Javafour
New member
These are a collection of sig quotes, collected from years of crawling about the Internet. Share and Enjoy...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An armed society is a polite society" -- RAH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IF LIBERALS INTERPRETED THE 2ND AMENDMENT, THE WAY THEY DO THE FIRST,
CARRYING A GUN WOULD BE MANDATORY!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If Sarah Brady, Ted Kennedy, Howard Metzenbaum and their ilk get their way, America will become "The land of the Fee and the home of the Slave".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only criminals, tyrants and cowards have reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilence. . . . No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." --Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A new prince has never been known to disarm his subjects, on the contrary, when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, for by arming them these arms become your own, those that you suspected become faithful and those that were faithful remain so, and from being merely subjects become your partisans. . . . But when you disarm them, 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 against you."
The Prince, Niccolo Macchiavelli
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I'm just so thrilled and excited. "The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough."
...Sarah Brady, 1 July 1988
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Justice Department studies show that armed citizens are much less likely to suffer losses or personal injury from thieves" -- Washington Post 1/7/92
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Last year, I surveyed the firearms used in violent crimes... assault-type firearms were the least of our worries. It's really the .22 and .38-caliber handguns and 12-gauge shotguns that inflict the majority of carnage."
An October 31, 1988 memo from S.C. Helsley, the then-Assistant Director of the California DOJ Investigation and Enforcement Branch.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An unarmed people are slaves, or subject to slavery at any moment." -- Huey P. Newton.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fear a government that fears your guns"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Chicago, 1988 saw more murderers using baseball bats than rifles. -- James Jay Baker, before the US House of Representatives, 11/1/89
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?" -- Patrick Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...hundreds of Korean storeowners in LA using handguns and shotguns to successfully repel looters." -- ABC's Nightline TV-News program
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[ laws that forbid the carrying of arms ] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes." -- Cesare Beccaria, 1764
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, pages 86-87."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If even one life can be saved by the presence of a firearm, it legally, morally and ethically necessary for us to ensure the availability of such `emergency rescue equipment'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government." - SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns makes for great theater but it does nothing to address the real problem of criminals and criminal behavior," -- New Jersey State Assemblyman Frank LoBiondo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." -- Heinrich Himmler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms, history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall" -Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Congresscritter: "If you use an UZI for your drive-bys, we're going to make it illegal for law-abiding citizens to own them."
Willie Steal: "Thank you sir, may I have another."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`Firearms have been around for over 400 years, yet it is only in the last 20 years that people have begun shouting "gun control". Why then, only recently, has this become such an issue? Moreover, why are there more mass-murderers than at any other time in our known history? It is not because weapons are more powerful -- 200-year-old muzzleloaders have a much greater force-per-round than today's "assault rifles". It is not because weapons are semi- or fully-automatic -- rapid-fire weapons have been available for most of the last century. It is not due to a lack of laws -- we have more "gun control" laws than ever. It IS, however, because we have chosen to focus on "gun control" instead of crime control or "thug control." It IS because only recently has the public become complacent enough to accept, by inaction, the violence present in our society.' - Kevin Langston, Tuesday, 29 October, 1991
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part, sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are barking up the wrong tree." -- James Wright, "The Gun Control Debate: You Decide"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The NRA is right...handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns." -- Josh Sugarman, former communications director for the Coalition Against Gun Violence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 US murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?" -- Andrew Ford
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's been hard to argue against such great visuals" Legislative Director Jeff Muchnick, National Coalition to Ban Handguns on the LA riots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion . . . in private self-defense." -- John Adams
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A well schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There are going to be situations where people are going to go without assistance. That's just the facts of life." ex-LA Chief of Police, Gates.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First they stole the forth amendment.
I said nothing because I don't deal drugs.
Then they took the sixth amendment.
I was silent because I know I'm not guilty.
When they came for the second amendment,
I kept quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they've come for the first amendment,
and I can't say anything at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Brady, Space Nut part 3, " The rights of the criminals outweigh the rights of the law abiding citizens, unless you ara a politician, and the law doesn't apply to them".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sung with screaming guitars in the background:
"Sarah Brady raped my mother
Killed my father and my brother
Took away their means of defense
Might as well have done the offense
Sarah Brady raped my mother
Raped my mother, raped my mother"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many gun control advocates does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: They don't do that; they pass laws against burned-out bulbs, and then they wonder why it's still so dark. Meanwhile, a lot of people get hurt because they can't see.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily, given political realities, going to be very modest. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns in the United States, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered, and the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns, and all handgun ammunition illegal!"
-Nelson T. Shields of Hangun Control, Inc. as quoted in `New Yorker' magazine July 26, 1976. Page 53f
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- Gen. George Washington, Continental Army (Ret.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"People here live in fear of 'pistoleros', but they also live under the daily stress...of an insensitive government". --Miguel Corral Olivas, former mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Republic of Mexico: a nation with strict gun-control laws.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have four boxes used to guarantee our liberty:
The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My gun is safer than Ted Kennedy's car.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The first thing you have to do is disarm the people. A disarmed public can't fight back" -- Adolf Hitler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the subject of constitutional rights was brought up by a member of the pro-gun contingent, L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley replied "Yes, I'm denying you your rights." -- Mayor Tom Bradley at a "Save the Brady Bill" ralley. Steve Comus Western Outdoor News 09-04-92
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens to 'keep and bear arms'. If it had, there would have been wording such as 'the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'" -- Ken Konecki on Usenet, on 27 Jul 1992
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A right delayed is a right denied?" -- Martin Luther King jr.
Just say no to waiting periods.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a lot of stupidity out there. Many gun control laws seem really pointless. I can't have a handgun in the city, but I can have an elephant rifle. Guns with bayonet mounts are outlawed---as if there has been a rash of bayonettings! Then, when the bayonet lugs are removed, people get outraged when they see that it's really the same gun. You'd think they'd realize this proves the original law was stupid! A lot of people who scream for more gun control have no idea what the existing laws are like.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a big double standard. Senators and mayors tell me I don't need a gun from behind walls of armed bodyguards. Protecting my family is not an acceptable reason to own a gun, but protecting the life of some rich guy's family --- because he hires me as a bodyguard -- is. I'm told I don't need a gun by police officers who wear a gun every day even though they have a desk job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Americans have a right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The right of the people to keep and bear... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." --- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, 8 June 1789
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Brady of HCI, quoted in the January 1992 issue of Crimebeat magazine:
"I am certainly not anti-gun by any means. I even enjoy shooting a gun myself. I believe that they can have value for certain things, such as self-defense..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Joyce Brothers, the pop psychologist,has claimed that firearms ownership is indicative of male sexual inadequacy. Her husband has pistol permit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, has a NYC pistol permit. The Times has an editorial policy against private handgun ownership.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey, if your daughter is carved on while being raped it's OK, as long as a handgun isn't used. You've really captured the essence of what I was saying." -- Daniel William Roth (kato@leland.stanford.edu)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"But even if a ban [on handguns] is instituted I think that superior people such as myself should be allowed to have them." -- Daniel William Roth (kato@leland.stanford.edu)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...our absolute obligation under the Constitution to give people the right to have a firearm..." -- President William Clinton, March 1, 1993 during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -- "Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"See, the gun-control folks are quite happy with ANY progress in their direction, they know they can come back next year. But any freedom lost for the firearm rights folks is a freedom lost forever, and they can only wait and see what they will lose next."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here." -- Mary McGrory, Arizona Daily Star, 3/11/93 p. A16.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom." --"Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A well-educated electorate being necessary to the prosperity of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed." Do you believe that restricting people to one book purchase per month would prevent libel and slander?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime." -- Orrin Hatch, 1982 Senate Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns." -- Sen. Howard Metzenbaum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When only the police have guns, it's called a Police State.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [A sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] -- Seneca (the Younger), _Letters to Lucilius_, c.63-65
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It's a good thing." -- "Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"... 'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms ...." - Supreme Court of the U.S., U.S. v. Uerdugo-Uriquidez (1990).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effective way to enslave them ...." - George Mason ( Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776, which became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights ) 3 Elliot, Debate at 380.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[...] if the gun laws that Massachusetts has now had been in force in 1776, we'd all be Canadians, and you know what kind of weather Canada has." PARLIAMENT OF WHORES by P. J. O'Rourke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms.... The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to always be possible. -- Sen. Hubert Humphrey (1960) Liberal Icon & Patron Saint
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Tse Tung
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty." -- V. I. Lenin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seen on a pickup in Arizona: China has gun control. Afghanistan doesn't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bumper sticker on a car with Virginia Plates: Buy One Gun A Month IT'S THE LAW ! ! !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Politicians Prefer Disarmed Peasants"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Criminals don't like it when victims shoot back.
Gun control is nothing more than victim disarmament.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't want my Second Amendment rights defined by people who have demonstrated an outspoken hostility toward them (like Kennedy, Metzenbaum, or Schumer) any more than I would want Jerry Falwell put in charge of Federal Family Planning policy or David Duke appointed head of the Civil Rights Commission. Seems like a basic "no-brainer" to me.... What part don't you understand?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Richards, Governor of Texas, who admits carrying concealed pistol, but recently vetoed a bill that would have allowed other women (and men) in Texas to have the same means of self protection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein -- who, while Mayor of San Francisco during a "handgun ban" PR stunt, ostentatiously turned in one handgun. And quietly kept her other one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, a lawyer, who "doesn't know" whether her .22 caliber pistol is registered in Chicago, as required. [BTW, that's a crime ...]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun columnist Carl Rowan, used an illegal handgun to shoot a skinny- dipping teenager. He obtained the illegal pistol from his son, an FBI agent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Assault rifles have never been an issue in law enforcement. I have been on this job for 25 years and I haven't seen a drug dealer carry one. They are not used in crimes, they are not used against police officers." -- Trenton NJ Deputy Chief of Police Joseph Constance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense .... And ... these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." - Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. v. Miller (1939).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The states cannot, even laying the Constitutional provision out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to general government." - Supreme Court of the U.S., Presser v. Illinois (1886).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"... 'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms ...." - Supreme Court of the U.S., U.S. v. Uerdugo-Uriquidez (1990).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former-Governor Ann Richards of Texas joked about the CCW bill she vetoed, saying that no woman could find a gun in her purse before she was killed anyway.
For the record Former-Governor Richards has publicly stated that she carries a handgun in her purse, in violation of Texas state law.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[The Brady Bill] is not going to stop crimes of passion or drug related crime" -- Sarah Brady
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control is not a legitimate solution to crime... it nonetheless gives gun control enthusiasts an issue to seize upon... The longer our lawmakers distract themselves from this task by embracing the follies of gun control, the more grim our crime situation will become, and the louder, in turn, will be the call for more gun control. It is a vicious cycle which can only be broken by education and by focusing on the real issues of crime. When we accomplish that we can all breath a little easier." -- Congressman Jim Florio, circa 1984
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control is not a legitimate solution to crime..." -- Jim Florio, c. 1984
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BATF study (titled "Protecting America, Yes") surveyed 471 career criminals and found that only 7% of guns used in violent crimes were purchased from retail dealers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A study by the BATF and Washington D.C. Police showed that 40% of all firearms confiscated from criminals in Washington were stolen from the the Washington Police -- (BATF, "Analysis of Operation CUE (Concentrated Urban Enforcement)," interim report (Washington D.C., February 15, 1977), pp. 133-34).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mrs. Brady sees the Brady bill as the cornerstone of a serious gun control policy in America that will eventually include more restrictions. That, of course, is why the gun lobby opposes the bill despite its moderate scope...." Page one article in the 9/15/1993 issue of the New York Times entitled, "What Can The Brady Bill Really Do?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence." Part the First, Article XVII, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Consitution
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALCOHOL PROHIBITION Didn't Work; it CREATED more crime and violence.
DRUG PROHIBITION Doesn't Work; it CREATES more crime and violence.
GUN PROHIBITION Won't Work; it WILL CREATE more crime and violence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician wasn't regarded as mallum in se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved." - H. Beam Piper, "A Planet For Texans/Lone Star Planet"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco..." -- P. J. O'Rourke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If high-capacity semi-automatic pistols are only good for killing, shouldn't President Clinton be worried about the Secret Service?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When you start with an "allegation" that gun control law has been violated, and you end up with nearly 100 people, including 25 children, killed, and millions of taxpayers dollars down the drain, that's bad law enforcement no matter how you slice it."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these elements make difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official agents, and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government." -- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun 29 August 1558
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gun control is based on the mypoic concept that criminal behavior is controlled by laws. The only control that the law has on criminals is during that period of time which the criminal spends locked up behind bars. Gun control is useless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I represent a state where gun control is how steady you hold your rifle." - Sen. Alan Simpson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Expecting a carjacker or rapist or drug pusher to care that his possession or use of a gun is unlawful is like expecting a terrorist to care that his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces." - Joseph T. Chew, in a talk.politics.guns posting
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 Ghandi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"My experience as a street cop suggests that most merchants should not have guns. But I feel even stronger about the average person having them...most homeowners...simply have no need to own guns." -- Joseph McNamara, San Jose, CA ex-Police Chief, and HCI spokesman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As much as I oppose the average person's having a gun, I recognize that some people have a legitimate need to own one. A wealthy corporate executive who fears his family might get kidnapped is one such person. A Hollywood celebrity who has to protect himself from kooks is another. If Sharon Tate had had access to a gun during the Manson killings, some innocent lives might have been saved." -- Joseph D. McNamara (San Jose, CA ex-Police Chief, and HCI spokesman), Safe and Sane (book) ,1984, p. 71-72.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is DoD policy to encourage actively and support civilian rifle and pistol marksmanship training as an important element of national defense." --Dept. of Defense Directive 1025.1 [31 Jan. 1984]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January 1993, 120 nations including the USA banned CS tear gas from use in warfare. In April 1993, the US government used it against US citizens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...expert evidence was submitted establishing that approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowning technical violations. (In one case, in fact, the individual was being prosecuted for an act which the Bureau's acting director had stated was perfectly lawful.)" -- 97th Congress, Subcommiitee report on RKBA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(camera pans to Linda Richards)
"I'm getting a bit verklempft. Topic for discussion. Prohibitive Gun control in Washington DC vs minimal gun control in Alexandra VA. Why is DC's crime rate 12 times higer than the city across the Potomac?
Discuss."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In August of 1992, they gunned down Randy Weaver's son and wife, but I did not speak up because I was not a white separatist. In the winter of 1993, they shot up and burned alive almost 100 Branch Davidians, but I did not speak up for I was not a cultist. Earlier, they came for our Nunchaku, but I did not speak up because I was not a gang banger, and my police chief looks the other way for me. I supported it when they went after Evil Assault Baby Killing firearms, because I Am Not A Baby Killer. They won't come for me, I am but a sheep. What's that smashing sound at my front door?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Post Sept. 2, 1988, D3, Chuck Conconi Personalities, Alongside a William Colby photo
"Former CIA director William E. Colby and his wife, former ambassador Sally Shelton, who have been quietly working for the past several years with the National Colation to Ban Handguns, are opening their Georgetown home later this month for a coalition fundraiser that will feature the music of 71-year-old cabaret mouth organist Larry Adler. Colby has said he learned of the dangers of handguns during his years at the CIA ..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NRA life member John F.Kennedy was shot by ACLU member Lee Harvey Oswald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over 65 million american gun owners didn't hurt anyone today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life, Liberty and Happiness are nothing without the means to defend them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goon Control, not gun control
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Anti-gun Rep. Stephen Solarz's bodyguards, recently arrested by Capitol police for illegally toting 9 mm semi-autos and assorted brass knuckles and blackjacks, weren't up to speed. Readers will recall that Sen. Edward Kennedy's bodyguard was toting a submachine gun when capitol police nabbed him in what the Massachusett's senator's office called a "technical" violation. New York's Solarz, like Kennedy, is a pernnial supporter of laws to disarm other people and a sponsor of this year's rendition of the Brady waiting period bill." -- American Rifleman, April 1991, page 20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We must be able to arrest people before they commit crimes. By registering guns and knowing who has them we can do that. ...If they have guns they are pretty likely to commit a crime." - -Vermont State Senator Mary Ann Carlson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I especially want to thank you for standing by me on the day we say 'No' to amateur gunslingers who somehow think they're going to be braver and smarter with a gun in their hand." -- Former Texas Gov. Ann Ricards while vetoing a CCW bill in the presence of a group of police officers as reported on page 10 of the March 6, 1994 "Voter's Guide" (Section Q) of the Dallas Morning News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Assault rifles are short, compact, select fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun (pistol) and rifle catridges". - US Department of Defense
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets." -- Joseph Constance (deputy chief of Trenton NJ police dept) in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Aug 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLICE CHIEFS HELD TO DOUBT GUN LAW
Washington, D.C. - Police chiefs believe that the Brady Law requiring a five-day waiting period to buy guns will have little impact on criminals, according to a poll published yesterday. Over 97 percent of the heads of law enforcement agencies said criminals will still be able to obtain illegal weapons on the street within hours on any day of the week. The survery of 3,241 police agency heads, conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police, also found about 97 percent believe empty military installations should be opened to lock up the overflow of convicted felons. (Reuters) --The Boston Globe, page 9 * Friday, April 22, 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They are designed to kill as many people as possibble." Assault weapons? No, hands and feet. (Ex-)New York Gov. Mario Cuomo has joined the fight against semi-automatic guns, but state crime figures show that his energy is being misdirected. In 1992, the latest year for which detailed figures are available, semi-automatic, large-capacity rifles killed 20 people in New York state, That's 0.8 percent of the state's 2,394 murders. But hands and feet beating and stomping accounted for 117 murders. That's nearly six times the number caused by assault weapons. -- Reason Magazine, May 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pollster: "Are you for or against gun control?"
citizen: "I'm for it!"
[citizen draws and spins pistol.]
citizen: "And look...I'm getting pretty good at it too!"
-- by Wayne Stayskal of the Tampa Tribune.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"For target shooting, that's okay. Get a license and go to the range. For defense of the home, that's why we have police departments." -- James Brady, PARADE Magazine (June 26, 1994)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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." -- 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Greenwood, a former head of Scotland Yard, testified in 1974 that the average criminal could obtain a handgun in the UK in less than 1 hour, at a cost of less than 50 pounds. When asked what effect the UK weapons control laws had on criminal access to arms, he replied "None".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Trying to deal with our crime problem with a gun buy-back is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a paper cup." -- James Alan Fox, dean of Northeastern College of Criminal Justice -- Boston Globe 8/21/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms." -- Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress (1788)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the Government doesn't trust us with our guns, why should we trust them with theirs?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control laws don't work. What is worse, they act perversely. While legitimate users of firearms encounter intense regulation, scrutiny and bureaucratic control, illicit markets easily adapt to whatever difficulties a free society throws in their way. Also, efforts to curtail the supply of firearms inflict collateral damage on freedom and privacy interests that have long been considered central to American public life." Daniel Polsby, "The False Promise of Gun Control" The Atlantic, March 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The CBS Evening News reported on April 26, 1994 that a new means of linking crimes to individual guns revealed that the MAJORITY of the over-460 murders in Washington DC in the previous 12 months were committed with only about 13 individual weapons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Over 97 percent of the heads of law enforcement agencies said criminals will still be able obtain illegal weapons on the street within hours on any day of the week." (Reuter News, April 22, 1994, Post Brady Act)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, the *really* funny part is that the bayonet lug is okay, as long as you don't have along with it a grenade launcher, a folding stock, or a pistol grip. Only combinations of *two or more* of these features are banned. If instead your rifle has *only* a grenade launcher (or a pistol grip, or a folding stock, or a bayonet lug), your rifle has the blessings of Congress as being a friendly, non-banned, non-assault weapon. I am not making this up." dcd@se.houston.geoquest.slb.com (Dan Day)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Because it is relatively easy to identify guns using the bullets left in a body, smart criminals use other weapons, or dispose of the firearms as soon as possible." - LA County DA 1/24/95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
``More than half of the manufacturers, distributors, and retailers we polled had the best year in their company's history in 1994.'' said Bob Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Petzal, editor of Field & Stream, said he believed ``the industry should erect a statue of Bill Clinton. He's sold more guns than anyone since the 1950s.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oskar Schindler gave 41 semiautomatic rifles to Jewish workers near the end of WWII. This was omitted from the movie.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives 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 of your walks." --- Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it." -- James A. Donald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Basically, they were shooting at a moving target that was jolting back and forth in many different directions..It was very excitable and moving at a very high rate of speed for a cow." -Irvine City Manager explaining 43 police rounds fired into a cow discovered entering the 405 freeway (LA Times 11/11/93)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prohibiting law-abiding people from owning guns because they might be stolen by criminals is like prohibiting women from going out at night because they might be raped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politicians prefer unarmed peasants without encryption technology...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Blaming the gun for murder is like blaming the typewriter for libel"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREVENT FOREST FIRES: Register Matches
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." -- Walter Mondale, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, 4/20/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn 'em all in, I would have done it." -Senator Diane Feinstein refering to what she wished she could have done with regard to "assault weapons" (60 Minutes, CBS, 5 Feb. 1995)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come." -- U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, 11/18/93, Associated Press interview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe." -- U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, quoted by AP, 11/18/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Until we can ban all of them [firearms], then we might as well ban none." -- U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Senate Hearings 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're here to tell the NRA their nightmare is true..." -- U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, 11/30/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!" -- U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, 12/8/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"My bill ... establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all handguns." -- U.S. Representative Major Owens, Congressional Record, 11/10/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With a 10,000% tax we could tax them out of existence." -- U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Washington Post, 11/4/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If it were up to me we'd ban them all" -- U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds on CNN's Crossfire, 12/9/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What a crazy world we live in! Trying to treat addiction as a legal problem, and trying to treat criminal misbehaviors using guns as a medical problem! Beam me up, Scotty. Ain't no intelligent life down here." -- Julie Cochrane
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from a former head of the Secret Service, in response to Asst. Secy Ron Noble's suggestion to combine BATF with Customs and Secret Service: "Mix dirty water with clean water, you get dirty water."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that knocking down the walls of a wood frame structure that is being lit and heated be kerosene, and then pumping it full of a tear gas that has been banned by the Geneva Conventions, is not a smart thing to do if you have any concern for those inside the building." -- Mark.O.Wilson@AtlantaGa.ncr.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When I began my research on guns in 1976, like most academics, I was a believer in the 'anti-gun' thesis. ... It seemed then like self-evident common sense which hardly needed to be empirically tested. ... [But] the best currently available evidence, imperfect though it is (and must always be), indicates that general gun availability has no measurable net positive effect on rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the U.S. ... Further, when victims have guns, it is less likely aggressors will attack or injure them and less likely they will lose property in a robbery. ... The positive associations often found between aggregate levels of violence and gun ownership appear to be primarily due to violence increasing gun ownership, rather than the reverse." -- Prof. Gary Kleck, Florida State Univ, Sch of Criminology from a speech given to the Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991, as reported by Don B. Kates, Jr. in "Shot Down", National Review, March 6, 1995, pages 49-54.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners' Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established." Firearms Owners' Protection Act, signed into law in 1986, 18 U.S.C. 926
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The [Mollen commission] report was a dismaying catalogue of renegade [NYC] cops who peddled guns and drugs in public view; of senior officers who practiced a deliberate "blindness" to corruption; of an Internal Affairs Division that minimized corruption instead of stomping it out." "Without question, the comission concluded, the best and perhaps the only remedy is a strong, outside agency with the power to keep the Police Department on course." -- New York Times Editorial Excerpt 8/25/94 p. A20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The problem of violent crime in America is largely the problem of the repeat, violent offender. A small segment of our population is responsible for a large share of the violent crime. Study after study has identified a small group of hardened, chronic offenders who commit a staggering number of crimes -- well over one hundred a year for many of these violent predators." - From 'Combating Violent Crime: 24 Recommendations to Strengthen Criminal Justice', US Dept of Justice, office of the Attorney General 7/28/92.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Ten Lessons Learned by the BATF in the Waco Raid, lesson number 3: "Don't bring along the media unless you're really, really, really sure you are not going to get your [beeep] kicked."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress." --President Clinton, Cleveland Plain-Dealer 1/14/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Liberalizing concealed carry laws won't lead to a return to the Wild West - though it wouldn't be bad if it did. ... in 19th Century cattle towns, homicide was confined to transient males who shot each other in saloon disturbances. The per capital robbery rate was 7% of modern New York City's. The burglary rate was 1%. Rape was unknown." David Kopel - quoted in the WSJ 28 Feb 1994 in "Have Gun, Will Eat Out"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Francesco Sforza became Duke of Milan from being a private citizen because he was armed; his successors, since they avoided the inconveniences of arms, became private citizens after having been dukes." -- Nicolo Machiavelli
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An astonishing 25% of all voters voted primarily on the gun issue." --Connie Chung, CBS News, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Exit poll show data showed that more than a third of all voters who cast ballots Tuesday said they supported the National Rifle Association -- and two-thirds of those voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates." --Washington Post, November 10, 1994, p. A33.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"35% of the voters had a positive impression of the NRA and went overwhelmingly Republican." --MacNeil-Lehrer Report, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An astonishing 25% of all voters voted primarily on the gun issue." --Connie Chung, CBS News, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Exit poll show data showed that more than a third of all voters who cast ballots Tuesday said they supported the National Rifle Association -- and two-thirds of those voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates." -- Washington Post, November 10, 1994, p. A33.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"35% of the voters had a positive impression of the NRA and went overwhelmingly Republican." --MacNeil-Lehrer Report, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, of course you don't need a permit! This is ALASKA for cryin' out loud!" --Alaska resident, in response to a friend from Taxachusetts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brady Act -- 1 Year Later
2,356,376 Handgun applications
40,309 False denials
551 Arrests
4 Actual prosecutions
0 Convictions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brady Law Waste, after one year:
2 Million handgun purchase checks
4 prosecutions
0 convictions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sentient beings who give up the intrinsic (not government given) right to carry weapons for self defense don't last very long. They quickly get overrun by the predators who, while short on morality, are rather longer on common sense. - Helen Rhine - 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anecdotal analogy about compromise on gun control passed on by firearms owner John Williams:
"It's like some footpad comes up to you with a knife and says, "Gimme all your money!", but you say, "No." He then says, "Okay, then gimme half your money!", but you refuse. Then he demands,"Give me fifty bucks!", but you start to walk away. "You know what your problem is, pal?", he shouts after you, "You're unwilling to compromise!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The American Civil Liberties Union said today that the freedom to bear arms must be sacrificed to the more important freedom of 'free and fearless debate on which our free society rests.'" -- Associated Press, June 14, 1968
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A nationwide study by Don Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 % of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 %, more than five times as high." -- George Will, Newsweek, Nov 15, 1993, pg 94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** 1989 Federal Lobbying Reports ****
(1st Half Gross Receipts)
Handgun Control, Inc. $3,827,020
National Coalition to Ban Handguns 265,719
ANTI-GUN TOTAL $4,092,739
Citizens Committee for the Right to
Keep and Bear Arms $1,158,572
NRA/Institute for Legislative Action 915,603
Gun Owners of America 361,715
PRO-GUN TOTAL $2,435,890
ANTI-GUN ADVANTAGE $1,656,849
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It is for hunting politicians, like [in] Grozny, [or back in] 1776, when they take your independence away!" -- California Rep. Bob Dornan, Congressional Record, 25 January, 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 17, 1994: The New York Times will list Guns, Crime & Freedom on its bestseller list Nov. 20th -- the book will be ranked 13th on the paper's list for hard-cover non-fiction, according to a report in the Washington Times today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The National Rifle Association...rebounded with a vengeance Tuesday (Nov. 8th) when at least a dozen of the gun-control supporters in Congress it had targeted were defeated by candidates who oppose weapons restrictions," reported Hearst News Service in the Portland Oregonian (11/10/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Though only one of the many forces in Tuesday's (Nov. 8th) political watershed election, the 3.5 million member NRA made an impression in political circles that could again drive home the value of its goodwill -- or the power of its ire," reported the Los Angeles Times (11/10/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They [NRA members and gun owners] alone may have well made the difference in this election," said Sen. Harris Wofford reflecting on his loss to Rick Santorum in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race (AP, 11/12/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"NRA opposition hurts" declared US News & World Report while describing one lesson for incumbents to learn following the upset defeat of 8-term incumbent anti-gun Rep. Mike Synar (formerly D-OK) (10/3/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Their [NRA's] grassroots effort is the best. They are alive and well," said retiring Rep. Bill Hughes (D-NJ) (Richmond Times Dispatch, 8/15/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As candidates who backed gun control legislation fell one by one across the nation Tuesday night, the National Rifle Association re-emerged as a high caliber political force that politicians cross at their own peril," reported The Hill on Nov. 10,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"After suffering big defeats in Congress this year on handgun control and a ban on certain assault rifles, the National Rifle Association made good on its promise not to get mad but to get even," reported the Washington Post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If indeed crime is one of the deciding electoral issues of our era, the adherents of gun control won't be deciding much of anything until they figure out a way to also talk in public, credibly, about controlling the criminals." -- "Criminal Control Beats Gun Control" Wall Street Journal, November 4, 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who were perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick the BATF. They are a shame and a disgrace to our country." -- US Congressman John D. Dingell (D-Mich), 1980
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to a question about what he thinks about militias, etc., "Well, they have a right to believe whatever they want. They have a right to say whatever they want. They have a right to keep and bear arms. They have a right to put on uniforms and go out on the weekends. They do not have the right to kill innocent Americans. They do not have the right to violate the law. And they do not have the right to take the position that if somebody comes to arrest them for violating the law, they're perfectly justified in killing them. They are wrong in that." - President William Clinton, "60 Minutes" interview 4/23/95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Good morning Mrs. Weaver. We had pancakes for breakfast. What did you have?" -- Words of FBI while taunting Weaver children as their mother's body lay decomposing on the floor of their cabin. (As reported by Washington Times)
-----------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An armed society is a polite society" -- RAH
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IF LIBERALS INTERPRETED THE 2ND AMENDMENT, THE WAY THEY DO THE FIRST,
CARRYING A GUN WOULD BE MANDATORY!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If Sarah Brady, Ted Kennedy, Howard Metzenbaum and their ilk get their way, America will become "The land of the Fee and the home of the Slave".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Only criminals, tyrants and cowards have reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilence. . . . No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." --Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A new prince has never been known to disarm his subjects, on the contrary, when he has found them disarmed he has always armed them, for by arming them these arms become your own, those that you suspected become faithful and those that were faithful remain so, and from being merely subjects become your partisans. . . . But when you disarm them, 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 against you."
The Prince, Niccolo Macchiavelli
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I'm just so thrilled and excited. "The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough."
...Sarah Brady, 1 July 1988
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Justice Department studies show that armed citizens are much less likely to suffer losses or personal injury from thieves" -- Washington Post 1/7/92
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Last year, I surveyed the firearms used in violent crimes... assault-type firearms were the least of our worries. It's really the .22 and .38-caliber handguns and 12-gauge shotguns that inflict the majority of carnage."
An October 31, 1988 memo from S.C. Helsley, the then-Assistant Director of the California DOJ Investigation and Enforcement Branch.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An unarmed people are slaves, or subject to slavery at any moment." -- Huey P. Newton.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fear a government that fears your guns"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Chicago, 1988 saw more murderers using baseball bats than rifles. -- James Jay Baker, before the US House of Representatives, 11/1/89
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?" -- Patrick Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...hundreds of Korean storeowners in LA using handguns and shotguns to successfully repel looters." -- ABC's Nightline TV-News program
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[ laws that forbid the carrying of arms ] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes." -- Cesare Beccaria, 1764
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, pages 86-87."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If even one life can be saved by the presence of a firearm, it legally, morally and ethically necessary for us to ensure the availability of such `emergency rescue equipment'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government." - SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns makes for great theater but it does nothing to address the real problem of criminals and criminal behavior," -- New Jersey State Assemblyman Frank LoBiondo
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." -- Heinrich Himmler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms, history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall" -Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Congresscritter: "If you use an UZI for your drive-bys, we're going to make it illegal for law-abiding citizens to own them."
Willie Steal: "Thank you sir, may I have another."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`Firearms have been around for over 400 years, yet it is only in the last 20 years that people have begun shouting "gun control". Why then, only recently, has this become such an issue? Moreover, why are there more mass-murderers than at any other time in our known history? It is not because weapons are more powerful -- 200-year-old muzzleloaders have a much greater force-per-round than today's "assault rifles". It is not because weapons are semi- or fully-automatic -- rapid-fire weapons have been available for most of the last century. It is not due to a lack of laws -- we have more "gun control" laws than ever. It IS, however, because we have chosen to focus on "gun control" instead of crime control or "thug control." It IS because only recently has the public become complacent enough to accept, by inaction, the violence present in our society.' - Kevin Langston, Tuesday, 29 October, 1991
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part, sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are barking up the wrong tree." -- James Wright, "The Gun Control Debate: You Decide"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The NRA is right...handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns." -- Josh Sugarman, former communications director for the Coalition Against Gun Violence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy. However, 4 out of 5 US murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?" -- Andrew Ford
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's been hard to argue against such great visuals" Legislative Director Jeff Muchnick, National Coalition to Ban Handguns on the LA riots.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don't."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion . . . in private self-defense." -- John Adams
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A well schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There are going to be situations where people are going to go without assistance. That's just the facts of life." ex-LA Chief of Police, Gates.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First they stole the forth amendment.
I said nothing because I don't deal drugs.
Then they took the sixth amendment.
I was silent because I know I'm not guilty.
When they came for the second amendment,
I kept quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they've come for the first amendment,
and I can't say anything at all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Brady, Space Nut part 3, " The rights of the criminals outweigh the rights of the law abiding citizens, unless you ara a politician, and the law doesn't apply to them".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sung with screaming guitars in the background:
"Sarah Brady raped my mother
Killed my father and my brother
Took away their means of defense
Might as well have done the offense
Sarah Brady raped my mother
Raped my mother, raped my mother"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How many gun control advocates does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: They don't do that; they pass laws against burned-out bulbs, and then they wonder why it's still so dark. Meanwhile, a lot of people get hurt because they can't see.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily, given political realities, going to be very modest. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns in the United States, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered, and the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns, and all handgun ammunition illegal!"
-Nelson T. Shields of Hangun Control, Inc. as quoted in `New Yorker' magazine July 26, 1976. Page 53f
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth." -- Gen. George Washington, Continental Army (Ret.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"People here live in fear of 'pistoleros', but they also live under the daily stress...of an insensitive government". --Miguel Corral Olivas, former mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Republic of Mexico: a nation with strict gun-control laws.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We have four boxes used to guarantee our liberty:
The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box and the cartridge box
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My gun is safer than Ted Kennedy's car.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The first thing you have to do is disarm the people. A disarmed public can't fight back" -- Adolf Hitler
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When the subject of constitutional rights was brought up by a member of the pro-gun contingent, L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley replied "Yes, I'm denying you your rights." -- Mayor Tom Bradley at a "Save the Brady Bill" ralley. Steve Comus Western Outdoor News 09-04-92
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The 2nd amendment was never intended to allow private citizens to 'keep and bear arms'. If it had, there would have been wording such as 'the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'" -- Ken Konecki on Usenet, on 27 Jul 1992
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A right delayed is a right denied?" -- Martin Luther King jr.
Just say no to waiting periods.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a lot of stupidity out there. Many gun control laws seem really pointless. I can't have a handgun in the city, but I can have an elephant rifle. Guns with bayonet mounts are outlawed---as if there has been a rash of bayonettings! Then, when the bayonet lugs are removed, people get outraged when they see that it's really the same gun. You'd think they'd realize this proves the original law was stupid! A lot of people who scream for more gun control have no idea what the existing laws are like.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a big double standard. Senators and mayors tell me I don't need a gun from behind walls of armed bodyguards. Protecting my family is not an acceptable reason to own a gun, but protecting the life of some rich guy's family --- because he hires me as a bodyguard -- is. I'm told I don't need a gun by police officers who wear a gun every day even though they have a desk job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Americans have a right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison, The Federalist Papers No. 46 at 243-244.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The right of the people to keep and bear... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." --- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, 8 June 1789
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sarah Brady of HCI, quoted in the January 1992 issue of Crimebeat magazine:
"I am certainly not anti-gun by any means. I even enjoy shooting a gun myself. I believe that they can have value for certain things, such as self-defense..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Joyce Brothers, the pop psychologist,has claimed that firearms ownership is indicative of male sexual inadequacy. Her husband has pistol permit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, has a NYC pistol permit. The Times has an editorial policy against private handgun ownership.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Hey, if your daughter is carved on while being raped it's OK, as long as a handgun isn't used. You've really captured the essence of what I was saying." -- Daniel William Roth (kato@leland.stanford.edu)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"But even if a ban [on handguns] is instituted I think that superior people such as myself should be allowed to have them." -- Daniel William Roth (kato@leland.stanford.edu)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...our absolute obligation under the Constitution to give people the right to have a firearm..." -- President William Clinton, March 1, 1993 during a press conference in Piscataway, NJ
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -- "Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"See, the gun-control folks are quite happy with ANY progress in their direction, they know they can come back next year. But any freedom lost for the firearm rights folks is a freedom lost forever, and they can only wait and see what they will lose next."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You need the will to disarm the civilian population. If we can do it in Somalia, we can do it here." -- Mary McGrory, Arizona Daily Star, 3/11/93 p. A16.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom." --"Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A well-educated electorate being necessary to the prosperity of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed." Do you believe that restricting people to one book purchase per month would prevent libel and slander?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime." -- Orrin Hatch, 1982 Senate Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns." -- Sen. Howard Metzenbaum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When only the police have guns, it's called a Police State.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." [A sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.] -- Seneca (the Younger), _Letters to Lucilius_, c.63-65
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We do not have enough things to kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It's a good thing." -- "Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"... 'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms ...." - Supreme Court of the U.S., U.S. v. Uerdugo-Uriquidez (1990).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effective way to enslave them ...." - George Mason ( Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776, which became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights ) 3 Elliot, Debate at 380.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[...] if the gun laws that Massachusetts has now had been in force in 1776, we'd all be Canadians, and you know what kind of weather Canada has." PARLIAMENT OF WHORES by P. J. O'Rourke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms.... The right of the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to always be possible. -- Sen. Hubert Humphrey (1960) Liberal Icon & Patron Saint
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. -- Mao Tse Tung
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty." -- V. I. Lenin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seen on a pickup in Arizona: China has gun control. Afghanistan doesn't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bumper sticker on a car with Virginia Plates: Buy One Gun A Month IT'S THE LAW ! ! !
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Politicians Prefer Disarmed Peasants"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Criminals don't like it when victims shoot back.
Gun control is nothing more than victim disarmament.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't want my Second Amendment rights defined by people who have demonstrated an outspoken hostility toward them (like Kennedy, Metzenbaum, or Schumer) any more than I would want Jerry Falwell put in charge of Federal Family Planning policy or David Duke appointed head of the Civil Rights Commission. Seems like a basic "no-brainer" to me.... What part don't you understand?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Richards, Governor of Texas, who admits carrying concealed pistol, but recently vetoed a bill that would have allowed other women (and men) in Texas to have the same means of self protection.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein -- who, while Mayor of San Francisco during a "handgun ban" PR stunt, ostentatiously turned in one handgun. And quietly kept her other one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun U.S. Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, a lawyer, who "doesn't know" whether her .22 caliber pistol is registered in Chicago, as required. [BTW, that's a crime ...]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-gun columnist Carl Rowan, used an illegal handgun to shoot a skinny- dipping teenager. He obtained the illegal pistol from his son, an FBI agent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Assault rifles have never been an issue in law enforcement. I have been on this job for 25 years and I haven't seen a drug dealer carry one. They are not used in crimes, they are not used against police officers." -- Trenton NJ Deputy Chief of Police Joseph Constance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense .... And ... these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." - Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. v. Miller (1939).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The states cannot, even laying the Constitutional provision out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms so as to deprive the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining public security, and disable the people from performing their duty to general government." - Supreme Court of the U.S., Presser v. Illinois (1886).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"... 'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms ...." - Supreme Court of the U.S., U.S. v. Uerdugo-Uriquidez (1990).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former-Governor Ann Richards of Texas joked about the CCW bill she vetoed, saying that no woman could find a gun in her purse before she was killed anyway.
For the record Former-Governor Richards has publicly stated that she carries a handgun in her purse, in violation of Texas state law.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"[The Brady Bill] is not going to stop crimes of passion or drug related crime" -- Sarah Brady
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control is not a legitimate solution to crime... it nonetheless gives gun control enthusiasts an issue to seize upon... The longer our lawmakers distract themselves from this task by embracing the follies of gun control, the more grim our crime situation will become, and the louder, in turn, will be the call for more gun control. It is a vicious cycle which can only be broken by education and by focusing on the real issues of crime. When we accomplish that we can all breath a little easier." -- Congressman Jim Florio, circa 1984
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control is not a legitimate solution to crime..." -- Jim Florio, c. 1984
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A BATF study (titled "Protecting America, Yes") surveyed 471 career criminals and found that only 7% of guns used in violent crimes were purchased from retail dealers.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A study by the BATF and Washington D.C. Police showed that 40% of all firearms confiscated from criminals in Washington were stolen from the the Washington Police -- (BATF, "Analysis of Operation CUE (Concentrated Urban Enforcement)," interim report (Washington D.C., February 15, 1977), pp. 133-34).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Mrs. Brady sees the Brady bill as the cornerstone of a serious gun control policy in America that will eventually include more restrictions. That, of course, is why the gun lobby opposes the bill despite its moderate scope...." Page one article in the 9/15/1993 issue of the New York Times entitled, "What Can The Brady Bill Really Do?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence." Part the First, Article XVII, Commonwealth of Massachusetts Consitution
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALCOHOL PROHIBITION Didn't Work; it CREATED more crime and violence.
DRUG PROHIBITION Doesn't Work; it CREATES more crime and violence.
GUN PROHIBITION Won't Work; it WILL CREATE more crime and violence.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Apparently, on New Texas, killing a politician wasn't regarded as mallum in se, and was mallum prohibitorum only to the extent that what happened to the politician was in excess of what he deserved." - H. Beam Piper, "A Planet For Texans/Lone Star Planet"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I didn't see any NRA officials killing babies in Waco..." -- P. J. O'Rourke
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If high-capacity semi-automatic pistols are only good for killing, shouldn't President Clinton be worried about the Secret Service?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When you start with an "allegation" that gun control law has been violated, and you end up with nearly 100 people, including 25 children, killed, and millions of taxpayers dollars down the drain, that's bad law enforcement no matter how you slice it."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these elements make difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official agents, and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government." -- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun 29 August 1558
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gun control is based on the mypoic concept that criminal behavior is controlled by laws. The only control that the law has on criminals is during that period of time which the criminal spends locked up behind bars. Gun control is useless.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I represent a state where gun control is how steady you hold your rifle." - Sen. Alan Simpson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Expecting a carjacker or rapist or drug pusher to care that his possession or use of a gun is unlawful is like expecting a terrorist to care that his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces." - Joseph T. Chew, in a talk.politics.guns posting
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 Ghandi
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"My experience as a street cop suggests that most merchants should not have guns. But I feel even stronger about the average person having them...most homeowners...simply have no need to own guns." -- Joseph McNamara, San Jose, CA ex-Police Chief, and HCI spokesman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As much as I oppose the average person's having a gun, I recognize that some people have a legitimate need to own one. A wealthy corporate executive who fears his family might get kidnapped is one such person. A Hollywood celebrity who has to protect himself from kooks is another. If Sharon Tate had had access to a gun during the Manson killings, some innocent lives might have been saved." -- Joseph D. McNamara (San Jose, CA ex-Police Chief, and HCI spokesman), Safe and Sane (book) ,1984, p. 71-72.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It is DoD policy to encourage actively and support civilian rifle and pistol marksmanship training as an important element of national defense." --Dept. of Defense Directive 1025.1 [31 Jan. 1984]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In January 1993, 120 nations including the USA banned CS tear gas from use in warfare. In April 1993, the US government used it against US citizens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...expert evidence was submitted establishing that approximately 75 percent of BATF gun prosecutions were aimed at ordinary citizens who had neither criminal intent nor knowledge, but were enticed by agents into unknowning technical violations. (In one case, in fact, the individual was being prosecuted for an act which the Bureau's acting director had stated was perfectly lawful.)" -- 97th Congress, Subcommiitee report on RKBA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(camera pans to Linda Richards)
"I'm getting a bit verklempft. Topic for discussion. Prohibitive Gun control in Washington DC vs minimal gun control in Alexandra VA. Why is DC's crime rate 12 times higer than the city across the Potomac?
Discuss."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In August of 1992, they gunned down Randy Weaver's son and wife, but I did not speak up because I was not a white separatist. In the winter of 1993, they shot up and burned alive almost 100 Branch Davidians, but I did not speak up for I was not a cultist. Earlier, they came for our Nunchaku, but I did not speak up because I was not a gang banger, and my police chief looks the other way for me. I supported it when they went after Evil Assault Baby Killing firearms, because I Am Not A Baby Killer. They won't come for me, I am but a sheep. What's that smashing sound at my front door?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Washington Post Sept. 2, 1988, D3, Chuck Conconi Personalities, Alongside a William Colby photo
"Former CIA director William E. Colby and his wife, former ambassador Sally Shelton, who have been quietly working for the past several years with the National Colation to Ban Handguns, are opening their Georgetown home later this month for a coalition fundraiser that will feature the music of 71-year-old cabaret mouth organist Larry Adler. Colby has said he learned of the dangers of handguns during his years at the CIA ..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NRA life member John F.Kennedy was shot by ACLU member Lee Harvey Oswald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over 65 million american gun owners didn't hurt anyone today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life, Liberty and Happiness are nothing without the means to defend them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goon Control, not gun control
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Anti-gun Rep. Stephen Solarz's bodyguards, recently arrested by Capitol police for illegally toting 9 mm semi-autos and assorted brass knuckles and blackjacks, weren't up to speed. Readers will recall that Sen. Edward Kennedy's bodyguard was toting a submachine gun when capitol police nabbed him in what the Massachusett's senator's office called a "technical" violation. New York's Solarz, like Kennedy, is a pernnial supporter of laws to disarm other people and a sponsor of this year's rendition of the Brady waiting period bill." -- American Rifleman, April 1991, page 20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We must be able to arrest people before they commit crimes. By registering guns and knowing who has them we can do that. ...If they have guns they are pretty likely to commit a crime." - -Vermont State Senator Mary Ann Carlson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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 )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I especially want to thank you for standing by me on the day we say 'No' to amateur gunslingers who somehow think they're going to be braver and smarter with a gun in their hand." -- Former Texas Gov. Ann Ricards while vetoing a CCW bill in the presence of a group of police officers as reported on page 10 of the March 6, 1994 "Voter's Guide" (Section Q) of the Dallas Morning News
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Assault rifles are short, compact, select fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun (pistol) and rifle catridges". - US Department of Defense
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets." -- Joseph Constance (deputy chief of Trenton NJ police dept) in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Aug 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLICE CHIEFS HELD TO DOUBT GUN LAW
Washington, D.C. - Police chiefs believe that the Brady Law requiring a five-day waiting period to buy guns will have little impact on criminals, according to a poll published yesterday. Over 97 percent of the heads of law enforcement agencies said criminals will still be able to obtain illegal weapons on the street within hours on any day of the week. The survery of 3,241 police agency heads, conducted by the National Association of Chiefs of Police, also found about 97 percent believe empty military installations should be opened to lock up the overflow of convicted felons. (Reuters) --The Boston Globe, page 9 * Friday, April 22, 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They are designed to kill as many people as possibble." Assault weapons? No, hands and feet. (Ex-)New York Gov. Mario Cuomo has joined the fight against semi-automatic guns, but state crime figures show that his energy is being misdirected. In 1992, the latest year for which detailed figures are available, semi-automatic, large-capacity rifles killed 20 people in New York state, That's 0.8 percent of the state's 2,394 murders. But hands and feet beating and stomping accounted for 117 murders. That's nearly six times the number caused by assault weapons. -- Reason Magazine, May 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pollster: "Are you for or against gun control?"
citizen: "I'm for it!"
[citizen draws and spins pistol.]
citizen: "And look...I'm getting pretty good at it too!"
-- by Wayne Stayskal of the Tampa Tribune.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"For target shooting, that's okay. Get a license and go to the range. For defense of the home, that's why we have police departments." -- James Brady, PARADE Magazine (June 26, 1994)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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." -- 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Colin Greenwood, a former head of Scotland Yard, testified in 1974 that the average criminal could obtain a handgun in the UK in less than 1 hour, at a cost of less than 50 pounds. When asked what effect the UK weapons control laws had on criminal access to arms, he replied "None".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Trying to deal with our crime problem with a gun buy-back is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a paper cup." -- James Alan Fox, dean of Northeastern College of Criminal Justice -- Boston Globe 8/21/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms." -- Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress (1788)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the Government doesn't trust us with our guns, why should we trust them with theirs?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun control laws don't work. What is worse, they act perversely. While legitimate users of firearms encounter intense regulation, scrutiny and bureaucratic control, illicit markets easily adapt to whatever difficulties a free society throws in their way. Also, efforts to curtail the supply of firearms inflict collateral damage on freedom and privacy interests that have long been considered central to American public life." Daniel Polsby, "The False Promise of Gun Control" The Atlantic, March 1994
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The CBS Evening News reported on April 26, 1994 that a new means of linking crimes to individual guns revealed that the MAJORITY of the over-460 murders in Washington DC in the previous 12 months were committed with only about 13 individual weapons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Over 97 percent of the heads of law enforcement agencies said criminals will still be able obtain illegal weapons on the street within hours on any day of the week." (Reuter News, April 22, 1994, Post Brady Act)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, the *really* funny part is that the bayonet lug is okay, as long as you don't have along with it a grenade launcher, a folding stock, or a pistol grip. Only combinations of *two or more* of these features are banned. If instead your rifle has *only* a grenade launcher (or a pistol grip, or a folding stock, or a bayonet lug), your rifle has the blessings of Congress as being a friendly, non-banned, non-assault weapon. I am not making this up." dcd@se.houston.geoquest.slb.com (Dan Day)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Because it is relatively easy to identify guns using the bullets left in a body, smart criminals use other weapons, or dispose of the firearms as soon as possible." - LA County DA 1/24/95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
``More than half of the manufacturers, distributors, and retailers we polled had the best year in their company's history in 1994.'' said Bob Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Petzal, editor of Field & Stream, said he believed ``the industry should erect a statue of Bill Clinton. He's sold more guns than anyone since the 1950s.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oskar Schindler gave 41 semiautomatic rifles to Jewish workers near the end of WWII. This was omitted from the movie.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives 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 of your walks." --- Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The usual road to slavery is that first they take away your guns, then they take away your property, then last of all they tell you to shut up and say you are enjoying it." -- James A. Donald
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Basically, they were shooting at a moving target that was jolting back and forth in many different directions..It was very excitable and moving at a very high rate of speed for a cow." -Irvine City Manager explaining 43 police rounds fired into a cow discovered entering the 405 freeway (LA Times 11/11/93)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it." -Thomas Jefferson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prohibiting law-abiding people from owning guns because they might be stolen by criminals is like prohibiting women from going out at night because they might be raped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Politicians prefer unarmed peasants without encryption technology...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Blaming the gun for murder is like blaming the typewriter for libel"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREVENT FOREST FIRES: Register Matches
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them." -- Walter Mondale, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, 4/20/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn 'em all in, I would have done it." -Senator Diane Feinstein refering to what she wished she could have done with regard to "assault weapons" (60 Minutes, CBS, 5 Feb. 1995)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come." -- U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, 11/18/93, Associated Press interview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe." -- U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, quoted by AP, 11/18/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Until we can ban all of them [firearms], then we might as well ban none." -- U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum, Senate Hearings 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're here to tell the NRA their nightmare is true..." -- U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, 11/30/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative strategy! We're going to beat guns into submission!" -- U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, 12/8/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"My bill ... establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all handguns." -- U.S. Representative Major Owens, Congressional Record, 11/10/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"With a 10,000% tax we could tax them out of existence." -- U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Washington Post, 11/4/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If it were up to me we'd ban them all" -- U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds on CNN's Crossfire, 12/9/93
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What a crazy world we live in! Trying to treat addiction as a legal problem, and trying to treat criminal misbehaviors using guns as a medical problem! Beam me up, Scotty. Ain't no intelligent life down here." -- Julie Cochrane
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote from a former head of the Secret Service, in response to Asst. Secy Ron Noble's suggestion to combine BATF with Customs and Secret Service: "Mix dirty water with clean water, you get dirty water."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that knocking down the walls of a wood frame structure that is being lit and heated be kerosene, and then pumping it full of a tear gas that has been banned by the Geneva Conventions, is not a smart thing to do if you have any concern for those inside the building." -- Mark.O.Wilson@AtlantaGa.ncr.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When I began my research on guns in 1976, like most academics, I was a believer in the 'anti-gun' thesis. ... It seemed then like self-evident common sense which hardly needed to be empirically tested. ... [But] the best currently available evidence, imperfect though it is (and must always be), indicates that general gun availability has no measurable net positive effect on rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the U.S. ... Further, when victims have guns, it is less likely aggressors will attack or injure them and less likely they will lose property in a robbery. ... The positive associations often found between aggregate levels of violence and gun ownership appear to be primarily due to violence increasing gun ownership, rather than the reverse." -- Prof. Gary Kleck, Florida State Univ, Sch of Criminology from a speech given to the Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 1991, as reported by Don B. Kates, Jr. in "Shot Down", National Review, March 6, 1995, pages 49-54.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No such rule or regulation prescribed after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners' Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or dispositions be established." Firearms Owners' Protection Act, signed into law in 1986, 18 U.S.C. 926
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The [Mollen commission] report was a dismaying catalogue of renegade [NYC] cops who peddled guns and drugs in public view; of senior officers who practiced a deliberate "blindness" to corruption; of an Internal Affairs Division that minimized corruption instead of stomping it out." "Without question, the comission concluded, the best and perhaps the only remedy is a strong, outside agency with the power to keep the Police Department on course." -- New York Times Editorial Excerpt 8/25/94 p. A20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The problem of violent crime in America is largely the problem of the repeat, violent offender. A small segment of our population is responsible for a large share of the violent crime. Study after study has identified a small group of hardened, chronic offenders who commit a staggering number of crimes -- well over one hundred a year for many of these violent predators." - From 'Combating Violent Crime: 24 Recommendations to Strengthen Criminal Justice', US Dept of Justice, office of the Attorney General 7/28/92.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Ten Lessons Learned by the BATF in the Waco Raid, lesson number 3: "Don't bring along the media unless you're really, really, really sure you are not going to get your [beeep] kicked."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress." --President Clinton, Cleveland Plain-Dealer 1/14/94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Liberalizing concealed carry laws won't lead to a return to the Wild West - though it wouldn't be bad if it did. ... in 19th Century cattle towns, homicide was confined to transient males who shot each other in saloon disturbances. The per capital robbery rate was 7% of modern New York City's. The burglary rate was 1%. Rape was unknown." David Kopel - quoted in the WSJ 28 Feb 1994 in "Have Gun, Will Eat Out"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Francesco Sforza became Duke of Milan from being a private citizen because he was armed; his successors, since they avoided the inconveniences of arms, became private citizens after having been dukes." -- Nicolo Machiavelli
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An astonishing 25% of all voters voted primarily on the gun issue." --Connie Chung, CBS News, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Exit poll show data showed that more than a third of all voters who cast ballots Tuesday said they supported the National Rifle Association -- and two-thirds of those voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates." --Washington Post, November 10, 1994, p. A33.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"35% of the voters had a positive impression of the NRA and went overwhelmingly Republican." --MacNeil-Lehrer Report, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"An astonishing 25% of all voters voted primarily on the gun issue." --Connie Chung, CBS News, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Exit poll show data showed that more than a third of all voters who cast ballots Tuesday said they supported the National Rifle Association -- and two-thirds of those voters cast their ballots for Republican candidates." -- Washington Post, November 10, 1994, p. A33.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"35% of the voters had a positive impression of the NRA and went overwhelmingly Republican." --MacNeil-Lehrer Report, November 10, 1994.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, of course you don't need a permit! This is ALASKA for cryin' out loud!" --Alaska resident, in response to a friend from Taxachusetts
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brady Act -- 1 Year Later
2,356,376 Handgun applications
40,309 False denials
551 Arrests
4 Actual prosecutions
0 Convictions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brady Law Waste, after one year:
2 Million handgun purchase checks
4 prosecutions
0 convictions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sentient beings who give up the intrinsic (not government given) right to carry weapons for self defense don't last very long. They quickly get overrun by the predators who, while short on morality, are rather longer on common sense. - Helen Rhine - 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anecdotal analogy about compromise on gun control passed on by firearms owner John Williams:
"It's like some footpad comes up to you with a knife and says, "Gimme all your money!", but you say, "No." He then says, "Okay, then gimme half your money!", but you refuse. Then he demands,"Give me fifty bucks!", but you start to walk away. "You know what your problem is, pal?", he shouts after you, "You're unwilling to compromise!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The American Civil Liberties Union said today that the freedom to bear arms must be sacrificed to the more important freedom of 'free and fearless debate on which our free society rests.'" -- Associated Press, June 14, 1968
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A nationwide study by Don Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 % of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 %, more than five times as high." -- George Will, Newsweek, Nov 15, 1993, pg 94
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**** 1989 Federal Lobbying Reports ****
(1st Half Gross Receipts)
Handgun Control, Inc. $3,827,020
National Coalition to Ban Handguns 265,719
ANTI-GUN TOTAL $4,092,739
Citizens Committee for the Right to
Keep and Bear Arms $1,158,572
NRA/Institute for Legislative Action 915,603
Gun Owners of America 361,715
PRO-GUN TOTAL $2,435,890
ANTI-GUN ADVANTAGE $1,656,849
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...the Second Amendment is not for killing little ducks and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It is for hunting politicians, like [in] Grozny, [or back in] 1776, when they take your independence away!" -- California Rep. Bob Dornan, Congressional Record, 25 January, 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 17, 1994: The New York Times will list Guns, Crime & Freedom on its bestseller list Nov. 20th -- the book will be ranked 13th on the paper's list for hard-cover non-fiction, according to a report in the Washington Times today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The National Rifle Association...rebounded with a vengeance Tuesday (Nov. 8th) when at least a dozen of the gun-control supporters in Congress it had targeted were defeated by candidates who oppose weapons restrictions," reported Hearst News Service in the Portland Oregonian (11/10/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Though only one of the many forces in Tuesday's (Nov. 8th) political watershed election, the 3.5 million member NRA made an impression in political circles that could again drive home the value of its goodwill -- or the power of its ire," reported the Los Angeles Times (11/10/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"They [NRA members and gun owners] alone may have well made the difference in this election," said Sen. Harris Wofford reflecting on his loss to Rick Santorum in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race (AP, 11/12/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"NRA opposition hurts" declared US News & World Report while describing one lesson for incumbents to learn following the upset defeat of 8-term incumbent anti-gun Rep. Mike Synar (formerly D-OK) (10/3/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Their [NRA's] grassroots effort is the best. They are alive and well," said retiring Rep. Bill Hughes (D-NJ) (Richmond Times Dispatch, 8/15/94).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As candidates who backed gun control legislation fell one by one across the nation Tuesday night, the National Rifle Association re-emerged as a high caliber political force that politicians cross at their own peril," reported The Hill on Nov. 10,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"After suffering big defeats in Congress this year on handgun control and a ban on certain assault rifles, the National Rifle Association made good on its promise not to get mad but to get even," reported the Washington Post.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If indeed crime is one of the deciding electoral issues of our era, the adherents of gun control won't be deciding much of anything until they figure out a way to also talk in public, credibly, about controlling the criminals." -- "Criminal Control Beats Gun Control" Wall Street Journal, November 4, 1993
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who were perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick the BATF. They are a shame and a disgrace to our country." -- US Congressman John D. Dingell (D-Mich), 1980
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In response to a question about what he thinks about militias, etc., "Well, they have a right to believe whatever they want. They have a right to say whatever they want. They have a right to keep and bear arms. They have a right to put on uniforms and go out on the weekends. They do not have the right to kill innocent Americans. They do not have the right to violate the law. And they do not have the right to take the position that if somebody comes to arrest them for violating the law, they're perfectly justified in killing them. They are wrong in that." - President William Clinton, "60 Minutes" interview 4/23/95
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Good morning Mrs. Weaver. We had pancakes for breakfast. What did you have?" -- Words of FBI while taunting Weaver children as their mother's body lay decomposing on the floor of their cabin. (As reported by Washington Times)
-----------------------------------
