapon. - ibid.
There seems little legitimate scholarly reason to doubt that defensive gun use is very common in the U.S., and that it probably is substantially more common than criminal gun use. This should not come as a surprise, given that there are far more gun-owning crime victims than there are gun-owning criminals and that victimization is spread out over many different victims, while offending is more concentrated among a relatively small number of offenders. - ibid.
In sum, measures that effectively reduce gun availability among the noncriminal majority also would reduce DGUs [Defensive Gun Uses] that otherwise would have saved lives, prevented injuries, thwarted rape attempts, driven off burglars, and helped victims retain their property. - ibid.
Since as many as 400,000 people a year use guns in situations where the defenders claim that they "almost certainly" saved a life by doing so, this result cannot be dismissed as trivial. If even one-tenth of these people are accurate in their stated perceptions, the number of lives saved by victim use of guns would still exceed the total number of lives taken with guns. It is not possible to know how many lives are actually saved this way, for the simple reason that no one can be certain how crime incidents would have turned out had the participants acted differently than they actually did. But surely this is too serious a matter to simply assume that practically everyone who says he believes he saved a life by using a gun was wrong. - ibid.
Why was Dick Cheney one of 21 representatives to vote against a ban on so-called "cop killer bullets"?
Al Gore's surrogates would have you believe that Cheney supports the murder of police officers. In truth, the Cheney vote was a vote for truth over lies, and principle over expediency. There never has been such a thing as a "cop-killer bullet." That the issue ever arose in Congress shows that modern Washington is just as susceptible to believing impossible things as was the English Parliament that made it a felony to use "Witchcraft, Inchantment, Charm or Sorcery, to tell where Treasure is to be found, or where Things lost or Stolen may be found." - David Kopel, the Independence Institute, "Cheney's Cop-Killer Rap", July 31, 2000.
The way to get to a gun-free world, the gun-prohibition groups tell us, is to pass laws banning them. We can begin by imagining the enactment of laws which ban all non-government possession of firearms....
Laws affect mainly those willing to obey them. And where there's an unfulfilled need - and money to be made - there's usually a way around the law. Enter the black market, which flourishes all the more vigorously with ever-increasing restrictions and prohibitions. - Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant, and Joanne Eisen, "A World Without Guns", National Review Online, December 5, 2001.
Jamaica's Gun Court Act of 1974 contained just such a [death] penalty, and even that wasn't sufficient. On August 18, 2001, Jamaican Melville Cooke observed that today, "the only people who do not have an illegal firearm [in this country], are those who do not want one." Violent crime in Jamaica is worse than ever, as gangsters and trigger-happy police commit homicides with impunity, and only the law-abiding are disarmed.
Yet the Jamaican government wants to globalize its failed policy. In July 2001, Burchell Whiteman, Jamaica's Minister of Education, Youth and Culture spoke at the U.N. Disarmament Conference to demand the "implementation of measures that would limit the production of weapons to levels that meet the needs for defence and national security." - ibid.
A complete gun ban, or highly restrictive licensing amounting to near-ban, would create a real incentive for gun making to become a "cottage industry".
It's already happening in Great Britain, a consequence of the complete ban on civilian possession of handguns imposed by the Firearms Act of 1997. Not only are the Brits swamped today with illegally imported firearms, but local, makeshift gun factories have sprung up to compete. - ibid.
At the United Nations Asia Pacific Regional Disarmament Conference held in Spring 2001, it was quietly admitted that the BRA [Bougainville Revolutionary Army], within ten years of its formation, had managed to manufacture a production copy of the M16 automatic rifle and other machine guns. (That makes one question the real intent behind the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects, which followed several months later: the U.N. leadership can't be so daft as to fail to recognize the implications for world disarmament after learning of the success of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.) - ibid.
Auto repair shops, hobbyists, revolutionaries - everyone with decent machine shop skills - can make a gun from something. This takes us down the same road as drug prohibition: With primary anti-drug laws having proven themselves unenforceable, secondary laws have been added to prohibit possession of items which could be used to manufacture drugs. Even making suspicious purchases at a gardening store can earn one a "dynamic entry" visit from the local SWAT team.
But laws proscribing the possession of gun-manufacturing items would have to be even broader than laws against possession of drug-manufacturing items, because there are so many tools which can be used to make guns, or be made into guns. - ibid.
To imagine a world with no guns is to imagine a world in which the strong rule the weak, in which women are dominated by men, and in which minorities are easily abused or mass-murdered by majorities. Practically speaking, a firearm is the only weapon that allows a weaker person to defend himself from a larger, stronger group of attackers, and to do so at a distance. As George Orwell observed, a weapon like a rifle "gives claws to the weak."
The failure of imagination among people who yearn for a gun free world is their naive assumption that getting rid of claws will get rid of the desire to dominate and kill. They fail to acknowledge the undeniable fact that when the weak are deprived of claws (or firearms), the strong will have access to other weapons, including sheer muscle power. A gun free world would be much more dangerous for women, and much safer for brutes and tyrants. - ibid.
More gun control, more genocide. That's the lesson of the 20th century in many nations, including Uganda. Yet the United Nations is again trying to make it impossible for Ugandans to protect themselves. Once again, the U.N. is supporting repression rather than human rights. - Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen, "Disarming Uganda", National Review Online, December 11, 2002.
Like the Saudi's funding to spread Wahabbi teachings of totalitarian assaults on people of diverse religious faiths all over the world, the U.N. disarmament campaign is a global attack on human rights. The result is widespread murder by governments and by terrorist groups, and the suppression of human rights. - ibid.
The Gray Lady of American newspapers is red with embarrassment caused by reporter Jayson Blair, who admitted that many of his stories involved invention or plagiarism. Some New York Times reporters have expressed concern that the exposure of so many bogus stories over such a long period of time from such a respected newspaper could cause readers of American newspapers to doubt the credibility of what they read. On gun-control issues, those doubts are well-merited; the Times's credibility when it comes to guns is about equal to that of the National Enquirer's reporting on celebrity romances: Some of it is true, a large part is false, and much of the rest is presented in a significantly misleading way. - Dave Kopel & Paul H. Blackman, "Gray Gun Stories", National Review Online, June 9, 2003.
The core problem is the bureaucrats really do not want pilots to be armed. "I don't think we want to equip our pilots with firearms," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Asked why, Ridge replied "Where would it end?" In other words, if we arm pilots, then we have to let other potential terror victims arms themselves, and that would be crazy! Actually, since 1989 Ridge's home state of Pennsylvania has allowed any law-abiding adult who wants to carry a concealed handgun for protection obtain a permit to do so. There is a background check requirement, but, unlike in many other states, no training requirement.
The law in Pennsylvania is working just fine. So fine, in fact, that when Ridge was governor, he signed legislation eliminating a loophole in the Pennsylvania carry law which had prevented Philadelphia residents from obtaining permits. So if concealed handguns work on the mean streets of Philadelphia, with no training requirement, what's wrong with trained pilots having guns? - Dave Kopel & David Petteys, "Air Neglect: What's wrong with trained pilots having guns?" July 2, 2003.
Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a distinct order in the state... the end of the social compact is defeated.... 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. - Richard Henry Lee.
A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms.... To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms... The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle. - Richard Henry Lee, "Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer," The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1788.
[W]hereas, 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; nor does it follow from this, that all promis