From: KEBARNES@MSUVX1.MEMPHIS.EDU
Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 15:12:23 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: RKBA Quotes 4/4
To: chan@shell.portal.com


   "Fellow-citizens of the United States: In compliance with a 
custom as old is the Government itself, I appear before you to 
address you briefly, and to take in your presence the oath 
prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken 
by the President 'before he enters on the execution of his office.'
   I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those 
matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety 
or excitement.
   Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern 
States that by the accession of a Republican Administration their 
property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered.  
There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.  
Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while 
existed and been open to their inspection.  It is found in nearly 
all the published speeches of him who now addresses you.  I do but 
quote from one of those speeches when I declare that
   "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the 
institution of slavery in the States where it exists.  I believe I 
have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
   Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge 
that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never 
recanted them.  And, more than this, they placed in the platform 
for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear 
and emphatic resolution which I now read:
   "Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control 
its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment 
exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the 
perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we 
denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any 
State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the 
gravest of crimes."
   I now reiterate these sentiments; and, in doing so, I only 
press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of 
which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and 
security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now 
incoming Administration.  I add, too, that all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will 
be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for 
whatever cause --as cheerfully to one section, as to another.
   There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives 
from service or labor.  The clause I now read is as plainly written 
in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
   "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or 
regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but 
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service 
or labor may be due."
   It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by 
those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive 
slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law.  All Members 
of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution 
--to this provision as much as to any other.  To the proposition, 
then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause, 
"shall be delivered up," their oaths are unanimous.  Now, if they 
would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly 
equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good 
that unanimous oath?
   There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should 
be enforced by national or by State authority; but surely that 
difference is not a very material one.  If the slave is to be 
surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to 
others, by which authority it is done. And should any one, in any 
case, be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely 
unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?
   Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards 
of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be 
introduced so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as 
a slave?  And might it not be well at the same time to provide by 
law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which 
guarantees that "the citizen of each State shall be entitled to all 
privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?
   I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and 
with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any 
hypercritical rules.  And while I do not choose now to specify 
particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest 
that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private 
stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand 
unrepealed, than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity 
in having them held to be unconstitutional.
   It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a 
President under our National Constitution.  During that period 
fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have, in 
succession, administered the Executive branch of the Government.  
They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great 
success.  Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon 
the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years under 
great and peculiar difficulty.  A disruption of the Federal Union, 
heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.
   I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the 
Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.  Perpetuity 
is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national 
governments.  It is safe to assert that no government proper ever 
had a provision in its organic law for its own termination.  
Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National 
Constitution, and the Union will endure forever --it being 
impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for 
in the instrument itself.
   Again, if the United States be not a Government proper, but 
an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, 
as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties 
who made it?  One party to a contract may violate it --break it, 
so to speak, but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
   Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition 
that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by 
the history of the Union itself.  The Union is much older than 
the Constitution.  It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of 
Association in 1774.  It was matured and continued by the 
Declaration of Independence in 1776.  It was further matured, 
and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted 
and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of 
Confederation in 1778.  And, finally, in 1787, one of the declared 
objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was, 'to 
form a more perfect Union.'
   But if the destruction of the Union by one, or by a part only, 
of the States be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect 
than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of 
perpetuity.
   It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere 
motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and 
ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of 
violence, within any State or States, against the authority of 
the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according 
to circumstances.
   I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the 
laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall 
take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, 
that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all of the 
States.  Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; 
and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful 
masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or 
in some authoritative manner direct the contrary.  I trust this will 
not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the 
Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.
   In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and 
there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national 
authority.  The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, 
and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, 
and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be 
necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using 
of force against or among the people anywhere.  Where hostility to 
the United States, in any interior locality, shall be so great and 
universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding 
the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious 
strangers among the people for that object.  While the strict legal 
right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these 
offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly 
impracticable withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time 
the uses of such offices.
   The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all 
parts of the Union.  So far as possible, the people everywhere shall 
have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm 
thought and reflection.  The course here indicated will be followed 
unless current events and experience shall show a modification or 
change to be proper, and in every case and exigency my best 
discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually 
existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the 
national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and 
affections.
   That there are persons in one section or another who seek to 
destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to 
do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need 
address no word to them.  To those, however, who really love the 
Union may I not speak?
   Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our 
national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, 
would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it?  Will you 
hazard so desperate a step while there is any possibility that any 
portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence?  Will you, 
while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones 
you fly from --will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?
   All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional 
rights can be maintained.  Is it true, then, that any right, plainly 
written in the Constitution, has been denied?  I think not.  Happily 
the human mind is so constituted, that no party can reach to the 
audacity of doing this.  Think, if you can, of a single instance in 
which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been 
denied.  If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive 
a minority in any clearly written constitutional right, it might, 
in a moral point of view, justify revolution --certainly would if 
such a right were a vital one.  But such is not our case.  All the 
vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured 
to them by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, 
in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them.  
But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically 
applicable to every question which may occur in practical 
administration.  No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of 
reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible 
questions.  Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national 
or by State authority?  The Constitution does not expressly say.  
May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories?  The Constitution 
does not expressly say.  Must Congress protect slavery in the 
Territories?  The Constitution does not expressly say.
   From questions of this class spring all our constitutional 
controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and 
minorities.  If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, 
or the Government must cease.  There is no other alternative; for 
continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other.  
If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they 
make a precedent which in turn will divide and ruin them; for a 
minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority 
refuses to be controlled by such minority.  For instance, why may 
not any portion of a new confederacy a year or two hence arbitrarily 
secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim 
to secede from it?  All who cherish disunion sentiments are now 
being educated to the exact temper of doing this.
   Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to 
compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed 
secession?
   Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy.  
A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and 
limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes 
of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign 
of a free people.  Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to 
anarchy or to despotism.  Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a 
minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so 
that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some 
form is all that is left.
   I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that 
constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; 
nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon 
the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are 
also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel 
cases by all other departments of the Government.  And while it is 
obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given 
case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that 
particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never 
become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could 
the evils of a different practice.  At the same time, the candid 
citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government, upon 
vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably 
fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, 
in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the 
people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that 
extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that 
eminent tribunal.  Nor is there in this view any assault upon the 
court or the judges.  It is a duty from which they may not shrink 
to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of 
theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
   One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought 
to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought 
not to be extended.  This is the only substantial dispute.  
The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the 
suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, 
perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense 
of the people imperfectly supports the law itself.  The great body 
of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and 
a few break over in each.  This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; 
and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the 
sections, than before.  The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly 
suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction, in 
one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, 
would not be surrendered at all by the other.
   Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our 
respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall 
between them.  A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the 
presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts 
of our country cannot do this.  They cannot but remain face to face, 
and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between 
them.  Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more 
advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before?  
Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws?  Can 
treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can 
among friends?  Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; 
and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, 
you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of 
intercourse are again upon you.
   This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who 
inhabit it.  Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing 
Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending 
it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.  
I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic 
citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended.  
While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the 
rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be 
exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument 
itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather 
than oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act 
upon it.  I will venture to add that to me the convention mode 
seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the 
people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject 
propositions originated by others, not especially chosen for the 
purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish 
to either accept or refuse.  I understand a proposed amendment to 
the Constitution --which amendment, however, I have not seen 
--has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government 
shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, 
including that of persons held to service.  To avoid misconstruction 
of what I have said, I depart from my purpose, not to speak of 
particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a 
provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection 
to its being made express and irrevocable.
   The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, 
and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the 
separation of the States.  The people themselves can do this also 
if they choose; but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with 
it.  His duty is to administer the present Government, as it came to 
his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.
   Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate 
justice of the people?  Is there any better or equal hope in the 
world?  In our present differences is either party without faith 
of being in the right?  If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his 
eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours 
of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the 
judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.
   By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same 
people have wisely given their public servants but little power for 
mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of 
that little, to their own hands at very short intervals.  While the 
people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any 
extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the 
government in the short space of four years.
   My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole 
subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.  If there be 
an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would 
never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking 
time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.  Such of you as 
are now dissatisfied, still have the old Constitution unimpaired, 
and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; 
while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it 
would, to change either.  If it were admitted that you who are 
dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no 
single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, 
Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken 
this favored land are still competent to adjust, in the best way, 
all our present difficulty.
   In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in 
mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.  The Government will not 
assail you.  You can have no conflict without being yourselves the 
aggressors.  You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the 
Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, 
protect, and defend it."
   I am lo[a]th to close.  We are not enemies, but friends.  We must 
not be enemies.  Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
our bonds of affection.  The mystic chords of memory, stretching 
from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of 
the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature."
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-assassinated 1865), First Inaugural Address, 
March 4, 1861

   "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed 
and degraded sense of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks 
nothing _worth_ a war, is worse.  When a people are used as mere 
human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the 
service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades 
a people.  A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical 
injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and 
good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose 
by their free choice, --is often the means of their regeneration.  
A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing 
which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, 
is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made 
and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.  As long 
as justice and injustice have not terminated _their_ ever-renewing 
fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be 
willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other."
--John Stuart Mill (1806-1873), "The Contest In America," Fraser's 
Magazine, February 1862 [reprinted in Mill's_Dissertations and 
Discussions, vol.1 p.26 (1868)] <<as the title suggests, Mill is 
reflecting on the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War>>

   "I am not hurt."
--Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), to his family and officers after 
accidentally discharging a new breechloading rifle into his own hand 
(the only gunshot wound the general suffered in his entire military 
career), February 25, 1866

   "I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection
of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take
my stand."
--Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), speech in San Franscisco, July 1871

   "I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's 
seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homeopathic pill, and it 
took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult.  But I thought it 
was grand.  It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon.  It had only 
one fault-- you could not hit anything with it."
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910),
_Roughing It,_(1872)

   "The right of the people to peaceably assemble for lawful 
purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution.  
In fact, it is, and always has been, one of the attributes of 
citizenship under a free government.  It 'derives its source,' to 
use the language of Chief Justice Marshall... 'from those laws whose 
authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.'  
It is found wherever civilization exists.  It is not, therefore, 
a right granted to the people by the Constitution.  The government 
of the United States when established found it in existence, with 
the obligation on the part of the states to afford it protection.  
As no direct power over it was granted to Congress, it remains... 
subject to State juridiction.  Only such existing rights were 
committed by the people to the protection of Congress as came 
within the general scope of the authority granted to the national 
government. * * *
   The second and tenth counts [of the indictment] are equally 
defective.  The right there [in the Second Amendment] specified 
is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right 
granted by the Constitution.  Neither is it in any manner dependent 
upon that instrument for its existence.  The second amendment 
declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been 
seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.  
This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to 
restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people 
to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-
citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called... the 
'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, 
perhaps, more properly called internal police,' [powers] 'not 
surrendered or restrained' by the Constitution of the United 
States."
--U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite (1816-1888), 
writing in_U.S. v. Cruikshank, et al.,_ U.S. Reports v.92 pp.551-553, 
Lawyer's Edition  v.23 p.588 (1875)  <<In this case, the Supreme Court 
effectively  gutted the Fourteenth Amendment's protection of the civil 
rights of  black Americans, by denying that the federal government had 
any power to prosecute violations of the rights recognized under the 
Constitution by private individuals like the mob headed by William 
Cruikshank.  Mr. Chief Justice Waite's admonition that such 
violations fell to the jurisdiction of the states was a_very_narrow 
reading of the Fourteenth Amendment's 'equal protection' clause (so 
narrow that it completely disappeared until the civil rights 
movement of the 1950s and 1960s).>>

   "It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing 
arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of 
the United States as well as of the Sates, and, in view of this 
perogative of the general government, as well as of its general 
powers, 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."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice William B. Woods (1824-1887), writing 
in_Presser v.  Illinois,_ U.S. Reports v.116 p.252, Supreme Court 
Reports v.6 p.580, Lawyer's Edition v.29 p.615 (1886)


20TH CENTURY

   "The Government makes no attempt to defend the methods employed 
by its officers.  Indeed, it concedes that if wire-tapping can 
be deemed a search and seizure within the Fourth Amendment, such 
wire-tapping as was practiced in the case at bar was an unreasonable 
search and seizure, and that evidence thus obtained was 
inadmissible.  But it relies on the language of the Amendment; 
and it claims that the protection given thereby cannot properly be 
held to include a telephone conversation.
   'We must never forget,' said Mr. Chief Justice [John] Marshall 
in _McCulloch v. Maryland,_[...] 'that this is a constiutution we 
are expounding.'  Since then, this Court has repeatedly sustained 
the exercise of power by Congress, under various clauses of that 
instrument, over objects of which the Founders could not have 
dreamed. [...]  We have likewise held that general limitations 
on the powers of Government, like those embodied in the due process 
clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, do not forbid the 
United States or the States from meeting modern conditions by 
regulations which 'a century ago, or a half-century ago, probably 
would have been rejected as arbitrary and oppressive.' * * *
   When the Fourth and Fifth Amendments were adopted, 'the form 
that evil had theretofore taken,' had been necessarily simple.  
Force and violence were then the only means known to man by which a 
Government could directly effect self-incrimination.  It could 
compel the individual to testify --a compulsion effected, if need 
be, by torture.  It could secure possession of his papers and other 
articles incident to his private life --a seizure effected, if need 
be, by breaking and entry.  Protection against such invasion of 'the 
sanctities of a man's home and the privacies of life' was provided 
in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by specific language.  [...]  
But 'time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and 
purposes.'  Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy 
have become available to the Government.  Discovery and invention 
have made it possible for the Government, by means far more 
effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in 
court of what is whispered in the closet.
   Moreover, 'in the application of a constitution, our 
contemplation cannot be only of what has been but of what may be.'  
The progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of 
espionage is not likely to stop with wire-tapping.  Ways may someday 
be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from 
secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will 
be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the 
home.  [...]  'That places the liberty of every man in the hands of 
every petty officer' was said by James Otis of much lesser 
intrusions than these.  [...]  Can it be that the Constitution 
affords no protection against such invasions of individual security? 
* * * [James Otis (1725-1783) who Brandeis quotes here was a lawyer 
in colonial Massachusetts arguing against the British "Writs of 
Assistance," a type of random search warrant that empowered royal 
customs officers to search the colonists' homes for contraband.  
Note that Brandeis is almost prophetic here in describing the 
capabilities of computers, which indeed allow for papers to be 
reproduced without removing them from their "secret drawers,"  
sometimes without the knowledge or consent of their owner(s).]
   [...] As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general 
warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when 
compared with wire-tapping. * * *
   [...] Unjustified search and seizure violates the Fourth 
Amendment, whatever the character of the paper; whether the paper 
when taken by the federal officers was in the home, in an office 
or elsewhere, whether the taking was effected by force, by fraud, 
or in the orderly process of a court's procedure.  [...]It follows 
necessarily that the Amendment is violated by the officer's reading 
the paper without a physical seizure, without his even touching it; 
and that use, in any criminal proceeding, of the contents of the 
paper so examined --as where they are testified to by a federal 
officer who thus saw the document or where, through knowledge so 
obatined, a copy has been procured elsewhere --any such use 
constitutes a violation of the Fifth Amendment.
   The protection guaranteed by the Amendments is much broader 
in scope.  The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure 
conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness.  They recognized 
the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and 
of his intellect.  They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure 
and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things.  
They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, 
their emotions and their sensations.  They conferred, as against 
the Government, the right to be left alone --the most comprehensive 
of rights and the most valued by civilized men.  To protect that 
right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the Government upon the 
privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be 
deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment.  And the use, as 
evidence in a criminal proceeding, of facts ascertained by such 
intrusion must be deemed a violation of the Fifth.
   Applying the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in the established rule 
of construction, the defendants' objections to the evidence obtained 
by wire-tapping must, in my opinion, be sustained.  It is, of 
course, immaterial where the physical connection with the telephone 
wires leading into the defendants' premises was made.  And it is 
also immaterial that the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement.  
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect 
liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficient.  Men born 
to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty 
by evil-minded rulers.  The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in 
insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without 
understanding. * * *
   When these unlawful acts were committed, they were crimes only 
of the [Government's] officers individually.  The Government was 
innocent, in legal contemplation; for no federal official is 
authorized to commit a crime on its behalf.  [...] And if this 
Court should permit the Government, by means of its officers crimes, 
to effect its purpose of punishing the defendants, there would seem 
to be present all the elements of a ratification [of the officers' 
actions].  If so, the Government itself would become a lawbreaker. 
* * *
   Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government 
officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are 
commands to the citizen.  In a government of laws, the existence 
of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law 
scrupulously.  Our government is the potent, the omnipresent 
teacher.  For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by 
its example.  Crime is contagious.  If the Government becomes a 
lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to 
become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.  To declare that 
in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the 
means --to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order 
to secure the conviction of a private criminal --would bring 
terrible retribution.  Against that pernicious doctrine this Court 
should resolutely set its face."  [It is fortunate that Mr. Justice 
Brandeis is long dead, or else this last paragraph might be 
considered "hate speech" in our modern political climate... --KB]
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), 
dissenting, Olmstead, et al. v. United States, United States 
Reports, v.277 pp.471-485 (1928)

   "You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself 
a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about 
repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the 
great struggle for independence."
--Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)
<<Quoted in the introduction to George Seldes,_The Great Quotations,_ 
(Citadel Press, 1960) but no reference is given to the work or date 
the quote appeared.  If anyone knows the primary source, please 
let me know.>>

   "Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows 
out of the barrel of a gun.'  Our principle is that the [Communist] 
Party commands the gun and the gun will never be allowed to command 
the Party."
--Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976), "Problems of War and Strategy," November 
6, 1938, in_Selected Works of Mao Zedong_(1965)

   "This year* will go down in history!  For the first time,
a civilized nation has full gun registration!  Our streets will be 
safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead 
into the future!"
--falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), "Abschied vom 
Hessenland!" ["Farewell to Hessia!"], ['Berlin Daily'  (Loose English 
Translation)], April 15th, 1935, Page 3  Article 2, Einleitung Von 
Eberhard Beckmann [Introduction by Eberhard Beckmann]
<<This quotation, often seen without any date or citation at all,
suffers from several credibility problems, the most significant
of which is that the date given (*in alternate versions, the
words "This year..." are replaced by "1935...") has no correlation
with any legislative effort by the Nazis for gun registration,
nor would there have been a need for the Nazis to pass such a
law, since gun registration laws passed by the Weimar government
(in part to address street violence between Nazis and Communists!)
were already in effect.  The Nazi Weapons Law (or_Waffengesetz_)
which further restricted the possession of militarily useful
weapons and forbade trade in weapons without a government-issued 
license was passed on March 18, 1938.  The citation usually
given for this quote is a jumbled mess, and has only three major
clues from which to work.  The first is the date, which does not
correspond (even approximately) to a date on which Hitler made
a public speech, and a check of the texts of Hitler's speeches
does not reveal a quotation resembling this (which is easily
understandable when you realize that "Hitler" is commenting
on a non-existent law).  The second clue is the newspaper
reference, which if translated into German resembles the title
of a newspaper called _Berliner Tageblatt,_ and a check of the
issue for that date reveals that the page and column references
given are to the arts and culture page!  No Hitler speech appears
in the pages of_Berliner Tageblatt_on that date, or dates close
to it, because there was no such speech to report.  Finally,
the citation includes a proper name "Eberhard Beckmann," which
is sometimes cited as "by Einleitung Von Eberhard Beckmann,"
which is an important clue itself, because it reveals that the
citation was fabricated by someone who had so little knowledge 
of the German language that they were unaware that "Einleitung"
isn't the fellow's first name!  The only "Eberhard Beckmann"
which has been uncovered thus far did indeed write introductions,
but he was a journalist for a German broadcasting company after
WWII, and he wrote several introductions to_photography books,_
one of which was photos of the German state of Hesse (or Hessia),
which may be the source of the curious phrase "Abschied vom
Hessenland!" which appears in the citation.  This quotation,
however effective it may be as propaganda, is a fraud.>>

   "No appearance for appellees. * * *
   In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession 
or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches 
in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the 
preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot 
say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear 
such an instrument.  Certainly it is not within judicial notice that 
this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that 
its use could contribute to the common defense. * * *
   The Militia which the States were expected to maintain and train 
is set in contrast with Troops which they were forbidden to keep 
without the consent of Congress.  The sentiment of the time strongly 
disfavored standing armies; the common view was that adequate 
defense of the country and laws could be secured through the Militia 
--civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.
   The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from 
the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of the 
Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators.  
These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males 
physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. 
'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.'  And further, 
that when ordinarily called for service these men were expected to 
appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common 
use at the time."
--U.S. Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds (1862-1946), writing 
in _U.S. v. Miller,_ U.S. Reports v.307 p.174, Supreme Court Reporter 
v.59 p.816, Lawyer's Edition v.83 p.1206 (1939)
<<The Court's decision in the _Miller_ case is ambiguous, in part 
because the apellee had died before the case reached the Court, and 
the Court was only presented with the government's side of the 
story.  The Court, thus understandably upheld the National Firearms 
Act of 1934 as constitutional, but not before setting the precedent 
that it is weapons having a "resonable relationship" to a well 
regulated militia which the Second Amendment protects the right of 
the people to keep and bear.  The dicta in the case also indicates 
that the Court recognized this as an individual right.>>

   "An armed society is a polite society.  Manners are good when one 
may have to back up his acts with his life."
--Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), "Beyond This Horizon," in 
_Astounding Science Fiction_ April-May 1942

   "Der groBte Unsinn, den man in den besetzen Ostgebieten machen 
konne, sei der, den unterworfenen Volkern Waffen zu geben.  Die 
Geschicte lehre, daB alle Herrenvolker untergegangen seien, nachdem 
sie den von ihnen unterworfenen Volkern Waffen bewilligt hatten."
[The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit 
the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms.  History teaches that all 
conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have 
prepared their own downfall by doing so.]
--Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), April 11, 1942, quoted in _Hitlers 
Tischegesprache Im Fuhrerhauptquartier 1941-1942,_[Hitler's Table-
Talk at the Fuhrer's Headquarters 1941-1942], Dr. Henry Picker, ed. 
(Athenaum-Verlag, Bonn, 1951)  <<Compare Machiavelli, above, regarding 
disarming of conquered territories.  This quotation also appears in 
a slightly different (and, I've been told, less accurate) English 
translation in the book_Hitler's Secret Conversations_(Farrar, Straus 
and Young, 1953).  The original source is notes taken by Hitler 
associate Martin Bormann, a document called _Bormann-Vermerke._  
NOTE:  The "B"s used in the quote are substituted for the character 
representing the "ss" sound in the Gothic alphabet, and the usual 
diacritical marks are (as elsewhere in this collection) omitted.>>

   "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free."
--A. E. Van Vogt, "The Weapon Shops," in_Astounding Science Fiction,_
December 1942

   "It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely
the history of weapons.  In particular, the connection between 
the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the 
bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again.  And though 
I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the 
following rule would be found to be generally true: that ages in
which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will 
be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weapon is cheap and 
simple, the common people have a chance.  Thus, for example, tanks, 
battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical wepons, 
while rifles, muskets, long-bows and hand-grenades are inherently 
democratic weapons.  A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, 
while a simple weapon --so long as there is no answer to it--
gives claws to the weak."
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903-1950), "You and the Atom Bomb,"
essay for the_Tribune,_October 19, 1945  <<Compare Edward Abbey, 
and Robert Bork, below.>>

   "Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily 
win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will 
be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you have 
to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance 
of survival.  There may even be a worse case.  You may have to fight 
when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish 
than live as slaves."
--Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965),_The Gathering 
Storm,_bk.I ch.19 p.348 (Houghton Mifflin, 1948)

   "Now as to matters of opinion-- You and I have strongly different
evaluations as to the best way in which to handle the problem of 
deadly weapons in a society.  We do not seem to disagree in any 
important fashion as to the legitimate ways in which deadly weapons 
may be used, but we disagree strongly as to socially useful regulations 
concerning deadly weapons.  I will first cite two points which sharply 
illustrate the disagreement.  I have one of my characters say that the 
right ot bear arms is the basis of all human freedom.  I strongly
believe that, but you required me to blue-pencil it.  The second point 
concerns licensing guns.  I had such licensing in the story, but I had 
one character strongly object to it as a piece of buttinsky bureaucracy, 
subversive of liberty --and I had no one defending it.  You required 
me to remove the protest, then build up the licensing into a complicated 
ritual, invoving codes, oaths, etc. --a complete reversal of evaluation.  
I have made great effort to remove my viewpoint from the book and to 
incorporate yours, convincingly --but in so doing I have been writing 
from reasons of economic necessity something that I do not believe.  
I do not like having to do that.
   Let me say that your viewpoint and evaluation in this matter is 
quite orthodox; you will find many to agree with you.  But there is 
another and older orthodoxy imbedded in the history of this country 
and to which I hold.  I have no intention nor any expectation of 
changing your mind, but I do want to make you aware that there is 
another viewpoint that is held by a great many respectable people, 
and that it is quite old.  It is summed up in the statement that I 
am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of 
individuals, such as the Sullivan Act of the State of New York.  
I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty, subversive of 
democratic political institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose. 
You will find that the American Rifle Association has the same policy 
and has had [it] for many years.
   France had Sullivan-type laws.  When the Nazis came, the invaders 
had only to consult the registration lists at the local gendarmerie 
in order to round up all the weapons in a district.  Whether the 
authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the effect of such 
laws is to place the individual at the mercy of the state, unable to 
resist.  In the story_Red Planet_it would be all too easy for the 
type of licensing you insist on to make the revolution of the 
colonists not simply unsuccessful, but impossible.
   As to the law being self-defeating, the avowed purpose of such 
laws as the Sullivan Act is to keep weapons out of the hands of 
potential criminals.  You are surely aware that the Sullivan Act 
and similar acts have never accomplished anything of the sort?  
That gangsterism ruled New york while this act was already in force?  
That "Murder, Inc." flourished under this act?  Criminals are never 
materially handicapped by such rules; the only effect is to disarm 
the peaceful citizen and put him fully at the mercy of the lawless.  
Such rules look very pretty on paper; in practice they are as foolish 
and footless as the attempt of the mice to bell the cat.
   Such is my thesis, that the licensing of weapons is subversive 
of liberty and self-defeating in its pious purpose.  I could elaborate 
the arguments suggested above at great length, but my intention is 
not to convince, but merely to show that there is another viewpoint.  
I am aware, too, that even if I did by some chance convince you, 
there remains the unanswerable argument that you have to sell to 
librarians and schoolteachers who believe the contrary.
   I am not inexperienced with guns.  I have coached rifle and pistol 
teams and conducted the firing of millions of rounds from pistols 
to turret guns.  I am aware of the dangers of guns, but I do not 
agree that those dangers can be eliminated nor even ameliorated 
by coercive legislation --and I think my experience entitles me to 
my opinion at least as much as schooltechers and librarians are 
entitled to theirs."
--Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), letter to editor Alice Dalgliesh 
of Scribner's regarding her rejection of Heinlein's novel_Red Planet,_ 
April 19, 1949  <<This letter appears in Heinlein's posthumous 
collection titled_Grumbles From The Grave_(Del Rey, 1989)>>

   "Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any 
government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of 
the citizens to keep and bear arms.  This is not to say that firearms 
should not be carefully used and that definite safety rules of 
precaution should not be taught and enforced.  But the right of 
the citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary 
government and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now 
appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to 
be always possible."
--Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978, D-MN), in "Know Your
Lawmakers,"_Guns_magazine, February 1960, p.6

   "Armed... like a naked savage."
--Jane Fonda (1937-    ), as Barbarella, in the motion picture
_Barbarella,_ 1968

   "I know what you're thinkin'...  did he fire six shots, or only
five?  Well, I'll tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I kinda'
lost track myself... but seeing as this is a .44 magnum, the most
powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head_clean_off,
you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'
   Well, do 'ya... punk?"
--Clint Eastwood (1930-    ), as "Dirty Harry" Callahan, in the
motion picture _Dirty Harry,_ 1971 

   "No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the 
rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was 
very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when 
anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm 
without restriction.  Half a century of strict controls on pistols has 
ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime 
than ever before."
--Colin Greenwood, _Firearms Control,_ (Routledge and Keegan, 
London, 1972,) p. 243

   "I'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build 
on.  We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first 
step is necessarily --given the political realities --going to be 
very modest.  Of course, it's true that politicians will then go 
home and say, 'This is a great law.  The problem is solved.'  And 
it's also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-
control issue for a time.  So then we'll have to strengthen that 
law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and 
again.  Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf 
but with a slice.  Our ultimate goal --total control of handguns in 
the United States --is going to take time.  My estimate is from 
seven to ten years.  The first problem is to slow down the 
increasing number of handguns sold 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 
--except for the military, policement, licensed security guards, 
licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors --totally 
illegal."
--Nelson "Pete" Shields (????-1993), Chairman of Handgun Control 
Inc., in "A Reporter At Large: Handguns", _The New Yorker_, July 26, 
1976, pp.57-58

   "The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled 
police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship.  The rifle 
is the weapon of democracy.  Not for nothing was the revolver called 
an 'equalizer.'  _Egalite_ implies _liberte._  And always will.  
Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what 
the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An 
armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the 
final defense against tyranny.
   If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only 
the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of 
our rulers.  Only the government --and a few outlaws.  I intend to 
be among the outlaws."
--Edward Abbey (1927-1989), _Abbey's Road,_ p.39_(Plume, 1979) <<A 
restatement of "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" 
by the writer whose 1968 novel_The Monkey-Wrench Gang_ inspired the 
radical green movement Earth First!>>

   "If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are 
perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today,
I would pick BATF."
--U.S. Representative John Dingell, in an NRA produced film,
"It Can't Happen Here,"1980
<<Dingell was at the time a member of the NRA board of directors.  
A better cite, anyone?>>

   "... a government and its agents are under no general duty to 
provide public services, such as police protection, to any 
particular individual citizen..." 
-- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181)

   "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the 
arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage 
of free men and women.  It is a weapon our adversaries in today's 
world do not have."
--Ronald Reagan (1911-    ), First Inaugural Address, January 20, 
1981

   "The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms therefore, 
is a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry 
in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms.  Such an 'individual 
rights' interpretation is in full accord with the history of the 
right to keep and bear arms, as previously discussed.  It is 
moreover in accord with contemporaneous statements and formulations 
of the right by such founders of this nation as Thomas Jefferson 
and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects the majority of the 
proposals which led up to the Bill of Rights itself.  A number of 
state constitutions, adopted prior to or contemporaneously with the 
federal Constitution and Bill of rights, similarly provided for a 
right of the people to keep an bear arms.  If in fact this language 
creates a right protecting the states only, there might be a reason 
for it to be inserted in the federal Constitution but no reason for 
it to be inserted in state constitutions.  State bills of rights 
necessarily protect only against action by the state, and by 
definition a state cannot infringe its own rights; to attempt to 
protect a right belonging to a state by inserting it in a limitation 
of the state's own powers would create an absurdity.  The fact 
that the contemporaries of the framers did insert these words into 
several state constitutions would indicate clearly that they viewed 
the right as belonging to the individual citizen, thereby making 
it a right which could be infringed either by state or federal 
government and which must be protected from infringement by both.
 * * *
   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."
--conclusion, Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), chairman, in the 
Report of the Subcommittee On The Constitution of the Committee On 
The Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, second session 
(February, 1982), SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5

   "There is a constitutional right not to be murdered by a state 
officer, for the state violates the Fourteenth Amendment when its 
officer, acting under color of state law, deprives a person of life 
without due process of law.  But there is no constitutional right 
to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or 
madmen.  It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents 
against such predators but it does not violate the Fourteenth 
Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution.  
The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the 
state to let people alone; it does not require the federal 
government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a 
service as maintaining law and order.  Discrimination in providing 
protection against private violence could of course violate the 
equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  But that is 
not alleged here."
--Bowers v. DeVito, Federal Reporter, second series v.686 p.618 (7th 
Circuit, 1982)

   "Let us be aware that while they [the Soviet government] preach 
the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over the 
individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples 
on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world."
--Ronald Reagan (1911-    ), the "Evil Empire" speech, May 8, 1983

   "In recent years it has been suggested that the Second 
Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain 
militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to 
keep and bear arms.  If anyone entertained this notion in the 
period during which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were 
debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded 
secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving 
from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis."
--Stephen P. Halbrook, _That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution 
of a Constitutional Right,_University of New Mexico Press [reprinted 
by the Independent Institute] (1984), p.83

   "The [American Civil Liberties] Union agrees with the Supreme 
Court's longstanding interpretation of the Second Amendment that 
the individual's right to keep and bear arms applies only to the 
preservation or efficiency of a 'well-regulated militia'.  Except 
for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons 
by individuals is not constitutionally protected."
--ACLU policy statement #47 (1986)

   "Handguns are a public-health problem."
--Josh Sugarmann, spokesman for the National Coalition to Ban
Handguns, in a debate on the Morton Downey, Jr. show, 1988

   "Let... others call me a hypocrite because I fired a gun in a 
moment of personal peril.  I shall still be for strict gun control.  
But as long as authorities leave this society awash in drugs and 
guns, I will protect my family."
--Carl T. Rowan, Jr. (1925-    ), political columnist and anti-gun 
hypocrite, in_Conservative Digest,_August, 1988

   "To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that 
you're putting a money test on getting a gun.  It's racism in 
its worst form."
--Roy Innis, president of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE),
in the_Washington Post,_September 5, 1988

   "[Assault weapons'] menacing looks, coupled with the public's 
confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-
automatic assault weapons --anything that looks like a machine 
gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the 
chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."
--Josh Sugarmann, executive director of New Right Watch
and spokesman for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, 
"Assault Weapons and Accessories in America," policy report of 
New Right Watch and the Education Fund to End Handgun 
Violence, September 1988

   "A lot of children know absolutely nothing about guns other 
than what they see on T.V., and those are the wrong things."
--Marion Hammer, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association,
in the_New York Times,_October 10, 1988

   "Our neighbors in Virginia are just as responsible for these
killings as the criminals are because they won't pass strong gun 
[control] legislation."
--Marion Barry, mayor of Washington, D.C., on ABC-TV's_This Week
With David Brinkley,_March 19, 1989

   "We don't need more assault rifles on our streets right now."
--William J. Bennett (1938-    ), director of the Office of National 
Drug Control Policy (a.k.a. "drug czar"), on NBC-TV's_Meet The Press,_ 
March 19, 1989

   "I don't like the idea that the police department seems bent on 
kepping a pool of unarmed victims available for the predations of 
the criminal class."
--David Mohler, orthopedic surgeon, on being denied a permit to 
carry a handgun by the New York City police, _Manahattan, Inc._
magazine, April, 1989

   "One would, of course, like to believe that the state, whether 
at the local or national level, presents no threat to important 
political values, including liberty.  But our propensity to believe 
that this is the case may be little more than a sign of how truly 
different we are from our radical forebears.  I do not want to 
argue that the state is necessarily tyrannical; I am not an anarchist. 
But it seems foolhardy to assume that the armed state will 
necessarily be benevolent."
--Sanford Levinson, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment,"
_Yale Law Journal,_ vol. 99, p. 656 (1989)

   "I'm completely opposed to selling automatic rifles.  I don't 
see any reason why they ever made semiautomatics.  I've been a 
member of the NRA [National Rifle Association]; I collect, make, 
and shoot guns.  I've never used an automatic or a semiautomatic 
for hunting.  There's no need to.  They have no place in anybody's 
arsenal.  If any S.O.B. can't hit a deer with one shot, then he 
ought to quit shooting."
--Senator Barry Goldwater (1909-    ), in the_Washington Post,_
January 1, 1990

   "The National Rifle Association are the gun nuts of the world."
--Cecil Andrus, governor of Idaho, in the_New York Times,_
April 2, 1990

   "The gun lobby finds waiting periods inconvenient.  You have 
only to ask my husband how inconvenient he finds his wheelchair 
from time to time."
--Sarah Brady, _National Public Radio,_ June 6, 1990
<<John Hinckley Jr., who shot James Brady during the March 30, 1981
assassination attempt on President Reagan, had bought the .22 revolver 
used in the shooting some_six months_earlier on October 13, 1980.
He also had bought another handgun previously in California, a state
which has had a fifteen day waiting period on handguns since 1976.>>

   "It is not a loss of freedom.  It's a measure to protect it."
--James Brady, on gun control, congressional testimony, March 21, 1991

   "If I were writing the Bill of Rights now there wouldn't be any 
such thing as the Second Amendment...  This has been the subject 
of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word "fraud," 
on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever 
seen in my lifetime.  Now just look at those words.  There are only 
three lines to that amendment.   A well regulated militia --if the 
militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well 
regulated, why shouldn't 16 and 17 and 18 or any other age persons 
be regulated in the use of arms the way an automobile is regulated?  
It's got to be registered... you can't just deal with it at will.  
Someone asked me recently if I was for or against a bill that was 
pending in Congress calling for five days' waiting period.  And I 
said, yes, I'm very much against it, it should be thirty days' 
waiting period so they find out why this person needs a handgun 
or a machine gun...  [T]hey [the NRA] have misled the American people 
and they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on 
the Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like 
to see --and I am a gun man.  I have guns.  I've been a hunter ever 
since I was a boy."
--Warren Burger (1907-1994), former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, 
PBS-TV's_McNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,_December 16, 1991

  "Much of the contemporary crime that concerns Americans is 
in poor black neighborhoods and a case can be made that greater 
firearms restrictions might alleviate this tragedy.  But another, 
perhaps stronger case can be made that a society with a dismal 
record of protecting a people has a dubious claim on the right to 
disarm them.  Perhaps a re-examination of this history can lead 
us to a modern realization of what the framers of the Second 
Amendment understood: that it is unwise to place the means of 
protection totally in the hands of the state, and that self-defense 
is also a civil right."
--Robert J. Cottroll and Raymond T. Diamond, "The Second 
Amendment: Towards an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration,"
_Georgetown Law Journal,_ vol. 80, p. 361 (1991)

   "There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except 
a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, 
to use, a handgun.  The only way to control handguns use in this 
country is to prohibit the guns.  And the only way to do that is 
to change the Constitution."
--Michael Gartner, _USA Today,_January 16, 1992 
<<Gartner was at the time the president of NBC News.>>

   "Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons.  
If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power."
--Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the _Los Angeles Times,_
October 15, 1992 <<Ishikawa was commenting on the lack of protest 
with which Japanese tolerated governmental corruption.>>

   "Probably the most obvious political ramification of the right 
to defensive arms is the deterrent effect of the power to disarm 
dissenters in a violence-ridden society.  Until the early nineteenth 
century England was an enormously violent country overrun with 
cutthroats, cutpurses, burglars, and highwaymen, and in which 
rioting over social and political matters was endemic.  Moreover, 
until 1829 it had no police.  So when the seventeenth century 
Stuart Kings began selectively disarming their enemies the effect 
was not simply to safeguard the throne, but to severely penalize 
dissent.  Those who had opposed the King were left helpless against 
either felons or rioters --who, by the very fact, were encouraged 
to attack them.  The_in terrorem_effect upon dissent of knowing 
that to speak might render one's family defenseless while targeting 
them for ever felon, and every enemy who might want to whip up 
riotous public sentiment against them, is obvious."
--Don B. Kates, Jr, "The Second Amendment and the Ideology of 
Self-Protection," _Constitutional Commentary,_ vol. 9, p.98 (1992)

   "They love to be seen kicking down crack house doors in their
brightly colored ATF jackets.  They don't want to be seen as
pencil-pushing bureaucrats."
--Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy
Center, a "gun control" lobbying group in Washington, D.C.,
in the New Orleans _Times-Picayune,_ March 6, 1993
<<Sugarmann is referring to the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), which was criticized
following the their bungled raid on the Branch Davidian sect.>>

   "You can't get around the image of people shooting at people
to protect their stores and it working.  This is damaging to the 
[gun control] movement."
--Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy
Center, a "gun control" lobbying group in Washington, D.C.,
in _The Washington Post,_ May 18, 1993
<<Sugarmann is referring to the Korean shopkeepers who guarded 
their property with "assault weapons" during the L.A. riots.>>

   "[T]he Clinton administration launched an attack on people in 
Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns.  Hell, 
this country was _founded_ by religious nuts with guns.  Who does 
Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?  Peace Corps 
volunteers?  Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of 
child abuse.  But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn't
Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen?
   You know, if government were a product, selling it would be 
illegal.
   Government is a health hazard.  Governments have killed many 
more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have."
--P.J. O'Rourke, "The Liberty Manifesto," speech at the Cato 
Institute, May 6, 1993, quoted in _The American Spectator,_ 
July 1993

   "You know why there's a Second Amendment?  In case the 
government fails to follow the first one."
--Rush Limbaugh (1941-    ), radio talk-show host, August 17th, 1993
<<Compare James Madison and Yoshimi Ishikawa, above.>>

   "When Congress recessed in November, it left two gun-control 
items unresolved: the Feinstein ban on semiautomatic assault 
weapons, and a ban on hollow-point 'cop killer' bullets."
--Minneapolis Star-Tribune, December 9, 1993
<<And the Integrity in Journalism Award goes to...>>

   "If you have 20 guns  or 1,000 rounds, you have to be licensed.  
And isn't that appropriate?  Who needs 20 guns?   Who needs 1,000 
rounds of ammunition?  We would limit handgun purchases to one per 
month.  And I might say, I sort of question, well, how many  guns  
do you have to keep buying?  Do you have to go buy one, two and 
three and four?  Isn't one enough?"
--(Former!) U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum (1917-    ), at the press 
conference introducing "Brady II," February 28, 1994

   "The Brady law is not a cure for the bloody scourge of gun  
violence.  It's a good beginning, it's a good first step, but it's 
not enough.  And we are  going to move forward. The Brady Bill was 
the first step.  We are not taking in one proposal many, many more 
steps."
--U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, at the press conference 
introducing "Brady II," February 28, 1994
<<Compare Nelson "Pete" Shields quote, above.>>

   "If everyone being armed would equal safety, then yes we would 
be safe, because everyone is armed three and four times over.  And 
that's not what we need.  And the --if people would here just one 
thing from this is --don't keep a gun in your home.  It's 47 times 
more likely to be taken by a burglar and used upon your person 
or your husband who comes in late and says, "Honey, I missed my
train" --bang-- and you've lost your significant other.  I mean,
the saying that people keep guns in their homes for protection-- 
that's just not true.  It doesn't work that way.  And burglars-- 
I don't know whether they have radar or what --they know where
to go exactly where to find that gun.  They'll get to it before 
you will."
--James Brady, of Handgun Control, Inc., at the press conference 
introducing "Brady II," February 28, 1994
<<In the immortal words attributed to former U.S. Vice-President
Dan Quayle: "What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have
a mind.  How true that is.">>

   "You know, we're having trouble in the House.  It's neck and
neck on an assault weapons ban, which is a ban of the most obnoxious 
kinds of weapons that nobody uses."
--U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, at the press conference 
introducing "Brady II," February 28, 1994
<<Hey!  Wait a second!>>

   "Now, let me just say, you know, that everyone's making a fuss.
'Oh, the Brady bill is having more people line up to buy  guns.' 
First, the same thing happened after the '68 act, which was the 
last pro-gun measure that passed the Congress.  Secondly, these 
people would have bought guns anyway.  It's just it would have 
been stretched out over a period of time.  So three or four months 
from now, this will be a blip in the screen of -- in the -- well,
it'll just be a blip up, but it'll be made up for by fewer people 
buying them later."
--U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, at the press conference 
introducing "Brady II," February 28, 1994
<<Hey!  Wait a second!  The last _pro-gun_ measure?!>>

   "When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical 
Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount 
of individual freedom to Americans...  And so a lot of people say 
there's too much personal freedom.  When personal freedom's being 
abused, you have to move to limit it.  That's what we did in the 
announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, 
about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like 
that to try to make people safer in their communities."
--President Bill Clinton, MTV's "Enough is Enough", April 19, 1994 
<<Clinton's MTV appearance occurred on the first anniversary of 
the conflagration at Waco.>>

   "We have a long way to go before we see a truly effective
gun-control law in this country (the U.S.A.).  But more and more, 
the lawmakers are understanding that the American people want 
change. The only people who still don't get it are the people 
over at the Evil Empire... the gun lobby."
--Jim Brady, of Handgun Control, Inc., in _The Ottawa Citizen,_ 
April 23, 1994
<<So, Jim, you're saying that "gun control" is _ineffective?_
And that "Evil Empire" stuff, such a nice touch.>>

   "In the minds of members of Congress, it (the NRA) is still 
a force to be reckoned with.  Members have this misguided notion 
that the NRA can defeat them."
--Jeff Muchnick, legislative director of the Coalition to Stop 
Gun Violence, in the Orlando _Sentinel Tribune,_ May 9, 1994
<<Uh, Jeff... who's misguided now?>>

   "It's [the Brady Act] taking manpower and crime-fighting 
capability off the streets."
--Dennis Martin, president of the National Association of Chiefs
of Police, in the _Washington Times,_ May 18, 1994

   "I just believed that what I was doing was right.  I told
the NRA (National Rifle Association) I would make it my life's 
ambition to see you all don't exist anymore and I will do this 
until I put them out of business.  That keeps me going when I have 
to deal with rude people."
--Jim Brady, of Handgun Control Inc., in the _Hartford Courant,_
May 21, 1994
<<Gee, Jim... the NRA's been around since 1871.  Good luck.>>

   "Well, it's a little ambiguous.  It sounds in the first part as 
if it's, like, a right to join the militia, have a militia.  And it 
sounds, in the second part, like an individual right to bear arms.  
...I've always viewed it as a militia amendment, but there is an 
argument about that.  I have to admit, it's not entirely clear...  
I don't know what-- today, I don't know how you would solve the 
question of what arms you're entitled to bear.  Now that the Feds 
have nuclear weapons and stealth bombers, I don't know what it is 
you have to keep in the garage to fight them off."
--Robert Bork, on CNN's_Larry King Live,_July 21, 1994

   "The (National Rifle Association) can be beaten because they
cannot buy the votes of the electorate.  And poll after poll 
shows the public is on our side."
--Sarah Brady, of Handgun Control Inc., in the _Kansas City Star,_ 
September 15, 1994
<<Gee, Sarah... what about that poll on November 8, 1994?  Brady
made these comments to a rally of 100 "gun control" supporters.>>

   "We are not for disarming people.  When you have an epidemic 
it's a public health issue, a safety issue."
--Sarah Brady, of Handgun Control Inc., in the Austin _American-
Statesman,_ October 14, 1994

   "There is, to be sure, in the Second Amendment, an express 
reference to the security of a_'free_State.'  It is not a reference 
to_the_security of THE STATE.  There are doubtless certain 
national constitutions that put a privileged emphasis on the 
security of 'the state,' but such as they are, they are all_unlike_
our Constitution and the provisions they have respecting their 
security do not appear in a similarly phrased Bill of Rights.  
Accordingly such constitutions make no reference to any right 
of the people to keep and bear arms, apart from state service.  
And why do they not do so?  Because, in contrast with the 
premises of constitutional government in this country, they 
reflect the belief that recognition of any such right 'in the people' 
might well pose a threat to the security of 'the state.'"
--William Van Alstyne, "The Second Amendment And The 
Personal Right To Arms," _Duke Law Journal,_ vol. 43, p.1244
(1994)  <<Compare Madison's_Federalist #46,_above.>>

   "I don't want to destroy the good atmosphere in the room or in 
the country tonight, but I have to mention one issue that divided 
this body greatly last year.  The last Congress also passed the 
Brady bill and, in the crime bill, the ban on 19 assault weapons.  
I don't think it's a secret to anybody in this room that several 
members of the last Congress who voted for that aren't here tonight 
because they voted for it.  And I know, therefore, that some of 
you who are here because they voted for it are under enormous 
pressure to repeal it.  I just have to tell you how I feel about it.  
The members of Congress who voted for that bill and I would never do 
anything to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, to hunt and 
to engage in other appropriate sporting activities.  I've done it 
since I was a boy, and I'm going to keep right on doing it until I 
can't do it anymore.  But a lot of people laid down their seats in 
Congress so that police officers and kids wouldn't have to lay down 
their lives under a hail of assault weapon attack, and I will not 
let that be repealed.  I will not let it be repealed."
--President Bill Clinton, State Of The Union address, January 24, 1995

   "The fights I fought... cost a lot --the fight for the assault-
weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress.  The NRA is 
the reason the Republicans control the House."
--President Bill Clinton, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, January 14, 1995

   "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United 
States for an_out_right_ban, picking up every one of them... 
'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it.  
I_could_not do that.  The votes weren't here."
--U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," 
February 5, 1995
<<Feinstein is speaking about her authorship of the 1994 "assault 
weapons" ban which restricted certain types of military-looking 
semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, but did not confiscate them 
(apparently contrary to her intentions).>>

   "The consequences of the behavior of the BATF in these kinds 
of cases is that they are not trusted.  They are detested, and 
I have described them properly as jackbooted American fascists.  
They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens 
or their property.  They intrude without the slightest regard 
or concern."
--U.S. Rep. John Dingell, Congressional Record, page H1382, 
February 8th, 1995  <<Dingell's remarks came during debate on the
BATF being excepted from the exclusionary rule reform bill H.R.666>>

   "Clancy deposes on the Second Amendment.
   To the framers "militia" means the average Joe [a]nd all his 
friends and neighbors, acting together to preserve their Union.  
The Founding Fathers ha[d] a strong distrust of standing armies, 
hence the invalidation of those gun-haters who think the National 
Guard fulfills this function.  The purpose of the Second Amendment 
is clearly to enable the average citizen to protect himself 
individually, and the national collectively, from tyranny.
   Moreover, the phrase "right of the citizen" is a phrase used 
rarely in the Constitution.  It both proclaims the right to do 
something, and recognizes that that right pre-dates the Constitution 
itself.  That's simple grammar, requiring no constitutional lawyer 
to explain it.  If one can argue that the 2nd Amendment has no 
meaning in contemporary society, one can similarly argue that the 
1st Amendment can be similarly ignored, since the phraseology is 
largely the same.
   The short version is, don't mess with the Constitution."
--Tom Clancy, writing on alt.books.tom-clancy, 29 May 1995 
09:59:09 -0400  <<Tom Clancy, in addition to his best-selling fiction
and non-fiction books loaded with military high-technology, also
wrote the preface for Wayne LaPierre's best-selling 1994 book _Guns,
Crime, and Freedom._>>

   "Look at what's happening in America's inner-cities.  If our
hopeless legal system continues going the same liberal direction,
there will be anarchy before long.  We need one person in an
influential position to stand up and tell the truth about gun 
control lobbies, the death penalty and that our criminal justice
system basically stinks."
--Sylvester Stallone, interview in _Cinefantastique_ magazine,
June 1995, p.7  <<Stallone was asked whether the future scenario
of his comic-book action movie, _Judge Dredd,_ could ever come 
true in real life.>>

   "These are dangerous times.  When we are afraid, we want to 
be protected, and since we cannot protect ourselves against such 
horrors as mass murder by bombers, we are tempted to run to 
the government, a government that is always willing to trade the 
promise of protection for our freedom, which left, as always, 
the question: How much freedom are we willing to relinquish for 
such a bald promise?
   Already the President was calling for more power, more power 
for the FBI.  He wanted a thousand more men.  And he wanted to 
use the army, no less, in situations like Oklahoma City.  And he 
wanted more power to tap our phones and to invade our privacy.  
He wanted express authority from Congress to infiltrate the fringe 
groups and, in short, to snoop and to peer and to spy on the 
citizenry, especially those who hold different beliefs from those 
that flow in the phlegmatic and murky mainstream of America.  
But the question remains, will we really be safer with a thousand 
more, or even a hundred thousand more FBI agents armed with 
even greater power to more easily tap our phone that are already 
so easily tapped and to break into our homes that are no longer 
safe under the much-mangled exclusionary rule?"
--Gerry Spence, _From Freedom To Slavery,_  from the 
new introduction, (St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1995), p. xxiv

   "Sitting behind the President of the United States for the 
first time as he spoke to the nation, I was well aware that I 
represented the institution of the House and had an obligation 
to represent the solemnity of the occasion on behalf of all my 
colleagues.  But there was one moment when I almost forgot my 
resolve: When President Clinton explained that he was a duck 
hunter and described the weaponry that sport requires.
   In the midst of that serious occasion, I wondered, Does he 
think the Second Amendment protects the right to hunt ducks?  
Honestly, I was astonished that his staff had allowed that comment 
into a serious national address like the State of the Union.
   With that single line the President proved to everyone who 
cares about the Second Amendment that he did not have a clue about 
what concerns them.  The Second Amendment to the Constitution has 
nothing to do with duck or deer hunting.  It has nothing to do with 
target practice or owning collector's weapons.  The Second Amendment 
is a political right written into our Constitution for the purpose 
of protecting individual citizens from their government.  The lesson 
of the English Civil War and the American Revolution was that 
political freedom is ultimately based upon the courage and 
preparedness of those who would remain free.  If the Lexington and 
Concord minutemen had not kept weapons, they could not have fired 
the shot heard 'round the world.  If the American colonists had not 
been trained in how to shoot and fight, they could not have become 
American citizens."
--Newt Gingrich (1943-    ), Speaker of the U.S. House of 
Representatives,_To Renew America,_(HarperCollins, 1995), 
pp.201-202  <<See President Clinton, above.>>

   "If a bullet can rip through a bulletproof vest like a knife 
through hot butter, then it ought to be history.  We should ban it."
--President Bill Clinton, speech in Chicago, IL, June 30, 1995
<<The President's proposal would ban most hunting ammunition, since
almost any hunting rifle cartridge has sufficient energy to penetrate
soft body armor, which is only designed to stop handgun bullets.>>

   "You can join whatever organization you want, that is a 
First Amendment right.  And you can own guns, that is a Second 
Amendment right."
--American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen, 
Comedy Central's _Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,_ 
October 16, 1995

-end-

APPENDIX - Quotations Without Citations (or Verifications)


   "Though defensive violence will always be 'a sad necessity' in 
the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if 
wrongdoers should dominate just men."
--St. Augustine (354-430)

   "Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the 
military conservators still multiply upon us, some of which are of 
such nature, and have been carried to so great lengths, as must serve 
fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its 
inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defence, was a 
measure as it was legal natural right which the people have reserved 
to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights [the post-Cromwellian 
English bill of rights], to keep arms for their own defence; and as 
Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions 
of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence 
of oppression."
--"A Journal of the Times" (1768-1769), colonial Boston 
newspaper article

   "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
authority.  It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was
made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean
to govern.  They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be
masters."
--Daniel Webster? (1782-1852)

   "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
--William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), speech in the House of Lords,
November 18, 1783

   "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of 
the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... 
It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and 
which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
--Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) of the New York Historical Society, 
October 7, 1789

   "The difficulty here has been to persuade the citizens to keep
arms, not to prevent them from being employed for violent purposes."
--Dwight,"Travels in New-England"

   "The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep 
and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against 
tyranny in government."
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) <<This quotation seems suspect, 
since I have not yet been able to find it in his letters or 
speeches.  Does anybody have a reference for this?  This quote is 
sometimes seen appended onto Jefferson's proposed arms right 
provision of the Virginia Constitution, but it cannot be found in 
that document.>>

   "Every citizen [should] be a soldier.  This was the case with the 
Greeks and the Romans, and must be that of every free state."
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), paraphrased?

   "The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States]
assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise
it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times
armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of
religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)  <<This one looks suspicious...>>

   "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence --it is force!  
Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never
for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
--George Washington (1732-1799), 1797? <<Probably authentic 
because of the archaic usage of "fearful" to mean "inspiring fear".
However, I have yet to find an original source for this quotation, 
which is included in David Kin (pseudonym of David George Platkin)
_Dictionary of American Maxims,_ 1955, p. 214; and quoted in part 
by late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas in 
_A Living Bill of Rights,_ 1961, p. 10>>

   "I find that Ammendments are once again on the Carpet.  I hope 
that such may take place as will be for the Best interest of the 
whole  A Bill of rights well secured that we the people may know how 
far we may Proceade in Every Department then their will be no 
Dispute Between the people and rulers  in that may be secured the 
right to keep arms for Common and Extraordinary Occations such as to 
secure ourselves against the wild Beast and also to amuse us by 
fowling and for our Defence against a Common Enemy  you know to 
learn the Use of arms is all that can Save us from a forighn foe 
that may attempt to subdue us for if we keep up the Use of arms and 
become well acquainted with them we Shall allway be able to look 
them in the face that arise up against us."
--Samuel Nasson, excerpt of a letter written to George Thatcher, 
July 9, 1789?

   "Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, 
feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it 
is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his 
country, to bear arms."
--Thomas Pownall (1772-1805)?

   "Congress may give us a select militia which will, in fact, 
be a standing army --or Congress, afraid of a general militia, 
may say there shall be no militia at all.
   When a select militia is formed; the people in general may 
be disarmed."
--John Smilie (1741-1812), in the Pennsylvania Convention on the 
ratification of the Constitution

   "Shooting at a fixed target is only a step towards shootingat a 
moving one, like a man."
--Lord Baden-Powell, _Scouting for Boys_ (1908)

   "Make yourselves good scouts and good rifle shots in order to 
protect the women and children of your country if it should ever 
become necessary."
--Lord Baden-Powell, _Scouting for Boys_ (1908)

   "Certainly I shall use the police --and most ruthlessly-- whenever 
the German people are hurt; but I refuse the notion that the police 
are protective troops for Jewish stores.  The police protect whoever 
comes into Germany legitimately, but not Jewish usurers."
--Hermann Goering, c. Kristallnacht, 1935

   "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 (1900-1945)

   "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

   "...the rifle?  Wouldn't go out naked of a rifle.  When shoes 
and clothes and food, when even hope is gone, we'll have the rifle."
--John Steinbeck (1902-1968),_The Grapes of Wrath_

   "The Second Amendment reveals a profound principle of American 
government --the principle of civilian ascendency over the military."
-- William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U.S. Supreme Court Justice

   "I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns."
--(Former!) Sen. Howard Metzenbaum
<<I don't doubt Ol' Howie said something this stupid.  Cite anyone?>>

   "The July 17 cover story is the most recent in a growing number 
of attempts on the part of TIME editors to keep the gun availability 
issue resolutely in view.  Such an editorial closing of ranks 
represents the exception rather than the rule in the history 
of the magazine[...] But the time for opinions on the dangers 
of gun availability is long since gone[...] As we see it-- and as 
we indicated in the report--our responsibility now is to confront 
indifference about the escalating violence and the unwillingness 
to do something about it.
--editorial response to letters about the "Death by Gun" cover story 
which appeared in the July 17, 1989 issue of Time  <<This letter did
not appear in the magazine, but was, as I understand it, mailed out 
in response to those who had written in to criticize Time's obvious 
bias.>>

   "They'll have to shoot me first to take my gun."
--Roy Rogers, cowboy actor and singer, 1982, in_Cowboy Wisdom,_
by Terry Hall (Warner Books, 1995)

   "Banning gun shows to reduce violent crime will work about 
as well as banning auto shows to reduce drunken driving."
--Bill McIntire, Spokesman for the National Rifle Association, 
on Norfolk, Va. council's vote to cancel four gun shows, 1992  
<<Cite?>>

   "There are going to be situations where people are going to go
without assistance.  That's just the facts of life."
--Los Angeles Chief of Police, Darryl Gates, 1993

   "And we should --then every community in the country could then 
start doing major weapon sweeps and then destroying the weapons, not 
selling them."
--President Bill Clinton

   "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of 
ordinary Americans to own firearms..."
--President Bill Clinton, press conference in Piscataway, NJ, 
March 1, 1993

   "The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be 
blood: The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has 
already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying 
to violate that person's liberty!  Are you free?"
--Andrew Ford, Usenet
<<No further information is known about this quote>>

   "Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no 
liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the 
second allows us to do something about it!  The second will be taken 
away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our 
freedoms."
--Andrew Ford, Usenet
<<No further information is known about this quote>>

-END OF QUOTES (rev. 10/20/95)-