Strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms (Quotation)
Quotation: "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
Variations: None known.
Sources consulted:
- Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition
- Thomas Jefferson: Papers and Thomas Jefferson: Biographies collections in Hathi Trust Digital Library
- Thomas Jefferson Retirement Papers
Earliest known appearance in print: 1989[1]
Other attributions: None known.
Status: This quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It is often seen preceded by the sentence, "No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms," which is from Jefferson's draft of the Virginia Constitution.
- Anna Berkes, 2/26/09; updated 1/9/12
Footnotes
- 1. Charley Reese, "Founding Fathers Gave Individuals the Right to Bear Arms," Orlando Sentinel, June 22, 1989. This quotation appeared in a number of publications in quick succession in the mid-1990s, including in The Militia Movement in the United States: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session ... June 15, 1995 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1997), 120.
Discussion
"What part of;
"The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not be Infringed",
is so hard to comprehend?"
The part that says "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,".
So I've answered your question, now could you answer mine? Which part of this:
"The Congress shall have power... To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;"
is hard to comprehend?
Keith,
Any difficulty in comprehending either the Second Amendment or Article I Section 8, or both, is usually couched in a casual reader's lack of perspective and context. The Founders shared a mutual distrust of standing armies, believing as they did (based on world history and their own experience as a colony of England) that central governments were prone to use their armies to oppress the citizenry. For the same reason, the Founders were reluctant to give the federal government power over state militia, which was the subject of much debate during the Constitutional convention. In the end, the Founders determined that in order to assure the effectivess of militia in the event of foreign invasion, etc, it was necessary to give Congress power over the functions of militia. The counterbalance to that compromise was, and is, the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment begins by acknowledging that the need for a "well regulated militia" made it necessary for the Founders to give Congress power over the militia in Article 1 Section 8, and then balances that shift of power by simultaneously guaranteeing that the government will have no authority to disarm the citizenry.
Anti-gun control web sites are promulgating dozens of such quotations from the founding fathers -- most of which make the fathers sound oddly like Wayne LaPierre. The quotations are all of a size that makes them suitable for copying and pasting into the comment streams of online news stories. If sites such as this continue to provide the facts, the nonsense may be contained. As Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time -- except that Lincoln never said any such thing. (See Fehrenbacher, "The Recollected Words of Abraham Lincoln").
What part of;
"The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not be Infringed",
is so hard to comprehend?
My limited education has came mostly from books. I did not start using the internet until 2004. Since that time I have been appalled at the ease of which the words of Good Men have been tampered with, contaminated, or even completely removed from the internet and it's search engines.
I have noticed that there are no longer any links to the sites where one could read for hours on end, the actual letters that were hand-written by Jefferson and many of his Colleagues.
People who tamper with American history do the rest of our citizens irreversible and terrible harm.
If you wish to consider the intent behind our Second Amendment, maybe some deeper study into the National Archives, and also some study about men like Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry will help you discern facts from fictions on this, and other matters related to our Constitution and it's design.
As knowledge is power, at some point one has to conclude to, and realize that this Country of ours never was a true Democracy.
That is evident in the issue of slavery. No sooner than it was established that all men were created equal, it was also established that did not apply to slaves.
And since Lincoln has been mentioned, the Civil War was not fought, nor did it begin, because of slavery.
The Southern Agriculturists seceded because of unfair taxes and tariffs imposed by an ever increasing corrupt government headed up by Northern Industrialist.
Lincoln responded in order to preserve the Union. Lincoln was very intent on the issue of war to be about preserving the Union and not waging war because of slavery. Only because of public outcry did he concede to the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.
(The issue of slavery was not addressed until 1863 while the war began in 1861).
I might add that the single most harmful event to our people as a whole was the assignation of Lincoln. This event was the,"coming out party",for the age of corrupt lawyers. The corruption in government that followed was to the 100th power of what it had been before.
It took only 20 years for people like Paul Warburg to set this Great Country on the path to financial ruin that is so evident today. (read Woodrow Wilson).
Now after years of corrupt and ever increasing government, manipulated by and set into place by corrupt lawyers and courts, our form of government is better referred to as a Poly-Archy.
You can have all the Justice you want in America as long as you can afford to pay for it. This is not True Democracy.
These things are the result of people taking it upon themselves to re-write our National History and change or erase the words of Good Men like Thomas Jefferson.
If I do have an agenda, it is to strike some chord in those who will realize the importance of these matters.