Second Amendment Quotes

A Minor Resource

Second Amendment Quotes

Originally published July 2023. Updated.

"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies." ~ George Washington

  Over the years if I came across a pro second amendment quote that I liked I would save it in a file. I recently thought it would be good to publish it so as to spread the quotes around, especially since you are unlikely to find them in the main stream media. They reflect much of the original thinking as to the necessity of an armed populace, as well as some more contemporary thought. We find today that the powerful in our country do not take these ideas seriously, although the founders certainly did. I cannot take credit for this essay except to the extent that I thought to save some of these quotes. I hope all of you can make use of them if someone demands that you explain yourself for supporting the 2A, in your own writings, or just in casual conversation. Please disseminate the quotes as far as possible. Thank you. David

“The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”   Hubert Humphrey, Democrat, U.S Senator and Vice President

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

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords." ~ Benjamin Franklin

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”  Thomas Jefferson

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . 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

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself." ~ George Washington

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”  Mahatma Gandhi

"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 that it stays there." - George Orwell

"By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' 'the security of the nation,' and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy... The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important." ~ John F. Kennedy

"Clearly, there remains to this day a horrible, condescending attitude toward armed American citizens. Haven’t the British yet gotten over the fact that a ragtag, often disorganized force of American colonials, wielding their own arms, was able to defeat what at the time was the most powerful armed force in the world? Our forefathers, armed with their own flintlock rifles and pistols, and an assortment of muskets—the ‘assault weapons’ of their era—threw off the yoke of oppression under which they were forced to live. When British broadcasters today demand to know just what it is about gun ownership that Americans defend so vigorously, the answer is too simple for them to comprehend. Simply put, we defend this individual civil right because without our own guns two centuries ago, we would still... likely be British subjects..." - Alan Gottlieb

"An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants." - Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince" (1532)

When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred. - Niccolo Machiavelli

Before all else, be armed. - Niccolo Machiavelli

"The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms has justly been considered the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of the 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, 1833

"Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords." ~ Benjamin Franklin

"In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous…revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly." - Jeffrey Snyder, A Nation of Cowards

“Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms? - James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46.

"We ran into a pleasant interlude up in Vermont which emphasized the wisdom and social utility of the Vermont firearms laws. It seems that some foreigner from down below was in a supermarket when he observed one of the customers wearing a pistol openly. He got all flustered and immediately called 911. In due course a cop showed up and located the complainer, who pointed out the "culprit." The cop agreed that the man really was carrying a pistol, and then he asked what the problem was. I suppose the poor fellow rushed off out the door and went back where he came from. Obviously the state of Vermont was too dangerous for him. - The Late Jeff Cooper, Jeff Cooper's Commentaries, Vol. 6, No. 3, March 1998

"It is one of the great ironies of our modern "civilized" era that in most of the places where you don't feel the need to carry a firearm for self defense you can legally do so if you choose. But in most of places where you do indeed justifiably feel the immediate need to carry a gun, they are banned." - James Wesley, Rawles

"The rifle is a weapon. Let there be no mistake about that. It is a tool of power, and thus dependent completely upon the moral stature of its user. It is equally useful in securing meat for the table, destroying group enemies on the battlefield, and resisting tyranny. In fact, it is the only means of resisting tyranny, since a citizenry armed with rifles simply cannot be tyrannized. The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles." - The Late Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle

"There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by instruction but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right." - Marcus Tulius Cicero (106-53 BC)

"The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I have said, it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality." - George Orwell, 1941

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? [...] The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!" - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (Chapter 1, "Arrest")

"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded, controlled, supervised, and taken care of." - Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp (Texas)

"We maintain [privately-owned] arms largely because we seek to prevent violence. Those that wish to disarm us do so that they may perpetrate it with impunity." - R. Murray

"The gun control debate generally ignores the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the Second amendment. The Second amendment is not about hunting deer or keeping a pistol in your nightstand. It is not about protecting oneself against common criminals. It is about preventing tyranny. The Founders knew that unarmed citizens would never be able to overthrow a tyrannical government as they did. They envisioned government as a servant, not a master, of the American people. The muskets they used against the British Army were the assault rifles of that time. It is practical, rather than alarmist, to understand that unarmed citizens cannot be secure in their freedoms." - Dr. Ron Paul

"An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants." - Niccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince" (1532)

"… [M]any gun owners readily concede that their right to keep and bear arms is “not absolute” and is subject to “reasonable” regulation. This concession to moderation or reasonableness is fatal to the right. Yes, there are people who should not have guns. However, the point of the Second Amendment is precisely to deny government the power to decide who those people are, just as the point of the First Amendment is to deny government the power to decide what you may read and hear. Rights are not reasonable, and are not to be made reasonable, because government itself is not reason; it is force." - Jeff Snyder

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“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.” - Ida B. Wells, a founder of the NAACP

"Blessed are those who, in the face of death, think only about the front sight." ~ Jeff Cooper

“The Militia Laws should be repealed and none suffered to be re-enacted, & the Arms of all the People should be taken away, & every piece of Ordnance removed into the King’s Stores, nor should any foundry or manufactory of Arms, Gunpowder, or Warlike Stores, be evre suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder, Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without License; they will have but little need of such things for the future, as the King’s Troops, Ships Forts will be sufficient to protect them from any danger.” William Knox, Under Secretary of State in the British colonial Office, 1777

"One man with a gun can control 100 without one." ~ Vladimir Lenin

"Make yourself sheep and the wolves will eat you." ~ Benjamin Franklin