"Samuel Adams If ye love wealth better than liberty , the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom , go home from us in peace . We ask not your counsels or your arms . Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you . May your chains set lightly upon you , and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen . And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press , or the rights of conscience ; or to prevent the people of the United States , who are peaceable citizens , from keeping their own arms ; or to raise standing armies , unless necessary for the defense of the United States , or of some one or more of them ; or to prevent the people from petitioning , in a peaceable and orderly manner , the federal legislature , for a redress of grievances ; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons , papers or possessions . Cesare Beccaria False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience ; that would take fire from men because it burns , and water because one may drown in it ; that has no remedy for evils except destruction . 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 . Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity , the most important of the code , will respect the less important and arbitrary ones , which can be violated with ease and impunity , and which , if strictly obeyed , would put an end to personal liberty ... and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer ? 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 . They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes , produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts , and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree . James Bovard As we learned from the Clinton administration and much of the media , a machine gun in the hands of a federal agent is now a symbol of benevolence and concern for a child 's well-being . William S. BurroughsAfter a shooting spree , they always want to take the guns away from the people who did n't do it . I sure as hell would n't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military . Bill ClintonThe purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people . 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 . We ca n't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ... Cockrum v. State The right of a citizen to bear arms , in lawful defense of himself or the State , is absolute . He does not derive it from the State government . It is one of the high powers `` delegated directly to the citizen , and ` is excepted out of the general powers of government . ' A law can not be passed to infringe upon or impair it , because it is above the law , and independent of the lawmaking power . Rev . Nicholas Collin While the people have property , arms in their hands , and only a spark of noble spirit , the most corrupt Congress must be mad to form any project of tyranny . Tench CoxeThe militia of these free commonwealths , entitled and accustomed to their arms , when compared with any possible army , must be tremendous and irresistible . Who are the militia ? Are they not ourselves ? Is it feared , then , that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom . Congress have no power to disarm the militia . Their swords , and every other terrible implement of the soldier , are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments , but , where I trust in God it will ever remain , in the hands of the people . Whereas civil rulers , not having their duty to the people duly before them , may attempt to tyrannize , and as military forces , which must be occasionally raised to defend our country , might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens , the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms ."
"`` The right was in the context of the citizen soldier of the conscript militia . In the eighteenth century private arms were never strictly private . The public had a claim for public purposes . Coxe was a strong Federalist . He was employed in Hamilton 's Treasury Department during the Whiskey Rebellion . He expressed no concerns that the enrollment and inventory requirements of the Militia Act would infringe on right of the people to keep and bear their private arms. `` http : //www.potowmack.org/thequotes.html # coxe So Tench Coxe put quite a bit a faith in the power of the militia ? George Washington and Alexander Hamilton did n't agree . They thought that the militia was no match for a regular army . '' Regular troops alone are equal to the exignencies of modern war , as well for defense as for offense .... No militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist regular force .... The Firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be attained by a constant course of discipline and service . I have never been yet been witness to a single instance that would justify a different opinion. `` ( Letter from George Washington to the President of Congress- September 15,1780 ) `` Here I expect we shall be told that the militia of the country is its natural bulwark , and would be at all times equal to the national defense . This doctrine , in substance , had like to have lost us our independence . It cost millions to the United States that might have been saved . The facts which , from our own experience , forbid a reliance of this kind , are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion . The steady operations of war against a regular and disciplined army can only be successfully conducted by a force of the same kind. `` -Alexander Hamilton http : //federalistpapers.com/federalist25.html"
"William S. BurroughsAfter a shooting spree , they always want to take the guns away from the people who did n't do it"
"The right was in the context of the citizen soldier of the conscript militia"