Posted: 5/18/2007 12:50:05 PM EDT
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Pro: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. Benjamin Franklin Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it. Author unknown "Common sense is not so common."- Voltaire If the Government doesn't trust us with our guns, why should we trust them with theirs? The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. [H.L. Mencken] The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. - Thomas Jefferson "We hold the true Republican position. In leaving the people's business in their hands, we can not be wrong." Abraham Lincoln, 6-27-1848 "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." -Theodore Roosevelt, 1901 Those who sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety are not deserving of either liberty or safety. - Ben Franklin "Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism." --Herman Hesse “A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer's hands” -Seneca "Those who trade their swords for plowshares will plow for those who didn't." "When injustice becomes law...rebellion becomes duty"...Thorin "The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded." - Charles-Louis De Secondat "We make war that we may live in peace." - Aristotle "...is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? ...the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless." - Thomas Jefferson "The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair." -- H. L. Mencken "By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia', the 'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms', our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important." - John F. Kennedy, April 1960. "I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery." - Thomas Jefferson. "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." - Richard Henry Lee "My children, we are strong, we are numerous as the stars in the heavens, & we are all gunmen." Thomas Jefferson, in a speech to a group of chiefs from the lower Missouri River. When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred. Niccolo Machiavelli The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow. Niccolo Machiavelli "you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." --John Quincy Adams “We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.” ~Theodore Roosevelt Always attack in perpendicular fashion, from an unconventional and unexpected (but relevant) direction. The enemy will be unprepared; you can strike him with your full strength while he finds nothing to attack effectively. As much as "sunshine soldiers" or "summer patriots", beware an ally -- more common than you know -- whose fear of the uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of victory. (probably in reference to the French) If you're not a little bit uncomfortable with your position, it isn't radical enough. How can you be too principled? Take the most extreme position you can -- you're claiming territory you won't have to fight for later, mostly against your "allies". If we are ready to violate the Constitution we have sworn to defend, will the people submit to our unauthorized acts? Sir, they ought not to submit. They would deserve the chains that our measures are forging for them, if they did not resist. — Edward Livingston, 2 July 1798 Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of its arms as the blackest. — Mohandas Gandhi, 1927 The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness. — Robert A. Heinlein, 1951 If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. — Winston Churchill In a civilized society, force may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative. — Ayn Rand, “The Nature of Government” The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the rights of the people at large ... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. — Albert Gallatin, 7 October 1789 [W]hoever would be obliged to obey a constitutional law, is justified in refusing to obey an unconstitutional act of the legislature... — James Wilson, 1791 The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1787 "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill There is a time for peace and talk and reason; and then, at long last, and only with sadness of heart and mournful admission that all your wisdom and words have failed, you must go kill you some motherfuckers and set some of their shit on fire. ~ unknown "The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life." T Roosevelt "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -Robert Heinlein If you are going through hell, keep going. - Sir Winston Churchill A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. - General George S. Patton, Jr "We have four boxes used to guarantee our liberty: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box." -Unknown "A 'well-regulated militia' begins with knowing how your weapon works; how to take it apart and put it back together quickly; how to clean and maintain it; how to hit your target; and, most importantly, when to use it, and when not. Get out to the range and start practicing." -Unknown "Gun control isn't about guns — it's about control." -Unknown "If you believe the term "militia" means the National Guard then you must believe that freedom of speech is reserved for the Government Printing Office." -Unknown "When only the police have guns, it's called a Police State." -Unknown "A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it." -Unknown "Gun Control: The assumption that everyone is a potential criminal." -Unknown "Gun control is the weapon of a paranoid government" -Unknown "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense... " -John Adams, 1788, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 "If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -Samuel Adams "If the price I must pay for my freedom is to acknowledge that the government was granted the power to infringe on them, then I am not free." -Pol Anderson "Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." -Aristotle, "Politics" "You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." -Charles A. Beard, Historian (1874-1948) "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" (London, 1774-1775) "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion" -Edmund Burke "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." -Edmund Burke, letter, April 3, 1777, to the Sheriffs of Bristol "When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." -Edmund Burke (1729-1797) - English statesman "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke (1729-1797) - English statesman "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." -William Burroughs, taped conversation (published in Grand Street, no. 37) "Passing more gun laws will not stop crime, I think we should more strictly enforce existing laws and try and heal our nation's social woes instead of passing more laws". -George W. Bush "The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience" -Albert Camus "...he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." -Jesus Christ, Luke 22:36 "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace." -Jesus Christ, Luke 11:21 (King James translation, 1611 AD) "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, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Aug 1993 "Assault rifles have never been an issue in law enforcement. I have been on this job for 25 years and I haven't seen a drug dealer carry one. They are not used in crimes, they are not used against police officers." -Joseph Constance, Deputy Police Chief, Trenton, NJ "An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -Jeff Cooper "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 "If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who were perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF. They are a shame and a disgrace to our country." -U.S. Congressman John D. Dingell (Democrat from Michigan), 1980 "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 (Democrat from Michigan), February 8, 1995 "I sympathize with people who want to ban guns, but I can't agree with them. We have to be careful in our zeal to abolish guns that we don't wind up with counter-productive legislation that will leave armed only the people most likely to do harm with them." -Hugh Downs, veteran ABC newsman "Self-defence is Nature's eldest law." -John Dryden (1631-1700) "Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith & Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed." -Lieutenant Lowell Duckett, Special Assistant to DC Police Chief; President, Black Police Caucus, The Washington Post, March 22, 1996. "The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman — should be able to use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized." -General Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1943 "There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure." -President Dwight D. Eisenhower "Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 "A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity" -Sigmund Freud , "General Introduction to Psychoanalysis" "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to the Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn." -Mahatma Gandhi, Autobiography. Translated from the Gujarati by Mahadev Desai. Public Affairs Press, Washington, D.C. 1948. "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." -van Gogt "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue." -Barry Goldwater "Gun Control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety Locks? You will pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins." -Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, Mafia turncoat, asked about gun control in an interview in Vanity Fair "Before Adolf Hitler came to power, there was a black market in firearms, but the German people had been so conditioned to be law abiding that they would never consider buying an unregistered gun. The German people really believed that only hoodlums own guns. What fools we were. It truly frightens me to see how the government, media and some police groups in America are pushing for the same mindset." -Theodore Haas, Dachau Survivor "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 "The best we can hope for, concerning the people at large, is that they be properly armed." -Alexander Hamilton "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, No. 29 "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...." -Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, No.28 "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -Robert A. Heinlein, spoken by Mordan Claude in "Beyond This Horizon", 1942 "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." -Robert Heinlein, "Beyond This Horizon", 1942 "...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 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet" "The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness." -Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) "There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous men." -Robert A. Heinlein, "Methuselah's Children" "Love your country, but never trust its government." -Robert A. Heinlein "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 "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 might have a gun." -Patrick Henry, Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, June 5, 1788 "Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people." -Patrick Henry, 1782 speech "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" -Patrick Henry, March 23 1775 speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses "The Second Amendment isn't about protecting ourselves against criminals. It's about all of us protecting ourselves from all of you." -Dr. Suzanne Gratia, a survivor of the Killeen, Texas Luby's massacre, to Congressman Charles Schumer (D-NY), 1994 "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 "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 "Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power." -Yoshimi Ishikawa "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776 "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." -Thomas Jefferson, motto found among his papers "Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!" -Thomas Jefferson "The only way Governments can induce citizens to surrender their rights is convincing them that by doing so, they will gain a measure of safety in exchange" -Thomas Jefferson "The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose." -James Earl Jones "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." -John F. Kennedy "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -John F. Kennedy "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 "Liberalizing concealed carry laws won't lead to a return to the Wild West - though it wouldn't be bad if it did. ... in 19th Century cattle towns, homicide was confined to transient males who shot each other in saloon disturbances. The per capital robbery rate was 7% of modern New York City's. The burglary rate was 1%. Rape was unknown." -David Kopel, "Have Gun, Will Eat Out", quoted in the Wall Street Journal, February 28, 1994 "Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation." -Charles Krauthammer, columnist, Washington Post, April 5, 1996 "It's wrong for a few police chiefs to endorse the Brady Bill, or any legislation, and say they speak for everyone in law enforcement." -Trooper Bill Krulac: Pennsylvania State Police, U.S. Capitol Rally, September 7, 1988 "Our safety, our liberty depends on preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts — not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution" -Abraham Lincoln "If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would if such a right were a vital one." -Abraham Lincoln "The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves." -John Locke, A Treatise Concerning Civil Government "Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years." -Nicollo Machiavelli (1469-1527), 16th century Italian political theorist "A new prince has never been known to disarm his subjects, on the contrary, when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, for by arming them these arms become your own, those that you suspected become faithful and those that were faithful remain so, and from being merely subjects become your partisans... But when you disarm them, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred against you." -Niccolo Macchiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince" "The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom." -Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince", 1532 "Gun control does not decrease gun ownership by criminals but instead reduces their incentives to refrain from violence because it decreases the supply of armed law-abiding citizens who might resist them." -John O. McGinnis, Cardezo Law School at Yeshiva University in New York City "Banning gun shows to reduce violent crime will work about as well as banning auto shows to reduce drunken driving." -Bill McIntire, Spokesman for the National Rifle Association, on the Norfolk, Virginia council's vote to cancel four gun shows, 1992 "No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns." -U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, 1993 "Only a coward supports gun control. You know how to stop carjacking? Shoot the carjacker. If someone is going to kill me for my Buick, I'm gonna shoot until I'm out of ammo - and then I'll call 911." -Ted Nugent, People Magazine, quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 5, 1994 "Rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak" -George Orwell "Doctors have been caught using poisons, and those who falsely assume the name of philosopher have occasionally been detected in the gravest crimes. Let us give up eating, it often makes us ill; let us never go inside houses, for sometimes they collapse on their occupants; let never a sword be forged for a soldier, since it might be used by a robber." -Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, II, xvi (first century AD). "It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there is service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." -Ayn Rand "'There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. ... Create a nation of law-breakers, and then you cash in on the guilt.'" -Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged", Chapter III, "White Blackmail" "We are fast approaching the stage in the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest period of human history; the stage of rule by brute force." -Ayn Rand "And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs — politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that continue to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers." -Darrell Scott, Father of two victims of the Columbine High School shootings, Before the Subcommittee on Crime House Judiciary Committee, may 27, 1999 "In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent of defend the NRA—because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent." -Darrell Scott, Father of two victims of the Columbine High School shootings, Before the Subcommittee on Crime House Judiciary Committee, may 27, 1999 "If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?" -Clint Smith "If you're not shootin', you should be loadin'. If you're not loadin', you should be movin'. If you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick." -Clint Smith "I may get killed with my own gun, but he's gonna have to beat me to death with it, 'cause it's going to be empty." -Clint Smith "Gun control is a band-aid, feeling good approach to the nation's crime problem. It is easier for politicians to ban something than it is to condemn a murderer to death or a robber to life in prison. In essence, 'gun control' is the coward's way out." -Gabriel Suarez, police officer, California "The data from the 1990 Harvard Medical Practice Study suggest that 150,000 Americans die every year from doctors' negligence — compared with 38,000 gun deaths annually. Why are doctors not declared a public health menace? Because they save more lives than they take. And so it is with guns. Every year, good Americans use guns about 2.5 million times to protect themselves and their families, which means 65 lives are protected by guns for every life lost to a gun." -Dr. Edgar Suter, San Francisco Chronicle, July 12, 1994, Opinion (p. A17) "Guns are used defensively by good people 1 to 2.4 million times every year—lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs saved, and property protected." -Dr. Edgar Suter "Corruptisima republica plurimae leges." (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.) -Tacitus, Anals III 27 "Before, we had 'crimes' that opressed us; Now, we have 'laws' that opress us." -Roman Historian Tacitus, in 56 B.C. "Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects." -Leo Tolstoy, 1893 "It is also interesting to note that the top officials of Handgun Control Institute are gun owners themselves. They also intend on keeping them. It's other people's guns that bother them..." -Mark Urbin "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -Daniel Webster "Today's liberals wish to disarm us so they can run their evil and oppressive agenda on us. The fight against crime is just a convenient excuse to further their agenda. I don't know about you, but if you hear that Williams' guns have been taken, you'll know Williams is dead." -Walter Williams, Professor of Economics, George Mason University "The history of liberty is a history of limitation of government power, not the increase of it." -Woodrow Wilson "Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance." -Woodrow Wilson "It is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law." -Malcolm X, March 12, 1964 "Gun control has cleared the way for seven major genocides since 1915, in which governments gone bad murdered 56,000,000 persons, including millions of children." -Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership "Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." — Robert Heinlein "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security". Declaration of Independance "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic." --Ted Nugent "Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay--and claims a halo for his dishonesty." -Robert A. Heinlein writer Claire Wolfe: “America is at that awkward stage, where it’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.” Anti quotes coming up next. |
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Anti: "Stroke of the pen, law of the land... kinda cool" -Paul Begala, Clinton Presidential Aide, July 1998 referring to the Executive Orders "Yes, I'm denying you your rights." -L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, questioned about constitutional rights at a "Save the Brady Bill" rally. Steve Comus Western Outdoor News, September 4, 1992 "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 "The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I'm just so thrilled and excited. The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough." -Sarah Brady, July 1, 1988 "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, October 1997 "We must be able to arrest people before they commit crimes. By registering guns and knowing who has them we can do that... If they have guns they are pretty likely to commit a crime." -Vermont State Senator Mary Ann Carlson "We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." -Hillary Clinton, 1993 "Freedom means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their government." -Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech to a Chinese audience "If you know of any guns in your house or in the houses of your uncles, cousins, friends or neighbors, I want you to promise you will never, ever go near them. I want you to promise you will never, ever play with anybody who goes near them, and I want you to promise you will never, ever pick up a gun with any idea of using it against another person." -First Lady Hillary Clinton, at Valley Cottage Elementary School, March 3, 2000 "When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities." -President Bill Clinton, MTV's "Enough is Enough," April 19, 1994 "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." -President Bill Clinton, March 1, 1993, during a press conference in Piscataway , NJ. USA TODAY, March 11, 1993 "The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people" -President Bill Clinton, MTV interview, 1993 "You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say." -President Bill Clinton, May 28, 1993 speech in the city hall courtyard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania "You can't say you love your country and hate your government." -President Bill Clinton, 1995, commenting on the Oklahoma City bombing "And we should — then every community in the country could then start doing major weapon sweeps and then destroying the weapons, not selling them." -President Bill Clinton "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 "If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees." -President Bill Clinton, August 12, 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 "Guns have a place in the theater of war, they have no place out on the streets." -California Gov. Gray Davis July 20, 1999 "You know I don't believe in people owning guns, only the police and military. And I'm going to do everything I can to disarm this state." - Michael Dukakis, then governor of Massachusetts, in conversation with Mike Yacino, MA Gun Owner's Action League, and Roy Innis, CORE, June 16, 1986 "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 here." -U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," February 5, 1995, speaking about her authorship of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban "Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe." -U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, quoted by the Associated Press, November 18, 1993 "Because less than twenty years ago I was the target of a terrorist group. It was the New World Liberation Front. They blew up power stations and put a bomb at my home when my husband was dying of cancer. And the bomb didn't detonate. ... I was very lucky. But, I thought of what might have happened. Later the same group shot out all the windows of my home" "And, 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'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me." -U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat from California "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, September 17, 1997, regarding Israeli Military Industries The Americans people must be willing to give up a degree of personal privacy in exchange for safety and security." -Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, 1993 "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 "The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister "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 "The days of law by the quill pen... are coming to an end." -Vice President Al Gore, Reinventing Government speech in Pennsylvania, 1994 "Any 18 year old can walk into a gun store, pawn shop or gun show and buy a handgun." -U.S Vice President Al Gore, almost 30 years after the Gun Control Act of 1968 set the age to buy a handgun at 21. "And nobody 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 "These automatic, semiautomatic handguns and assault weapons, they really have no place in our society." -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, Larry King Live, September 17, 1999, on the 1999 Fort Worth shooting. The "assault weapons" being referred to are semi-automatic handguns. 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 "Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA — ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." -Heinrich Himmler "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 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, Edict of March 18, 1938, H.R. Trevor-Roper, Hitler's Table Talks 1941-1944 (London: Widenfeld and Nicolson, 1953, p. 425-426). "All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself." -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. I "If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things." -Adolf Hitler "Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." -Nikita Khrushchev, February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party "Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge where there is no river." -Nikita Khrushchev "I can prophesy that your grandchildren will live under socialism." -Nikita Khrushchev "We will bury you." -Nikita Khrushche "A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." -Vladimir Ilyich Lenin "No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns." -U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, 1993 "I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns." -U.S. Senator. Howard Metzenbaum, 1994 "With a 10,000% tax we could tax them out of existence." -U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Washington Post, November 4, 1993 "I honestly think — and I am not an expert on the amendments — I think the only people in this nation who should be allowed to own guns are police officers. I don't care if you want to hunt, I don't care if you think it's your right. I say, 'Sorry. It is 1999, we have had enough as a nation. You are not allowed to own a gun and if you do own a gun, I think you should go to prison.'" -Rosie O'Donnell, April 21, 1999 "My bill ... establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all handguns." -U.S. Representative Major Owens, Congressional Record, 11/10/93 "We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing and import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose." -U.S. Representative Owens, Democrat "Forget what our forefathers said." -Dominick Potifrone, ATF Special Agent (Retired) "On the Inside: The BATF", Discovery Channel, 2000 Nobody should be owning a gun which does not have a sporting purpose." -U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno "Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." -U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, December 1993 "Gun registration is not enough." -U.S.Attorney General Janet Reno on "Good morning America," December 10, 1993 "If it were up to me we'd ban them all" -U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds on CNN's Crossfire, December 9, 1993 "We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!" -U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York, quoted on NBC, December 8, 1993 "We're here to tell the NRA their nightmare is true..." -U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, November 30, 1993 "There may be other things that will happen later... It may not be the end... the bottom line is what we are seeking now is the Brady Bill." -U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, interviewed on CNN Crossfire. "Gun traffickers have found a new avenue for dealing guns to criminals, to the mentally ill, and the under-aged — the Internet. The firepower available on the Internet is chilling. Machine guns, assault weapons and cheaply made pistols are available in cyberspace for the taking. And they are available to those who could never buy a gun under the Brady law." -U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, March 16, 1999. Class III applications are easier to get approved than Brady paperwork? "I'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. Of course, it's true that politicians will then go home and say, 'This is a great law. The problem is solved.' And it's also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we'll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal." -Pete Shields, Chairman and founder, Handgun Control Inc., "A Reporter At Large: Handguns," The New Yorker, July 26, 1976, 57-58 "Yes, I'm for an outright ban [on handguns]." -Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., 60 Minutes interview "I don't believe anybody has a right to own any kind of a firearm. I believe in order to obtain a permit to own a firearm, that person should undergo an exhaustive criminal background check. In addition, an applicant should give up his right to privacy and submit his medical records for review to see if the person has ever had a problem with alcohol, drugs or mental illness... The Constitution doesn't count!" -John Silber, former chancellor of Boston University and candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. Speech before the Quequechan Club of Fall River, MA. August 16, 1990 "Assault weapons... are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." -Josh Sugarmann, "Assault Weapons: Analysis, New Research and Legislation", March 1989 "The NRA is right...handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns." -Josh Sugarman, former communications director for the Coalition Against Gun Violence "Every good Communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. The Communist party must control the guns" -Mao Tse Tung There is no pressing need for optics that allow shooters to make sniper shots from over one hundred meters. Posted by Brady Campaign on Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 2:11 PM "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilzed nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future." Adolf Hitler 1935 |
I think it's pretty well established that this is not a true quote, despite how often it is repeated. |
It hasn't been proven that Hitler never said that; it's merely questionable because we don't know either way. But in any case, it stands. |
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BTT Look at this thread and then read all the anti-gun quotes again. Then tell me how you feel afterwards. 
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"An armed society is a polite society" -Robert Heinlein "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -Robert Heinlein |
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"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson "I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." -- Thomas Jefferson The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power." -- Daniel Webster "If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!" -- Patrick Henry "Wars are caused by undefended wealth." -- Ernest Hemingway "You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for ones self-respect to be a punching bag." -- Victor Hugo "Civil war? What does that mean? Is there any foreign war? Isn't every war fought between men, between brothers?" -- Victor Hugo "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part." -- Morgan Freeman All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. -- Thomas Jefferson Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -- Thomas Jefferson Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. --Thomas Jefferson The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. -- Thomas Jefferson The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. --Thomas Jefferson If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. --Thomas Paine Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them. --Thomas Paine "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."-- Rudyard Kipling |
I'm not sure I can agree with that  - despite my wholehearted agreement with your "work" in this thread and others.It's impossible to prove that he NEVER said it. For it to be widely used (and this quote is everywhere), it should be from a documented, written source - or from the transcript of a speech. (I can make up anything I want, claim that Hitler said is, and then challenge people to "prove me wrong") If there is no actual evidence that he ever said or wrote this, then I'd have to assume that it's an incorrect attribution - and I find it distasteful to try to convince people of an argument using fraudulent or suspect "facts" (I'm not saying in any way that you are deliberarately doing that - I'm just saying that I have looked in the past for sources for this, and found NOTHING - so I'd be unable to use this quote to try to make a point or support and argument). |
Wow, brilliant logic there  .We can't prove that he didn't say it, so it must be true. 
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"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." -Daniel Webster |
Still think there's a difference? |
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"My question is whether a society that is manifestly incapable of protecting its citizens from crime really has any right or moral authority to tell people what they may or may not do to protect themselves." - From the March 31, 1995 statement of Tulane University criminologist James Wright before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary |