A Few Quips on Arming the Citizenry
"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."
-- Hubert Humphrey, Oct. 22, 1959
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason
"Bans and restrictions on firearms affect the law-abiding citizenry, shifting power to the non-law-abiding. Criminals ignore laws. That's why we call them criminals. Paine said: "The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense. � (Weakness) allures the ruffian (but) arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order in the world. � Horrid mischief would ensue were (the good) deprived of the use of them. � The weak will become a prey to the strong."
-- Thomas Paine
James Madison, the "father of the Constitution," stated that tyrants were "afraid to trust the people with arms," and lauded "the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so."
-- Adolf Hitler
"One man with a gun can control 100 without one."
-- Vladimir Lenin
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
-- Mao Zedong
"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?"
-- Josef Stalin