Founding fathers and other smart people on an armed population
From an article, “Head in the Clouds: The Left and Disarming of America, July 22, 2012, Spencer Wolf writes:
Founding fathers on an armed population
“A free people ought to be armed.”
– George Washington
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”
– Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
“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
“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”
- John Adams
“To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”
– George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.”
- James Madison, Federalist Paper #46
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
- William Pitt, Nov. 18, 1783
“The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
- Noah Webster, 1787
“That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”
- George Orwell
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
- The Dalai Lama, May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times
“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.”
- Mohandas K. Gandhi
Here is what Richard Henry Lee,
the initiator of the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE said about guns:
“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, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights
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