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• The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind
  a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]...
• The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be _tremendous and irresistable_.
  Who are the militia? _are they not ourselves_. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms _each man against his own bosom_....
• We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.
  Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net....
• As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on Christian religion.
  .. -- Joel Barlow (1754-1812) -- Treaty with Tripoli (signed 1797)...
• 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.
  [...] 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....
• Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
  -- James Madison, The Federalist Pape...
• Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
  -- James Madiso...
• But, sir, the people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of arms.
  An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law...
• To be free of bondage or restraint, to live under a government based on the consent of the citize
  hese are basic among all freedoms, and this is the reason why a democracy is from every possible humane point of view the best form of government....