14 Second Amendment Quotes Every American Should Know

#1: Thomas Jefferson

“A strong body makes a strong mind. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let you gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.”

Clearly, Jefferson was a big fan of firearms. You can feel the excitement in his words of allowing citizens to carry guns at all times.

#2: Adolf Hitler

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms; history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected people to carry arms have prepared their own fall.”

If that isn’t enough to make you pro-gun, I don’t know what is.

#3: Zachariah Johnston

“The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”

Johnston was a captain of militia in the Revolutionary War and a close friend of James Madison, who drafted the Constitution. Nowhere in historical text does a founding father ever discuss limitation on the kinds of arms people are allowed to have.

#4: Elbridge Gerry

“What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.”

The purpose of a militia has always been to equal out the balance of power between government and the people. Militia, at that time, simply meant the body of the populace. In today’s terms, the military and police force would both be considered standing armies.

#5: George Mason

“To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them…”

Mason was one of the drafters of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and a major drafter of the Virginia State Constitution. It has been understood since this time that an unarmed population is fully at the behest of any power-hungry government.

#6: William Pitt (the Younger)

“If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms – never – never – NEVER! You cannot conquer America!”

From 1783 until 1801, then again in 1804 to 1806, William Pitt was the Prime Minister of Britain. Even he understood the importance of an armed populace to protect against foreign invaders and was against war with the United States.

#7: Robert Molesworth

“The arming and training of all the freeholders of England, as it is our undoubted ancient Constitution, and consequently our Right: So, it is the opinion of most Whigs, that it ought to be put in Practice.”

Molesworth was a British politician who believed that self-preservation is a Constitutional right guaranteed to the English as well as the Americans. He was a close associate of philosopher and economist John Locke.

#8: Andrew Fletcher

“He that is armed, is always the master of the purse of him, that is unarmed.”

Fletcher was a Scottish statesman and author of A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias (1698). He believed in the necessity of guns to stop and discourage theft.

#9: Michael Dalton

“If Thieves shall come to a Man’s House, to rob or murder him, he may lawfully assemble company to defend his House by force; and if he or any of his company shall kill any of them in defense of Himself, his Family, his Goods of House, This is no Felony, neither shall they forfeit anything therefore.”

Dalton was an influential English jurist of the seventeenth century who strongly believed in the use of weapons to defend one’s household, family, and possessions.

#10: Charles Louis De Secondat Montesquieu

“It is unreasonable . . . to oblige a man not to attempt the defense of his own life.”

Charles Montesquieu was an early 18th century French judge who argued for the separation of powers which our current government uses. He also believed that self-defense is a human right in which no man should be denied.

#11: Hugo Grotius

“[F]or all animals are provided by nature with means for the very purpose of self-defense. See Xenophon, Ovid, Horace, Lucretius. Galen observes that man is an animal born for peace and war, not born with weapons, but with hands by which weapons can be acquired. And we see infants, without teaching, use their hands for weapons.”

Hugo Grotius was a 16th-17th century Dutch judge and politician. He believed as Aristotle did before him that weapons are as natural for humans to use as the talons on a bird or the claws on a bear, and that to deny a man his tools of defense is to deny him his nature.

#12: Thomas Paine

“The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; . . . the weak will become prey to the strong.”

Paine believed in an equal balance of power between governments and people. It’s clear today that that power has been skewed evermore dramatically to the side of government since at least the American Civil War, the consequences of which have been enormous.

#13: John Adams

“Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion . . . in private self-defense.”

This quote by the second president of the United States and co-signer of the Declaration of Independence reveals the fact that the Second Amendment was intended to protect the rights of individuals to protect themselves privately, as well as the collective right to form a well-regulated (meaning well-functioning) militia for the purpose of resisting tyrannical government.

#14: Mahatma Gandhi

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

In this very telling quote, devout pacifist Gandhi explains how much of the suffering caused by the British during India’s occupation could have been avoided if the citizens were not stripped of their right to carry arms.