Second Amendment Quotes

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 45 AD (chief minister under Nero): ''A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer’s hands.''

Benjamin Franklin: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."

George Mason: "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them."

Thomas Jefferson: "When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. 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: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."

George Washington: “A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”

George Washington: "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and the keystone under independence."

Patrick Henry: “The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”

John F. Kennedy: "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 lives.”

James Madison: “Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”

James Madison: "Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

Gandhi: “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 If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity.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voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn”.

Admiral Yamamoto: “You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.” (Explaining one of the reasons the Japanese choose not to invade the continental US during World War II.)

Dalai Lama: “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”

Thomas Jefferson: “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.”

Thomas Jefferson: “The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

United States Senate, Report of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, 97th Cong., 2d Sess.: “The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”

Philip Van Cleave- “When seconds count between living and dying, the police are only minutes away.”

Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House): “If I had my way, sporting guns would be strictly regulated, the rest would be confiscated.” (And she is third from the Presidency!)

Tim Slagle: "A lot of people who didn't understand the need for civilians to bear arms on Sept. 10, 2001 were pretty clear on the issue by Sept. 12, 2001."

Jesus Christ (Luke 11:21): “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his palace, his possessions are safe.”

Jesus Christ (Luke 22:36): "He said to them, 'But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

Henry St. George Tucker, in Blackstone's 1768: "The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

Georgetown University professor Robert Levy: "Suppose the Second Amendment said, 'A well-educated Electorate, being necessary for self-governance in a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed.' Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?"

William Burroughs (b. 1914) author, "The War Universe": “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."

Peter Finn: "The People are responsible for being the Fourth 'check and balance' upon the power of government. If we fail to restrain our political leaders by threat of mortal accountability then we are assured of political leaders who will act with impunity against us."

Plato (427 – 347 B.C.): "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."