Raymond Moyers wrote:
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our
> will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of
> others." -- Thomas Jefferson
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "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
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere
> restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor
> with all that's good" -- George Washington
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is
> that they be properly armed."
> -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish
> their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the
> people, and making it an offense to keep arms."
> -- Constitutional scholar Joseph Story, 1840
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this
> gives [only] moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness,
> enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with
> the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the
> body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun,
> therefore, be the constant companion to your walks."
> -- Thomas Jefferson, writing to his teenaged nephew.
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "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
> life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice
> for that freedom." -- John F. Kennedy
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly
> been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic;
> since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and
> arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these
> are successful in the first instance, enable the people to
> resist and triumph over them."
> -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story of the John Marshall Court
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 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.
> -- Cesare Beccaria, as quoted by Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people.
> The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman
> and a slave.
> -- "Political Disquisitions", a British republican tract
> of 1774-1775
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> & what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are
> not warned from time to time that his people preserve the
> spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
> -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Col. William S. Smith, 1787
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect
> every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing
> will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give
> up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
> -- Patrick Henry, June 5 1788
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing
> degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our
> own defence? Where is the difference between having our
> arms in our own possession and under our own direction,
> and having them under the management of Congress? If our
> defence be the *real* object of having those arms, in whose
> hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal
> safety to us, as in our own hands?
> -- Patrick Henry, speech of June 9 1788
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual
> way to enslave them." -- George Mason, June 14, 1788
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> "The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every
> one who is able may have a gun." -- Patrick Henry, June 14 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, in "Phila. Independent
> Gazetteer", August 20, 1789
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any
> government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right
> of the citizens to keep and bear arms. [...] the right of
> the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against
> arbitrary government and one more safeguard against a
> tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which
> historically has proved to be always possible.
> -- Hubert H. Humphrey, 1960
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 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.
> -- Report of the Subcommittee On The Constitution of the Committee On
> The Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, second session
> (February, 1982), SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons.
> If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.
> -- Yoshimi Ishikawa
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the
> right of the people at large or considered as individuals...
> It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable
> and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive
> them of. -- Albert Gallatin, Oct 7 1789
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
> over any member of a civilized community, against his will,
> is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical
> or moral, is not a sufficient warrant
> -- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> clintonsoft.c:666: warning: `morality_and_integrity' defined but not used
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Raymond Moyers N5LAX email: rmoyers_at_nop.org
> --------------------------------------------------------
Few people are saved after the first half hour of sermon.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
Received on Thu Apr 11 2002 - 10:29:57 BST