"[I]f liberals interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpreted the rest of the Bill of Rights, there would be law professors arguing that gun ownership is mandatory."
"Thieves and murderers never would and never do regard any law of this kind, and the revolver under such circumstances is the best conservator of the public peace in the hands of law-abiding men. No man desires to be in the position of being assailed by a lot of drunken bullies who are reckless of anything they may do unless restrained by fear."
"The defence of one's self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law. This principle of defence is not confined merely to the person; it extends to the liberty and the property of a man: it is not confined merely to his own person; it extends to the persons of all those, to whom he bears a peculiar relation - of his wife, of his parent, of his child, of his master, of his servant: nay, it extends to the person of every one, who is in danger; perhaps, to the liberty of every one, whose liberty is unjustly and forcibly attacked. It becomes humanity as well as justice."
Every time an advocate of gun control promises not to impair the recreational activities of hunters, he demonstrates his contempt for the values underlying the Second Amendment, implying that the issues at stake are trivial.
The second amendment to the federal constitution, as well as the constitutions of many of the states, guaranty to the people the right to bear arms. This is a natural right, not created or granted by the constitutions.Black, Henry Campbell. Handbook of American Constitutional Law. 3rd. Ed. St. Paul: West Publishing Company, 1910. 543 Print.
The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see it stays there.
The possession of arms is the distinction of a freeman from a slave. He who has nothing, and belongs to another, must be defended by him, and needs no arms: but he who thinks his is his own master, and has anything he may call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses, or else live precariously and at discretion.
Both [oligarch and tyrant] mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
