“It is true, the yeomanry of the country possess the lands, the weight of property, possess arms, and are too strong a body of men to be openly offended—and, therefore, it is urged, they will take care of themselves, that men who shall govern will not dare pay any disrespect to their opinions. It is easily perceived, that if they have not their proper negative upon passing laws in congress, or on the passage of laws relative to taxes and armies, they may in twenty or thirty years be by means imperceptible to them, totally deprived of that boasted weight and strength: This may be done in great measure by congress.” ~ Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) Founding Father Letters From The Federal Farmer (1787)

“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms.” ~ Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) Founding Father Additional Letters from the Federal Framer (1788) at p. 169

“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.” ~ Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) Founding Father

“We are told there is no cause to fear. When we consider the great powers of Congress, there is great cause of alarm. They can disarm the militia. If they were armed, they would be a resource against great oppressions. The laws of a great empire are difficult to be executed. If the laws of the union were oppressive, they could not carry them into effect, if the people were possessed of the proper means of defence.” ~ William Lenoir advocating for the addition of a Bill of Rights to the Federal Constitution in the North Carolina Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in 'Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,' Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.4 p.203 (Philadelphia, 1836)

“The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. ... Besides the advantage of being armed, ... the existence of subordinate governments ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. ... [The governments of Europe] are afraid to trust the people with arms. ... Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors.” ~ James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President The Federalist Papers, No. 46

“That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free State...” ~ George Mason (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington Within Mason's declaration of "the essential and unalienable Rights of the People," -- drafted by Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and others, and later adopted by the Virginia ratification convention, 1788

“Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country...? I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” ~ George Mason (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 16, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.425 (Philadelphia, 1836)

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” ~ George Mason (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington June 14, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.380 (Philadelphia, 1836)

“Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.” ~ James Monroe (1758-1831), 5th US President

“ 'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the milita, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right.” ~ Nunn vs. State 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251(1846)

“From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms! Through the land let the sound of it flee; Let the far and the near all unite, with a cheer, In defense of our Liberty Tree.” ~ Thomas Paine (1737-1809) US Founding father, pamphleteer, author

“But, sir, the people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow-citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation.” ~ Theophilus Parsons (1750-1813) in the Massachusetts Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, January 23, 1788, in Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.2 p.94 (Philadelphia, 1836)

“The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to enact any law to the contrary. The exercise of a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the sheriff.” ~ People vs. Zerillo 219 Mich. 635, 189 N.W. 927, at 928 (1922)

“[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money, and all means whereby they resist his power.” ~ Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618) 3 The Works of Sir Walter Raleigh 22 (T. Birch ed. 1829)

“The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.” ~ William Rawle (1759-1836) Lawyer, had been asked several times by George Washington to serve as Attorney General commenting on the Second Amendment, A VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 125-26, 1829 (2nd ed.) reprinted in THE FOUNDERS’ CONSTITUTION Volume Five (Amendments I-XII) p. 214 (Univ. of Chicago Press).

“Nowhere else in the Constitution does a 'right' attributed to 'the people' refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention 'the people,' the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset... The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms... The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed.'” ~ Justice Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) American jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States District of Columbia v. Heller, June 26, 2008, striking down D.C.'s gun ban as unconstitutional

“In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character...” ~ Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish philosopher and economist

“[F]or everybody has a natural right to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth.” ~ Lysander Spooner (1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist Vices are Not Crimes, A Vindication of Moral Liberty (1875)

“No free government was ever founded or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state.... Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen.” ~ State Gazette (Charleston)

“The maintenance of the right to bear arms is a most essential one to every free people and should not be whittled down by technical constructions.” ~ State vs. Kerner 181 N.C. 574, 107 S.E. 222, at 224 (1921)

“This declaration ... gives to every man the right to arm himself in any manner he may choose, however unusual or dangerous the weapons he may employ, and thus armed, to appear wherever he may think proper, without molestation or hindrance, and that any law regulating his social conduct, by restraining the use of any weapon or regulating the manner in which it shall be carried, is beyond the legislative competency to enact, and is void.” ~ Tennessee Supreme Court Aymette v. State, 21 TENN. 152, 153, 2 HUM. 154, 156 (1840).

“It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it.” ~ John Trenchard (1662-1723) and Walter Moyle (1672-1721), "An Argument, shewing; that a standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy," (London, 1697)