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 [UPDATE: that attribution to jefferson may be false.]
As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the 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 next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
~Trench Coxe, “Remarks on the first part of the amendments to the Federal Constitution”, Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789
The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.
~Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution
Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms.
~Thomas Pownall
To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
~George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380
What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty . . . Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
~Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789
A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms. To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
~Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer 53 (1788)
. . . but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights…
~Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist Paper 29
Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
~Trench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 February 1788
That the said Constitution shall never be 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…
~Samuel Adams
No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
~Thomas Jefferson, proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334
And can there be entertained a reasonable doubt but the provisions of that act import a restraint on the right of the citizen to bear arms? The court apprehends it not. The right existed at the adoption of the Constitution; it then had no limit short of the moral power of the citizens to exercise it, and in fact consisted of nothing else but the liberty of the citizen to bear arms.
~Kentucky Court of Appeals striking down a Concealed Carry prohibition statute (1822)
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.
~George Mason, 3 Elliott, Debates at 425-426
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitable ruined.
~Patrick Henry
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country men.
~Samuel Adams
