Weapons

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."

"Nowadays you don't go around on the street kicking people, punching people — because if you do (makes gun shape with hand), well that's it — I don't care how good you are."

"Gun safety laws, there are a few inconvenient facts... Liberals are sometimes glib about equating guns and danger. In fact, it's complicated. The number of guns in America has increased by more than 50 percent since 1993, and in that same period the gun homicide rate in the United States has dropped by half... The assault weapons ban. A 113-page study found no clear indication that it reduced shooting deaths for the 10 years it was in effect. That's because the ban was poorly drafted and because even before the ban, assault weapons accounted for only 2 percent of guns used in crimes. Move on to open-carry and conceal-carry laws. With some 13 million Americans now licensed to pack a concealed gun, many liberals expected gun battles to be erupting all around us. In fact, the most rigorous analysis suggests that all these gun permits caused neither a drop in crime, as conservatives had predicted, nor a spike in killings, as liberals had expected... The fears were overblown... Liberals often inadvertently antagonize gun owners and empower the National Rifle Association by coming across as supercilious, condescending and spectacularly uninformed about the guns they propose to regulate. A classic of gun ignorance. New York passed a law three years ago banning gun magazines holding more than seven cartridges; without realizing that for most guns there is no such thing as a magazine for seven cartridges or less... If lawmakers want to pass gun legislation, they'd best learn about firearms first."

"The majority falls prey to the delusion, popular in some circles, that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth, born of experience, is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people... A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble. All too many of the other great tragedies of history, Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few, were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. ... If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars."

"God created men. Colonel Colt made them equal."

"Little kids with guns, only fifteen. Roaming the streets, up to no good. When gunshots? Just watch us, run quickly. I could show you where."

"By... our readiness to allow arms to be purchased at will and fired at whim; by allowing our movie and television screens to teach our children that the hero is one who masters the art of shooting and the technique of killing; by allowing all of these developments, we have created an atmosphere in which violence and hatred have become popular pastimes."

"Nurses regularly witness the catastrophic consequences of gun violence. From treating victims in emergency rooms to supporting communities after mass shootings, nurses are well aware of the worsening nature of this crisis. Declaring gun violence a public health issue is an essential step towards determining practical solutions that can save lives and reduce the trauma and fear that grip communities nationwide."

"As long as the gangster has access to guns, either pistols or machine guns, he is a bold, bad-man, menacing society and mocking at law and decency, but once robbed of his guns he is a yellow rat who will crawl into his hole."

"The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, ... or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press."

"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."

"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."

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms within his own lands."

"When I'm called on, I've got a sawed-off. Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off!"

"Gangsters use sign language, and let their guns talk... Fuck with my dough? Then, the guns come out!"

"When that window rolls down and that A.K. comes out? You can squeeze your little handgun, until you run out... God's on your side? Shit, I'm alright with that. Because we're going to reload the clips and come right back."

"Every night I talk to God, but he doesn't say nothing back. I know he's protecting me, but I still stay with my gat."

"You see in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."

"GUN CONTROL! That is what the Branch Davidian compound attack was all about. David Koresh was a gun collector and a tax evader. Boy, they didn't like him, and one of the purposes for that raid was to scare the American people into submission. You better register your firearms. Make sure they know. They might come for you as they did for Koresh."

"fire flashes from the gun like a flower that blooms madness"

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."

"England, where no one has guns; fourteen deaths. United States — and I think you know how we feel about guns; whoo! I'm getting' a stiffy — 23,000 deaths from handguns. But there's no connection, and you'd be a fool and a communist to make one."

"Let me make a short, opening, blanket comment. There are no good guns. There are no bad guns. Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody — except bad people..."

"It's easy to dispense with the first claim Obama made, that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries... Obama is wrong to say that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. Clearly it does happen elsewhere, and not in trivial numbers. Seven of the countries saw double-digit numbers of people killed in mass shootings during that period."

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?"

"Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That's a personal evaluation only. But gunfighting has a strong biological use. 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."

"I stand with Survivors Empowered and other organizations fighting for gun reform. And I've been a strong supporter of controversial activist strategies over the past 50 years. But we need to be effective so that we change the country for the better without curtailing the legitimate rights of others. As I have learned the hard way, social change is exceedingly slow and cautious, and moves at all only because we continually prod it to do so. We all seek peace, but as W.B. Yeats wrote, "Peace comes dropping slow.""

"The buffalo hunters and range men have protested against the iron rule of Dodge's peace officers, and nearly every protest has cost human life. ... Most cowboys think it's an infringement on their rights to give up shooting in town, and if it is, it stands, for your six-shooters are no match for Winchesters and buckshot; and Dodge's officers are as game a set of men as ever faced danger."

"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

"Лучше старенький ТТ, чем дзюдо и каратэ."

"To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders of towns, countries or districts of a state, is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government. The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws."

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."

"Fear of gun-buying restrictions has been the main driver of spikes in gun sales, far surpassing the effects of mass shootings and terrorist attacks alone."

"Real G, thoroughbred from the streets. Pants sagging, with my gun in my drawers."

"Suddenly the men of Troop G pause and wheel around, rifles upraised. At 12:24 one of them, possibly an officer, fires his weapon. This is immediately followed by a staccato sound like a series of giant firecrackers exploding. At least ten guardsmen fire fifty-five rifle bursts, five pistol shots, and a shotgun blast at students over a hundred yards away in the parking lot.When echoes of the fusillade fade away, thirteen bodies are sprawled on the ground. Nine students are wounded. Four are dead—Allison Krause, Bill Schroeder, Sandra Scheuer, and Jeffrey Miller. Of the thirteen who were shot, only two have been hit frontally. Seven have bullets in their sides and four in their backs, proving they were not advancing but fleeing.One young guardsman is horrified by the spectacle. Falling to the ground and tossing hysterically, he cries out, "I just shot two teenagers!" The other guardsmen march off up the hill, leaving the dead and wounded behind."

"The laws of [false utility] are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator?"

"The top 5 countries for mass shootings per capita all have "restrictive" gun policies."

"Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim gun, and they have not."

"The highest love, a woman's touch / Harmony, a strong mind, a strong body, beauty, all the things / He couldn't be, all / The things he couldn't have. / Little man with a gun in his hand"

"Zardoz, speaks to you, his chosen ones. You have been raised up from brutality to kill the brutals that multiply and are legion. To this end, Zardoz, gave you the gift of the gun. The gun is good. The penis is evil. The penis shoots seeds and makes new life to poison the earth with a plague of man, as once it was. But the gun shoots death and purifies the earth of the filth of brutals. Go forth and kill. Zardoz has spoken."

"I am Boutros Boutros-Ghali; put down your guns and listen to Bob Marley."

"Ain't hard to find, I'm in the street. Pocket monster in the club, murk your ass instantly!"

"Strapped up, ready to roll."

"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."

"I've got my twin Glock 40s cocked back, me and my homies. So, drop that."

"This Glock I clutch; in God I trust."

"... [I]f forced to take a position, it seems that the Nazis were more pro-gun than the predecessor Weimar Republic."

"It's not gun registration that produces gun confiscation and genocide; it's people who do."

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."