[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

To be armed for personal defence is the right of every man, to be armed to defend freedom and the existence of the common fatherland is the right of every citizen

Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

There is luck in being an American, but there is responsibility as well. Being an American means you have the right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom t gather and assemble, freedom to criticize the government without fear of retribution. There are many countries in the world where acting on those impulses will get you tossed into jail or killed. So exercise those rights, but keep in mind the very simple fact that you have them only because hundreds of thousands of men and women have laid down their lives for you, stretching across parts of three centuries, from the Revolutionary War, through two world wars, and through less popular conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. And Iraq. And Afghanistan. As a kid growing up in Iowa, I didn't really get any of that. I mean, I sort of got it. I understood the connection between Independence Day and the sacrifices that went into securing that independence. Mostly, though, I was like everyone else. I liked watching fireworks and eating hot dogs off a backyard grill. Still do, in fact, preferably washed down with a few cold ones. But it means much more to me now, and I have two deployments in Afghanistan to thank for that.

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.

Moreover, a Republic trusting to her own forces, is with greater difficulty than one which relies on foreign arms brought to yield obedience to a single citizen. Rome and Sparta remained for ages armed and free. The Swiss are at once the best armed and the freest people in the world.

(1) Every year, in this nation of more than a quarter billion individuals, a few thousand (three quarters of them suicides) are killed with firearms, while millions of Americans successfully use personal weapons to save themselves and others from injury or death. Guns save many, many times more lives than they take. (2) In every jurisdiction that has made it even microscopically easier for individuals to carry weapons, violent crime rates have plummeted by double-digit percentages. Vermont, where no permission of any kind is required to carry a gun, is named in many respectable surveys as the safest state to live in. (3) More telling and urgent, every episode of genocidal mass murder in history has been preceded by a period of intense disarming of the civil population, usually with 'public safety' or 'national security' as an excuse. According to Amnesty International — hardly a gang of right wing crazies — in the 20th century alone (in events entirely separate from war), governments have slaughtered more than a hundred million people, usually their own citizens.

That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well-regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free state, that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided.

This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them.

An armed people are a free people. If our forefathers were not armed before the American Revolution we would all be speaking English today.

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea they're using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.

The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.