Rep. Fisher Ames (MA), 6/12/1789
“The rights of conscience, of bearing arms, of changing the government, are declared to be inherent in the people.”
Samuel Nasson, 7/9/1789
“I hope that such may take place as will be for the best interest of the whole—a bill of rights…[so that there] may be secured the right to keep arms for common and extraordinary occasions, such as to secure ourselves against the wild beast and also to amuse us by fowling and for our defence against a common enemy.”
Nasson was a Massachusetts legislator and a delegate to the state convention that ratified the US Constitution.
Rep. Elbridge Gerry (MA), 8/17/1789
“I am apprehensive, sir, that [the clause ‘no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service’] would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself. They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms.”
Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence and served as Pres. James Madison’s vice president.
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Journal of the Senate, 9/9/1789
“On motion, to amend Article the fifth*, by inserting these words, ‘For the common defence,’ next to the words ‘Bear arms’—It passed in the negative.”
*Before the Bill of Rights was finalized, the amendment pertaining to arms rights was at one point the Fifth Amendment.
Rep. James Jackson (GA), 12/29/1790
(paraphrased) “He conceived that every citizen was not only entitled to carry arms, but also in duty bound to perfect himself in the use of them, and thus become capable of defending his country.”
William Paterson, 1793
“What, indeed, is a militia but the people themselves prepared to act as soldiers for the purpose of resisting oppression and securing their rights. To be prepared for war is the way to prevent it; to be ready in arms to meet and resist tyranny never fails to deter its approach. Tyrants dread freemen…Even men, untutored in the art of war, but resolved to be free or die, have achieved wondrous things.” (p. 41)
Paterson was a signer of the Constitution and a Supreme Court justice appointed by George Washington. He also served as attorney general and governor of New Jersey, as well as United States senator.
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Adjutant Gen. William Donnison, 3/13/1794
“A well regulated Militia, composed of the great body of the Citizens, is always the chief dependence of a free people for their defence. Americans have ever esteemed the right of keeping and bearing arms, as an honorable mark of their freedom.”
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Donnison was head of the Massachusetts state militia.
William Henry Harrison, 8/17/1807
“One of the principal characteristics which distinguishes the citizens of a free government from the subjects of a despotic one is the right of keeping arms.”
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Harrison later served as president.
Thomas Jefferson, 1/26/1811
“While [one man’s usurping force] may paralyse the single state in which it happens to be encamped, sixteen others…rise up on every side, ready organised, for deliberation by a constitutional legislature, & for action by their Governor, constitutionally the commander of the militia of the state, that is to say, of every man in it, able to bear arms; and that militia too regularly formed into regiments & battalions.”
Rep. Robert Wright (MD), 1/29/1811
“[The Constitution prior to the Bill of Rights] had not guarded against an establishment of religion; it had not secured the right of the people to keep and bear arms [etc.]…and these omissions as due guards to the liberty of the citizens stand recorded in these amendments.” (p.835)
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Wright also served as a US senator and as governor of Maryland.
Summary of House members’ arguments regarding “An act making provision for arming and equipping the whole body of the militia of the United States,” 2/4/1812
This bill, it was stated, was calculated to do away [with] all these difficulties and inconveniences [of loaning arms to the militiamen], by putting suitable arms into the hands of every free, white young man in the United States, when he arrives at the age of eighteen years, at the public expense; so that, by degrees, the whole nation would become armed…It would be more strictly complying with the Constitutional provision, ‘that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’”
(p. 1021-1024)
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Resolutions of a New York City meeting headed by Henry Rutgers and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 8/10/1814
“The national government has augmented our security by fortifications, troops and a floating force. The state has extended its care, and caused other works of defence to be erected. The common council of the city, has labored to insure out safety. It only remains that the sons of liberty come forth...The citizens are the safeguards of a free state. Their right to keep and bear arms has never been infringed.”
Rutgers was a Revolutionary War hero, philanthropist, and member of the New York State Legislature; Wolcott served as secretary of the treasury and governor of Connecticut.
Rep. Adam Seybert (PA), 1818
“Our constitution guarantees to every citizen the right ‘to keep and bear arms.’”
Rep. James Johnson (VA), 5/1820
“To what daring usurpations must they have looked, when it was deemed necessary to secure to freemen the privilege of keeping and bearing arms? But, sir, Constitutional securities against the abuse of power, of delegated and limited power, seem to be but beautiful and splendid illusions. Notwithstanding these securities to the freedom of speech and of the press, we have seen the day when a sedition act was deemed both necessary and proper…If the Constitution be thus successfully invaded, and the people should tamely submit, other and more effectual limitations will be required.”
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Johnson was delegate to the Virginia constitutional convention.
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Sen. William Smith (SC), 12/8/1820
(paraphrased) “Each of [the slave states] had, either in their laws or constitution, deprived free negroes and mulattoes of all the political rights of citizens; such as…forbidding them to bear arms; [etc.]” (Top of p. 63)
Sen. John Holmes (ME), 12/9/1820
“The rights of an American citizen are…to elect, be elected, and bear arms in his defence; they are essential, for, divest him of these, and you divest him of his citizenship… By the existing territorial laws [in Missouri, blacks] cannot bear arms without being housekeepers and having a license from the civil authority…The free black of Missouri, then, has no privileges of citizenship there.” (Bottom of p. 86)
Jonathan Thompson, 4/16/1821
“Arms are more dangerous to both liberty and property than suffrage, yet we have never hesitated to place arms in the hands of the whole body of the people.”
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Thompson was a prominent New York City merchant appointed to various government positions by presidents Madison and Monroe.
Thomas Jefferson, 1824
“We appealed to [the laws] of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts…The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people [and] that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
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Hon. William D. Woodbridge, 3/5/1829
“You talk too, about the liberty of the press! No one here, has a thought of invading it—the question is, as to its abuse! You have the liberty also of bearing arms, secured in like manner, by constitutional provision. But have you therefore the right to use them for the purposes of Murder? You have the right to carry a lighted torch; Have you therefore the right to set your neighbour’s House on fire?”
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Woodbridge had previously been appointed Secretary of Michigan Territory by James Madison, and went on to serve as governor and US senator.
John Reed, 1831
“A fifth right of every citizen, ‘is that of having arms for his defence.’ By the constitution of the United States, ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed’…[This was] no doubt intended, to avoid a recurrence of the restrictions, on this subject, found in the English laws. By the forest and game laws, in England, the right of keeping arms is effectually taken away from the great body of the people.”
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Reed served as President Judge of the Ninth Judicial District of Pennsylvania and founded the law school now known as Penn State Dickinson Law.
Col. Benjamin G. Allston, 8/30/1831
“Time was, when we could say, and say exultingly, that we had no swords but for the invaders of our soil, or for the insurgent, or for the rebellious; when under the Constitutional right of the citizen ‘to bear arms,’ we were ready, and ready only to make a constitutional use of those arms, ‘to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.’
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Adjutant Gen. John A. Dix, 1/5/1832
“In most other countries it is a practical rule of government…to arm and discipline such only as are in its pay and under its control. The spirit of our political organization, on the other hand, is…by arming and disciplining every citizen, to be prepared to sustain in all emergencies, by the united force of the whole community, a system instituted for the benefit of the whole...The same causes which would render such a force dangerous to the existence of an arbitrary government, render it indispensable to the existence of ours. That this was the opinion of the original parties to the constitution of the United States, is apparent from the second article of the amendments of that instrument.”
Dix was head of the New York state militia; he also served as governor, US senator, and Secretary of the US Treasury.
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New York State Assembly Committee on the Militia and the Public Defense, 2/5/1833
“Every citizen is, from the nature of our social organization, a part of the public defence; and he is also in the last resort, in common with his fellow-citizens, the safe guard of the liberties of all, against the government itself. Thus it is that amendments to the Constitution of the United States have provided that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ It seems indispensable to the accomplishment of the objects referred to, that every citizen should be armed.”
Rep. Augustin S. Clayton (GA), 2/28/1833
“In vain the Constitution allows the privilege to the citizen to bear arms for his protection, if, when he rubs up his musket and furnishes it with a flint, he runs the risk of becoming a traitor! Sir, preparation is no force; as well may you tell me that the gentleman who sits before me with his sword cane, and which, no doubt, he carries for his honest defence, is obliged to run it through the body of the first man he meets.”
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United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 4/1833
“The second amendment provides, ‘that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’… An amendment of the constitution is of still higher authority [than the Constitution itself]…We have stated to you the various provisions of the constitution of the United States and its amendments…[The plaintiff] had a right to carry arms in defence of his property or person, and to use them, if either were assailed with such force, numbers or violence as made it necessary.”
Littleton W. Tazewell, 5/21/1833
“The people as individuals, have no political power, although they have many sacred natural and civil rights. The people as a body politic or commonwealth, have no natural rights, although they have vast political power…Among these rights retained by the People, are the right to bear arms.”
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Tazewell served as a US senator from, and governor of, Virginia.
State Rep. Thomas G. Polk (KY), 1/16/1835
“Every man has a right to carry arms for his own defence, and that right is as clear and as important as the freedom of the press.”
Democratic Committee of Correspondence for the City of Philadelphia, 9/1/1835
“Our constitution guarantees ‘that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ As well might this provision be stricken from the statute book [as might a political party be placed in power having for its object the destruction of a particular trade], because dangerous weapons may be mis-directed by the rioter or breaker of the peace, and every citizen be rendered subject to domiciliary visits and the exercise of an odious search.”
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Committees of correspondence were organizations used by the colonies to communicate with each other.
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Frederick A. Packard, 1836
“Every schoolboy should be…made acquainted with their rights as citizens…such as the right to keep and bear arms; [etc.]
Packard served as a member of the Massachusetts legislature.
Gov. Edward Everett (MA), 1838
“The constitution makes it the right, the laws make it the duty, of all citizens, within certain ages, to bear arms.”
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Everett also served as a US Senator, US Congressman, and president of Harvard.
Rep. Hopkins Holsey (GA), 2/16/1838
(paraphrased) “A citizen had a right to bear arms, but if from his conduct there was a manifest danger of a violation of the peace, they might be taken away from him, until he should enter into a recognizance to preserve it.”
Sen. William H. Roane (VA), 2/15/1839
“Officers of the Government not a portion of the people! The proposition is startling…But, sir, I turn to this sacred paper, the Constitution. You will there find that the word people is mentioned six times…The fourth occurrence of this word people, in our charter, is in the second amendment…Who does not see, from this plain, simple reading of the Constitution, that an officer of this Government, who ought to feel at least that he is a freeman, is cut off from every right which this Constitution meant to secure to freemen, if this new and astounding doctrine be true?”
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Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett, 6/5/1840
“The Constitution guarantees equally to the people of the United States the right of trial by jury and the right to keep and bear arms…The general government aids the states to arm their citizens, but its constant policy has been, that every freeman in America should be armed and equipped.”
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Poinsett was born in 1779, coming of age in the decade following the ratification of the Second Amendment. He previously served as a United States congressman and Minister to Mexico.
Gov. Thomas Corwin (OH), 12/19/1840
“In what do the citizens of this country differ from the subjects of despots of the old world? Mainly in the fact that they possess the right of suffrage, and the right to keep and bear arms in its defence. It is the right of suffrage and the right to bear arms, which principally distinguishes the freeman from the slave.”
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Corwin also served as US senator from that state, and US Secretary of the Treasury.
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Hon. Thomas J. Lacy, 1/1842
“By far the most important and largest of the rights of the Constitution appertain exclusively to the person of the citizen…They are written, that they may be understood and remembered; and then declared inviolate and supreme, because they cannot be weakened or invaded without doing the Government and citizen manifest injustice and wrong. Among these rights, I hold, is the privilege of the people to keep and to bear their private arms, for the necessary defence of their person, habitation, and property, or for any useful or innocent purpose whatever.”
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Lacy had been appointed by the federal government as a justice of the Arkansas Territorial Superior Court, and was considered the “most popular” justice of the three. The state legislature once wanted to impeach him because of its dissatisfaction with one of his decisions, but backed down after the ruling was endorsed by Chancellor Kent and Justice Story. Lacy “stood in high regard with the bar for his integrity and fairness” and was re-elected for an eight-year term in 1840.
“In general, Lacy’s work as a jurist was well regarded. In the view of one court observer, Lacy brought an ‘effervescence and elan’ to the court, while adding a broader perspective to its opinions. Overall, his work earned the respect of attorneys throughout the state.”
Lacy “became known as an upright and able jurist, and all who came in contact with him were impressed with the great moral worth and magnetism of the man”; he was considered “a learned, painstaking, upright jurist.”
A 1911 history of Arkansas declared, “The most esteemed of the first three judges was Lacy…His opinions are among the best to be found in our reports, clear and comprehensive. His popularity was great, and he commanded the confidence of the bar, whom he attached to himself by his kind and pleasant manners and by the purity of his character.”
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William D. Williamson, 1843
“It is interesting to consider for a few moments, what has been the category of rights which Americans have so uniformly espoused…[including] an unrestricted right to keep fire arms.”
“All our people have a constitutional right, constantly ‘to keep and bear arms.’”
Williamson served as senate president, governor, and US representative of Maine.
Adjutant Gen. Alfred Redington, 1/1844
“This is the only civilized nation where every individual is guaranteed the right of keeping and bearing arms…This is the prerogative of freemen, the great distinguishing privilege of an American. It is this that raises him in dignity and power far above the citizens of any other nation. Destroy this right and we destroy at a blow a prominent feature in the republicanism of our institutions.”
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Reddington was head of the Maine state militia and the first mayor of Augusta.
Henry St. George Tucker, 1846
“We have thus taken a short view of the principal absolute rights of individuals. To secure their enjoyment, however, certain protections or barriers have been erected, which serve to maintain inviolate the three primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and private property. These may in America be said to [include] the right of bearing arms—which with us is not limited and restrained by an arbitrary system of game laws, as in England; but is practically enjoyed by every citizen, and is among his most valuable privileges, since it furnishes the means of resisting, as a freeman ought, the inroads of usurpation.”
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Tucker was a constitutional scholar who served as president of the court of appeals of Virginia and as US representative from that state.
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Supreme Court of Georgia, 7/1/1846
“The language of the second amendment is broad enough to embrace both Federal and State governments—nor is there anything in its terms which restricts its meaning…The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such, merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia.”
Hon. EA Nisbet also served as US congressman, as did Hon. Hiram B. Warner; Hon. Joseph H. Lumpkin was offered a federal judgeship but declined.
Adjutant Gen. Charles Hazen Peaslee, 10/1846
“This is the only civilized nation where every individual is guaranteed the right of keeping and bearing arms…This is the prerogative of freemen—the great distinguishing privilege of an American. It is this that raises him in dignity and power, far above the citizen of any other nation.”
Peasley was head of the New Hampshire state militia and served as US representative of that state; he was also appointed collector of the port of Boston by appointment of Pres. Franklin Pierce.
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William S. Sherwood, 9/11/1849
“To make a positive declaration that a man has not this right [to bear arms for the defence of himself and the State] would be null and void, inasmuch as it would be in opposition to the Constitution of the United States…[This] proposition directly touches the rights of every citizen.”
Sherwood was a delegate to the California state constitutional convention.
Supreme Court of Louisiana, 5/1/1850
“[The state’s concealed weapons statute] interfered with no man’s right to carry arms (to use its words) ‘in full open view’…This is the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and which is calculated to incite men to a manly and noble defence of themselves, if necessary, and of their country.”
Francis Lieber, 1853
“Akin to the last-mentioned guarantee, is that which secures to every citizen the right of possessing and bearing arms. Our constitution says: ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon;’ and the [English] Bill of Rights secured this right to every Protestant. It extends now to every English subject.”
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Lieber was a Professor of History and Political Science at Columbia University who advised the Union in the Civil War and whose writings form the basis of the modern laws of war.
Francis W. Shearman, 1853
“Two years subsequent to the adoption of this constitution, certain amendments, or rather additions, were proposed by Congress, and adopted by the requisite number of States. These have especial reference to the preservation of the liberty of the citizen, and embrace…the right to keep arms; [etc.]” (Bottom of p. 106)
Sherman was Michigan Superintendent of Public Instruction.
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John J. Crittenden, 4/26/1854
“A man may arm himself for a case of probable danger; he may do it with a view to no specific occurrence, and he may do it in self-defense. Who can object to it? The Constitution guarantees to every man the right to bear arms. No law takes it away, and none ever can. The right of self-defense is an inherent one, given by God, to man. It is our own natural right, and, as Blackstone says, no human legislation can ever take it from us.”
Crittenden served as governor of Kansas, US senator, and US attorney general.
Furman Sheppard, 1855
“If citizens are allowed to keep and bear arms, it will be likely to operate as a check upon their rulers, and restrain them from acts of tyranny and usurpation. The necessity of maintaining a large standing army is also diminished by arming and disciplining the citizens generally.”
Sheppard was district attorney of Philadelphia and a prominent constitutional scholar.
State Rep. David O'Keefe, Jr. (NY), 3/20/1855
(paraphrased) “One of the first rights of an American citizen was the right to bear arms. But this bill seeks to make a distinction between citizens—to preclude some from doing what is guaranteed to every man. Every citizen, whether native or foreign born, is an equal citizen.”
Republican Party Platform, 1856
“The dearest Constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them…The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been infringed.”
Rep. Alexander H. Stevens (GA), 6/28/1856
“There is one [Georgia law] in particular which I fought in the legislature and opposed before the courts with all the power that I had. It was a law making it penal to bear concealed deadly weapons. I am individually opposed to bearing such weapons. I never bear weapons of any sort; but I believed that it was the constitutional right of every American citizen to bear arms if he chooses, and just such arms, and in just such way as he chooses.”
US Senate, 7/8/1856
“Inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States…has secured to the inhabitants [of the territory of Kansas] certain inalienable rights, of which they cannot be deprived by any legislative enactment, therefore no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office…nor shall the rights of the people to keep and bear arms be infringed.”
US Supreme Court, 3/6/1857
“If [the African race] were so received [as citizens], and entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would…give them the full liberty…to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
Henry S. Foote, 6/5/1857
“[The victim] was armed in accordance with that provision of the Constitution which permits every citizen to bear arms in his own defense.”
Foote served as governor of, and US senator from, Mississippi.
Sen. Jefferson Davis, 1/8/1858
(paraphrased) “Mr. Davis replied that it was the sacred privilege of an American citizen to bear arms.”
Gov. John B. Weller (CA), 1/1860
“A considerable number of our people are in the habit of carrying deadly weapons, and where a quarrel ensues between two neighbors, one or the other falls. As, under the Constitution, the people have a right to bear arms, this evil is beyond the reach of legislation. It is folly to cumber the statute book with laws which cannot be executed.”
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Sen. Andrew Johnson (TN), 6/1861
“We ask that we may have means to defend ourselves, under that clause of the Constitution which provides that every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms.”
Johnson later served as president.
US Circuit Court, District of Missouri, 7/10/1861
“As the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition for the redress of grievances, and to keep and bear arms, cannot be lawfully abridged or infringed, it is evident that an assemblage for the mere purpose of procuring peaceable redress of supposed grievances cannot be treasonable…nor can a military gathering when assembled for no purpose or design of interfering, by force or intimidation, with the lawful functions of the government.” (Top of 2nd col.)
Sen. John C. Breckinridge (KY), 7/16/1861
“I protest in the name of the Constitution, and in the name of the people I represent…The houses of private citizens are searched without warrant. The right of citizens to bear arms is made nugatory by their being taken from them without judicial process, and upon mere suspicion.” (p. 139, middle of 1st col.)
Breckinridge also served as Vice President.
Sen. Garrett Davis (KY), 2/27/1865
“[The right of the people to keep and bear arms] is a most invaluable liberty guaranteed to every American citizen. A people in the full enjoyment of the right of trial by jury, and all armed, are free, and cannot be reduced to slavery…A just, patriotic, and constitutional administration of the Government would never attempt to subvert the right of the opposition, of all the people, to keep and bear arms.” (p. 1134, middle of 1st col.)
Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles and Capt. William LM Burger, 1/17/1866
“The constitutional rights of all loyal and well-disposed inhabitants to bear arms will not be infringed; nevertheless this shall not be construed to sanction the unlawful practice of carrying concealed weapons, nor to authorize any person to enter with arms on the premises of another against his consent.”
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Sickles was the military governor of North and South Carolina, who also served as a US congressman from New York and US minister to Spain; Burger was assistant Adjutant General (head of the state militia) of New York. (p. 42)
Timothy Farrar, 1867
“The people of the United States, in making their Constitution, do not create or confer on themselves any new rights, but they expressly reserve all the rights they then held, except what were delegated for their own benefit; and they particularly and expressly recognize and perpetuate many natural and civil common-law rights, which, of course, are placed beyond the reach of any subordinate government, and even of their own. Among these are the following:—…A right to keep and bear arms…These are a part only of the rights held by every member of the nation, under and by virtue of the Constitution of the United States, independently of any other earthly power, and which, of course, ‘cannot be destroyed or abridged by the laws of any particular State.’”
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Farrar served as a justice of the New Hampshire Court of Common Pleas.
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Rep. Washington C. Whitthorne (TN), 3/29/1871
“[Under proposed legislation to enforce the 14th amendment,] if a police officer…should find a drunken negro or white man upon the streets with loaded pistol flourishing it, [and] takes it away, the officer may be sued, because the right to bear arms is secured by the Constitution.” (p.337, middle of 3rd col.)
Brig. Gen. Joshua T. Owen, 5/30/1871
“May the National Guard here never be disarmed, never forget that when he is in uniform he is still nothing but a citizen. He is a citizen soldier, and his proper action in that capacity will be the means of establishing forever the right of the citizen to bear arms.”
Owen was a Union Army officer and a member of the Pennsylvania legislature.
Supreme Court of Tennessee, 6/7/1871
“Bearing arms for the common defense may well be held to be a political right…but the right to keep them, with all that is implied fairly as an incident to this right, is a private individual right, guaranteed to the citizen, not the soldier…The second article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States…was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to, and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights.”
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Samuel Read Hall, 1874
“By the militia is meant the entire body of citizens capable of bearing arms.”​
“If the people, as a whole, are allowed to keep and bear arms, it will restrain their rulers from acts of tyranny and usurpation.”
Hall was one of the most influential educators in American history, often credited with the invention of the blackboard.
Sen. Thomas M. Norwood (GA), 4/30 or 5/4/1874
“The following are most, if not all, the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States: The right to…a free press; to keep and bear arms; [etc.]”
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Albert Todd, 1875
“‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ How is this to be construed? Simply a right of the citizen of a state to carry a pistol, sabre or musket? Why not at all. It means only that unless you carry the construction of the amendment further, & say that it means that the state shall have a right to put that citizen thus armed & equipped into an organization of its own regulation.”
Todd was a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of Missouri.
US Supreme Court, 10/1875
“The right there 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 on that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed [by Congress].”
State Rep. John C. Entrekin (OH), 1/26/1876
(paraphrased) “He deemed that the rights of men as defined in the Bill of Rights embodied in the Constitution were such as could not be forfeited by crime. He enumerated some of these…The right to keep and bear arms, the right to personal liberty [etc.]”
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Entrekin served as speaker of the house and senator in the Ohio legislature, and was appointed judge advocate general by then-governor and future president William McKinley.
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Brigham Young, 6/19/1877
“Our people are pioneers. They are all armed. I suppose there are 300,000 guns among our people; for every pioneer thinks he needs a gun as much as a woman needs a hoop skirt. Because we are Mormons we are none the less citizens of the United States…Does not the Constitution make it lawful for every citizen to bear arms?”
Young founded Salt Lake City and was the first governor of Utah Territory.
Rep. John T. Morgan (AL), 2/1/1879
“Is not the right to bear arms in this country a right that no State can violate? Can any State pass a law saying that ‘no citizen of this State shall hereafter have the right to bear arms?’ Certainly not; but a State can say you shall not carry them concealed beneath your clothing…The right, however, the State cannot deny except by imposing legal qualifications, by limitations upon the exercise of the right. This right Congress cannot abridge at all, because it was one of the original rights existing at the time of the adoption of the Constitution which rested upon the right of citizenship of the people of the different States, and had its origin long before the Constitution of the United States came into existence.” (p. 887, middle of 2nd col.)
Sen. Samuel B. Maxey, 4/21/1879
“The second amendment to the Constitution…is an absolute prohibition upon the Federal Government to interfere in any wise whatever with the inalienable, unparted-with right of the people to keep and bear arms in any way or manner whatever that they may see proper.” (p. 600, middle of 1st col.)
Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, 1880
“The Constitution secures the right of the people to keep and bear arms. No doubt, a citizen who keeps a gun or pistol under judicious precautions, practices in safe places the use of it, and in due time teaches his sons to do the same, exercises his individual right.” (p. 333)
Abbott served as secretary of the New York Code Commission and as a commissioner to amend the statutes of the United States, and was a member of the American Antiquarian Society.
Cook County, IL Circuit Court, 1880
“The great auxiliary right to bear arms, so eulogized by Blackstone and Story, was not referable or secondary to any measure of state policy, such as the creation of a well-regulated militia, but existed for the individual subject’s own and only sake…If, then, the arms-bearing right of the people is, as Blackstone says, an integral and inseparable part of their absolute rights as individuals, it follows that any and every constitution which assumes to protect life, liberty and property, necessarily insures the right of all the people to keep and bear arms…The right exists whether the constitution contains [the Second Amendment] or not.”
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Alexander E. Sweet, 12/25/1885
“Are we fit to enjoy a free government? It would certainly seem not, when we allow rights guaranteed to us in the Constitution of the United States to be boldly and quietly taken from us by State and civic authority. It is specially provided in the Constitution that the right of the citizen to bear arms shall in no way be interfered with.”
Sweet, a nationally renowned journalist and publisher, was elected as city attorney of San Antonio where his father had once served as mayor.
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John W. Johnston, 1886
“Congress…set to work to embody in [the Constitution] great principles of civil liberty and fundamental safeguards. The amendments, from one to ten inclusive…embrace declarations of human rights…In them are found asserted:…Right of the people to keep and carry arms.”
Johnston had served as US senator from Virginia.
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US Supreme Court, 1/4/1886
“The [laws] under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms...All citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the states, and, in view of this prerogative of the general government, as well as of its general powers, the states cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms.”
John YT Smith, 2/2/1887
(paraphrased) “Mr. Smith asserted that he had seen a great many years ago an old document which was called the Constitution of the United States wherein it granted the right to every citizen to bear arms, but he further added, I don’t suppose the present legislature will pay any attention to such an unimportant document as that.”
Smith served as Speaker of the Arizona Territorial Legislature and as treasurer for the territory.
Rep. James Blount (GA), 12/8/1890
“It is certainly an infringement of the right of any citizen to undertake by law to say to him that ‘if you carry these weapons secretly you are liable to indictment and if you carry them openly you are liable to indictment,’ because it amounts to saying that he shall not carry them at all…Are we prepared to curtail the individual citizen of his rights by such methods? If we have reached that point in our history where we are unwilling that the individual citizen shall be permitted to undertake the protection of himself, his property, or his family under any circumstance, when we are unwilling that he may anticipate reasonable danger to his person or prepare himself against reasonable apprehension of being assaulted with a deadly weapon, we have reached a condition of affairs not contemplated in the Constitution.” (p. 224, middle of 2nd col.)
Rep. Roger Mills (TX), 12/8/1890
“When the Constitution of the United States was made by our fathers it contained an interdiction, as far as the National Government is concerned, against infringing the rights of a freeman to bear arms in defense of his person…Our old fathers were wiser than we in this regard, permitting every man to take for himself whatever means he pleased to secure his person, and if he abused that right held him amenable to the law for its abuse.” (p. 225, bottom of 1st col.)
Rep. John Henry Rogers (AR), 12/8/1890
“Is it possible that a citizen under the Constitution can be prohibited from carrying that class of pistols which are used for purposes of warfare, offensive or defensive? If so, what is there to preclude Congress from prohibiting a citizen from carrying a shotgun, or a rifle, or any other weapon known at the time of the adoption of the Constitution or invented since that time? Yet I take it that no member of the House will for a moment contend that in view of the provision of the Constitution we can altogether prohibit the carrying of weapons of all kinds and descriptions.” (p. 226, middle of 1st col.)
Rep. Charles H. Grosvenor (OH), 12/8/1890
“It is proposed to make it a penitentiary offense and felony to carry a pistol, no matter for what purpose. I do not believe that such a statute can be enforced under the Constitution of the United States.” (p. 228, bottom of 2nd col.)
Alexander S. Williams, 5/22/1891
“If any man who should be punished for carrying a pistol should appeal and should carry his case to the supreme court of the United States, such a law would be declared in that court unconstitutional.”
Williams was an NYPD captain and inspector, “one of the best lawyers on the police force.”
Hon. Lorin C. Collins Jr., 6/27/1891
“I wish to suggest here that the second amendment to the constitution of the United States gives the people a right to bear arms. It must be presumed that the constitution, in affirming the right of the citizen to bear arms for the defense of his home, intended to give him the right to keep ammunition to make the arms effective.”
Collins, a judge of the Cook County circuit court, went on to serve as associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Panama Canal Zone on appointment by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. He was also speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and the law partner of Clarence Darrow.
Rep. Thomas E. Watson (GA), 7/7/1892
“The strongest objection to the Pinkerton Detective Agency is this, that it is the keeping and bearing of arms by an unauthorized body; not the keeping and bearing of arms by the citizen, but the keeping and bearing of arms by an unauthorized body, organized on a military plan, officered on a military plan, in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and put out for hire to private parties by private parties.” (p. 5862, top of 1st col.)
Maj. Gen. George R. Snowden, 1/1893
“Armed bodies of men owing no allegiance to the State or Federal government ought not to be allowed to meet and drill…It is not intended to deny the right of an individual to keep and bear arms, but to restrict the right of armed men to assemble."
Snowden was division commander of the Pennsylvania National Guard.
Henry Campbell Black, 1895
“This is a natural right, not created or granted by the constitutions. The second amendment means no more than that it shall not be denied or infringed by congress or the other departments of the national government…The citizen has at all times the right to keep arms of modern warfare, if without danger to others, and for purposes of training and efficiency in their use, but not such weapons as are only intended to be the instruments of private feuds or vengeance…A law which should prohibit the wearing of military weapons openly upon the person, would be unconstitutional.” (pp. 403-404)
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Black authored Black’s Law Dictionary, considered the world’s most cited legal reference book.
John S. Seymour, 7/22/1899
“The residents of Johannesburg may be regarded as having the qualifications and therefore the right to citizenship. It is a further injustice that they are deprived of the right to have or to bear arms in the defence of themselves and the State. It was not on special grounds, but because the principle has universal application, that the IId Amendment of the Constitution of the United States provides that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’”
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Seymour served as United States Commissioner of Patents and as the Legal Representative before the State Department of the Americans in the Transvaal (region now part of South Africa). (bottom half of page, 1st. col., 1st paragraph)
Charles W. Bardeen, 1901
“The right to carry weapons is affirmed by the national constitution.”
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“The security of the citizen permits a man to defend himself against attack. He may carry arms, though many states forbid him to carry them concealed; and when in danger of his life or of serious physical injury he may use all necessary means to protect himself, even to taking the life of his assailant.”
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Bardeen was director of the National Educational Association and president of the Educational Press Association of America.
William Macon Coleman, 10/13/1902
“The Constitution of the United States guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear arms, which, of course, carries the right to have ammunition.”
Coleman served as attorney general of North Carolina.
Supreme Court of Idaho, 11/15/1902
“The second amendment to the federal constitution is in the following language:…The language of Section 11, Article 1, Constitution of Idaho is as follows:..Under these constitutional provisions the legislature has no power to prohibit a citizen from bearing arms in any portion of the state of Idaho.”
Chief Justice Ralph P. Quarles was later appointed to the Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawaii by Pres. Woodrow Wilson and confirmed by the Senate. (4th col.)
Hon. John J. Freschi, City Magistrate’s Court of New York, 12/1911
“This provision of the law of the land, for such is the Constitution, is in effect a restriction on the powers of the national government…Congress may in no wise abridge or restrict the right to bear arms.”
Freschi was offered the position of US Attorney for New York by Pres. Woodrow Wilson.
Sen. John Williams (DE) 7/22/1913
“The Constitution of the United States gives to every citizen of the United States the right to bear arms.” (p. 2595, 1st col.)
Sen. Albert Fall (NM) 7/22/1913
“The Constitution of the United States gives to every citizen of the United States the right to bear arms.” (p. 2595, 1st col.)
Horace Jewell Fenton, 1914
“The purpose of [the Second Amendment] evidently is twofold: first, to check the government from arbitrarily disarming the people and reducing them to the condition of serfs; secondly, to allow men so to familiarize themselves with weapons as to keep the nation ever ready for emergencies. This amendment is not necessary to give the States the right to maintain militia, for that right is recognized elsewhere in the Constitution.”
Fenton taught at the US Naval Academy.
Rep. Louis Cramton (MI) 1/12/1915
“Those 10 amendments aim to protect and secure individual rights against any possible infringement on the part of the Federal Government. The right to bear arms; to security against unreasonable searches or seizures...they were placed in the Federal Constitution as amendments as a bulwark for the protection of individual right as against possible tyranny of State or Nation.” (p. 1460, bottom of 2nd col.)
Pres. Woodrow Wilson, 12/7/1915
“We do believe in a body of free citizens ready and sufficient to take care of themselves and of the governments which they have set up to serve them. In our constitutions themselves we have commanded that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,’ and our confidence has been that our safety in times of danger would lie in the rising of the nation to take care of itself, as the farmers rose at Lexington.”
Henry Litchfield West, 1918
“Immediately after the Constitution had been adopted it was felt that it lacked sufficient safeguards for the protection of the individual citizen. These safeguards were incorporated in the first ten amendments, which are popularly known as ‘the bill of rights’…The second declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
West was appointed Commissioner of the District of Columbia by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.
Henry A. Wise Wood, 1/5/1920
“It is time someone arose to assert again the rights of citizenship…[President Wilson, by joining the League of Nations]…has attempted to infringe [the people of the State of New York’s] right to keep and bear arms.”
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Wood, the son of New York City mayor and US congressman Fernando Wood, was an inventor and businessman who served on the United States Naval Consulting Board and as chairman of the Conference Committee on National Preparedness.
Hon. Robert Hardison, 3/5/1921
“In dealing with the subject of deadly weapons in the District of Columbia, it should be remembered that this is a federal jurisdiction, and that maybe Congress has not as free a hand in the matter as the legislatures of the various states. The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides: ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The Supreme Court has held that this is a limitation upon the powers of the federal government alone and does not apply to the states. Therefore it may be that even though it might be expedient to have a law here, such as the Sullivan law in New York, making it an offense to possess a deadly weapon without a permit from a government official, it would not be within the competency of Congress to enact such a statute.”
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Hardison was a judge of the Washington, DC Police Court.
Rep. R. Walton Moore (VA), 12/17/1924
“I suggest to the gentleman that [the Second Amendment] is restrictive of congressional action [such as prohibiting the mailing of firearms].” (p. 733, top of 2nd col.)
Superintendent Michael H. Crowley/The Boston Herald, 5/10/1925
“‘Of course, conditions and circumstances are so different in various cases that a police officer would hesitate at giving anything more than a general opinion, but if a man finds a thief in his house at night the law gives him the right to go to any extreme to protect himself—even to killing the intruder.’ The superintendent cited the United States constitution as his authority, as set forth in the paragraph of the second amendment, which says that ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’”
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Crowley was superintendent of the Boston Police for 18 years.
Hon. William H. Sargeant, 9/19/1925
“Our Constitution guarantees to us freedom of religious beliefs, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to petition, the right to keep and bear arms and the right to vote. Briefly, the Constitution guarantees to every citizen the rights which subserve his happiness, provided he does not unduly interfere with the happiness of others.”
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Sargeant was unanimously elected judge of the corporation court of Norfolk, VA by the state, and he served as president of the League of Virginia Municipalities and of the Virginia Chapter of Sons of the American Revolution.
Sen. James W. Wadsworth, Jr. (NY), 8/4/1926
“The Constitution…contains many provisions which, directly or by implication, confine the Government within certain limits and, indeed, deny to it the doing of certain things to the citizen. Freedom of religion of speech, of the press and the right to petition for the redress of grievances; the right to keep and bear arms, [etc.]”
Charles A. Boston, 9/3/1926
“I wonder if our ancestors could have contemplated with equanimity the concept of [New York’s 1911 pistol permit law] when they put into their bill of rights that the right of the people to bear arms should never be infringed. The right to bear arms was formerly exercised against prowlers and marauders, as well as against the public enemy. In my own community at least the people can no longer bear arms, though the constitutional safeguard remains in their bill of rights to be construed as some sort of organized privilege denied to the individual.”
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Boston served as president of the American Bar Association and was nominated by Pres. William H. Taft to be a federal judge. “He had an almost photographic memory, and his impromptu opinions…were usually backed up with precedents which he could cite volume and page.”
Montana State Fish and Game Commission, 5/1929
“That provision of the United States Constitution which guarantees American citizens the right to keep and bear arms is frequently being infringed by state laws. The object of most of such laws or proposed acts is meritorious in that the purpose generally is the curbing of crime. There doesn’t seem to be difficulty, however, in states that have enacted such legislation for criminals to obtain firearms.”
Army and Navy Journal (Washington, DC), 3/15/1930
“There is soundness in the position taken by Secretary of War Hurley in opposition to the Twohig bill prohibiting the sale, manufacture and delivery of pistols. His letter to the Smith and Wesson Company is in direct accord with the wise principle of the Constitution that the right of the people to have and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
The Army and Navy Journal at this time was owned and published by John Callan O’Laughlin, an Army colonel who was a close associate of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.
Rep. Hamilton Fish (NY), 4/11/1930
“The possession of pistols would involve the right of private American citizens to arm themselves in self-defense...I do not want to deprive American citizens of any of their rights of self-defense.”
Rep. Melvin Maas (MN), 2/12/1931
(paraphrased) “Congressman Maas decries the attempts to legislate against firearms, pointing to the constitutional provision granting the right to keep and bear arms.”
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Rep. Maas was previously a major general in the Marine Corps, and in 1955 he was elected national commander of the Disabled American Veterans. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him chairman of the Committee on Employment of the Handicapped and issued a citation recognizing that he “has served the people of the United States in peace and war with vigor, ability and devotion.”
Asst. Secretary of War Frederick H. Payne, 3/4/1931
“For years, accumulative and persistent efforts have been made to completely disarm the United States and its citizens. The fight was first aimed at the elimination of the pistol and revolver…Then efforts were begun to take the rifle and shotgun out of the hands of American sportsmen…[Only such organizations as the National Rifle Association], unremitting in vigilant scrutiny of all attempted legislation, efficiently organized for counter efforts, can preserve for us and our sons the weapon which has done so much for us.” (9th paragraph)
Charles V. Imlay, 3/1932
“The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws began its work in 1923…It was found that all State constitutions as well as the Federal Constitution guarantee the right to have and bear arms. It was found that practically without exception all jurisdictions interdict the carrying of concealed weapons. Thus it might be said that all jurisdictions recognize a legitimate and illegitimate use of arms. This is a proposition that firearms reformers sometimes lose sight of.”
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Imlay was vice president of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.
Rep. LJ Dickinson (IA), 4/18/1934
“I will ask you whether or not this bill interferes in any way with the right of a person to keep and bear arms or his right to be secure in his person against unreasonable search; in other words, do you believe this bill is unconstitutional or that it violates any constitutional provision?”
The Associated Press, 2/9/1935
“‘The constitutional right[s] of the American citizen’…are safeguarded in the first ten amendments to the Constitution…These individual rights include:…The right to keep and bear arms [etc.]”
Frank W. Ballou, 12/14/1935
(quoting from a report of the Washington, D.C. schools history department) “[Our students] understand their rights…their protection against unusual search and seizure, their right to keep and bear arms, their privilege of trial by jury [etc.]”
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Ballou was Washington, DC superintendent of schools for 23 years and president of the American Education Research Association.
Raymond Clapper, 3/29/1938
“The constitution says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and here is the federal government proposing to fingerprint citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights. And how have the dictators maintained themselves in power? By keeping such strict control of their people that no group can get arms together to overthrow tyrannical regimes.”
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Clapper was “one of the preeminent and esteemed reporters and commentators of his day,” with The White House Correspondents Association naming its highest award in his honor.
William HD Murray, 8/12/1938
(paraphrased) “Murray criticized a new Federal law which he said prohibited any person from dealing with arms or transporting them across state lines without Government permission. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, he said, provides the Government shall never interfere with the right of the people to own and bear arms.
Murray served as governor of Oklahoma.
The Civilian Conservation Corps, 2/25/1939
“[We award the prize] for presenting what was judged the best argument in favor of military training. His answer to the question, ‘Do You Favor Military Training in the CCC?’ follows…‘Whereas the Bill of Rights in our Constitution guarantees to all citizens the right to bear arms, [etc]…’”
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The Civilian Conservation Corps was a government program.
Sen. Warren Austin (VT), 10/8/1940
“I concur [that the Second Amendment ‘reserves the right of individual citizens to bear arms, rather than the right of the State to organize the individual citizens, with their arms, into any form of militia or guard organization’], believing that when it comes to organization we are governed by the other provision of the Constitution relating to organization; namely, to provide for organizing the militia.” (p. 13376, 1st col.)
Rep. Andrew May (KY), 8/13/1941
“The right to keep means that a man can keep a gun in his house and can carry it with him if he wants to; he can take it where he wants to, where he pleases, and the right to bear arms means…that nobody has any right, so long as he bears the arms openly and unconcealed, to interfere with him.” (p. 7098, top of 3rd col.)
Rep. Richard Kleberg (TX), 12/3/1941
“If within the Constitution, that immortal instrument, there is a certain and specific statement with reference to certain rights guaranteed to all persons, the right to keep and bear arms, without infringement, surely before our common God all Americans have the right to work without that right being abridged.” (p. 9383, top of 3rd col.)
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Kleberg sponsored the bill to establish the Farm Credit Administration and the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, and generally supported the New Deal at first but later opposed new legislation.
Albert A. Woldman, 12/16/1941
“[The Second Amendment] enables the people to defend themselves against organized attempts to deprive them of their liberties by force. It is a protection of the individual against abuses by the executive or military authorities…The militia is composed of citizens rather than professional soldiers. They insure the people’s security against violence. The right to keep and bear arms does not deprive a state of the right to regulate the bearing of firearms by individuals.”
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Woldman was a judge of the juvenile court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, chairman of the state’s Bureau of Unemployment Compensation Board of Review and its Dept. of Industrial Relations, and president of B’nai B’rith of Cleveland.
US Supreme Court, 6/23/1947
“[The premise is unquestioned] that the Bill of Rights, when adopted, was for the protection of the individual against the federal government.”
State Rep. Richard H. Woods (OH), 9/14/1947
“The second amendment to the United States Constitution states that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. This is a provision of the American Bill of Rights which was second only in enactment and importance to the four essential rights of freedom of religion speech, press and assembly…Who will say that the right of a citizen to own and keep arms for the protection of his home and family against intruders and his community against an enemy should be carelessly abrogated?”
Voice of America/Erie Sunday Times (Erie, PA), 11/1949
“‘The American citizen’s right to have and bear arms is as much a part of his way of life as that of free press and free assemblage…A right so instinctively a part of him that it has been guaranteed in his Constitution.’In this dramatic, 15-minute broadcast The Voice of America made two points both indicating a way of life and effectively countering a major Soviet propaganda theme…Every American has the right to keep and bear arms—a fact we accept without question here in the U.S.A.”
Voice of America is the official external broadcasting institution of the United States.
Rep. Edwin A. Hall (NY), 3/1/1951
“It is time for the Congress to take some action to prevent the recurrence of the attempts of the Nazi-minded individuals during World War II to deprive the private citizen of firearms and to take away the constitutional privilege which we all should be able to enjoy. Our founding fathers wrote that Constitution for the protection of individual private rights.” (p. 1745, bottom of 1st col.)
State Assemblyman William M. Stuart (NY), 2/24/1951
“Unfavorable reaction to the Civil Defense bill sponsored by Assemblyman Becker is growing. Especially is this true in regard to the section relating to licensing of firearms. This appears to be in direct opposition to the United States Constitution…New York is a great state, the greatest in the Union, but it should not be permitted to violate the supreme law of the land.”
Rep. Thomas H. Werdel (CA), 2/29/1952
“The proposed legislation now before us will give our President the power of military justice over all men past the age of 18 years and 6 months. Where can 150,000,000 people look for relief when they are deprived of…trial by jury and their right to bear arms as guaranteed to them in the second amendment?” (p. 1682, top of 3rd col.)
State Sen. John D. Long (SC), 2/16/1955
(paraphrased) “Sen. Long of Union expressed opposition to the bill [to ban fireworks] ‘in principle’…Long also asserted that the use of firecrackers was connected with one of the first rights of American citizens, the right to bear arms.’”
Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert B. Anderson, 3/1955
“The right to keep and bear arms…is a right exclusive among free peoples. Nowhere except in a free country, where the people share a common love of liberty, could the political authoritytolerate the possession and use of firearms by the citizenry. Of its very nature, totalitarianism requires a state monopoly of all instruments of force.” (p. 3965, bottom of 2nd col.)
Anderson was Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s choice for both running mate and successor, but he declined. He instead served as Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Treasury, and performed diplomatic tasks for Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson.
Commissioner Edward S. Piggins, 3/25/1956
“This suggestion [to license possession of ‘dangerous weapons’] is not made to criticize the present law or the present registration regulations; neither is it intended to contravene the constitutional provisions giving every citizen the right to bear arms.”
Piggins was police commissioner of Detroit.
Rep. William Dorn (SC), 7/20/1956
“There are Federal statutes against selling arms to the Indians notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution of the United States says that the citizens shall have the right to bear arms.” (p. 13751, bottom of 1st col.)
National Congress of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 6/1957
“Whereas; the Constitution of the United States of America states, ‘a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’ and whereas, many state legislatures have a number of proposals for the registration of firearms, and the registration lists of firearms in invaded countries during the recent wars enabled the invading forces to quickly locate and seize the privately owned weapons of inhabitants, thus leaving them helpless; Resolved, that the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution opposes legislation which requires all American citizens to register their privately owned firearms.”
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www.dar.org/national-society/about-dar/dar-history​
The American Bar Association, 2/1958
“In 1791 the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, were added to the Constitution. They are designed to make wholly secure, as far as adverse action by the federal government is concerned, such basic rights of individual liberty as:…the right to bear arms; [etc.]”
Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, editorial in The National Guardsman, the official publication of the National Guard Association, 7/1958
“It has been demonstrated repeatedly that the largest professional forces that any nation has been able to possess did not alone insure the survival of that nation. It is less than frank to permit the citizens of a nation to believe that in an all-out struggle for survival they can escape defending themselves because it will be done for them by others. It is far worse to deny them training which will better their individual chances of survival and make them better able to contribute to the successful common defense…The citizens of this nation enjoy bodily comforts to a degree heretofore unknown in the history of the world. They have more rights and enjoy more privileges than the citizens of any other nation. Are we to believe that those same citizens have degenerated to the point where they are willing to abandon their individual right to bear arms to insure their survival?” p. 13779, bottom of 2nd col.)
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Hershey was director of the Selective Service System for three decades.​
The World Book Encyclopedia, 1959
“The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, of speech, [etc]…The right of citizens to bear arms also is asserted.”
Municipal Court of the City of New York, 9/26/1960
“Passing for the moment that the law, as a matter of broad policy, frowns on forfeiture, there is the constitutional guarantee of the right of the individual to bear arms.”
State Rep. Blair Lee III (MD), 3/9/1961
“To the people who have written in about the ‘pistol bills’—These bills probably will not be enacted, but I still think they have some merit. Please be assured that we do not wish to violate the Second Amendment (the right of a citizen to bear arms).”
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Lee also served as secretary of state, lieutenant governor, and governor of Maryland.
Norman G. Wilder, 1/4/1962
“The ‘Right to Bear Arms’ has been a basic right of the American people. Along with the privilege granted us in the Second Amendment goes a serious responsibility to vigorously practice and preach all the rules of hunting safely.”
Wilder was Director of the Delaware Fish and Game Commission.
Harold L. Nieburg, 12/1962
“An effort by the state to obtain an absolute monopoly over violence, threatened or used in behalf of private interests, leads inexorably—as in a prison—to complete totalitarian repression…A democratic system has greater viability and stability; it is not forced, like the totalitarian, to create an infinite deterrent to all non-state (and thus potentially anti-state) activities. The early Jeffersonians recognized this essential element of social change when they guaranteed the private right to keep and bear arms, in the Second Amendment.”
Nieburg was a political science expert and advisor to John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.
US Department of Defense, 1964
“The right of citizens to be secure in their homes and persons from unreasonable searches and seizures and their right to keep and bear arms are both guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. These constitutional rights always have been and always will be jealously guarded by the U.S. Government and are among the blessings which our Armed Forces have fought and died to protect in three wars in the last 50 years.” (p. 23517, top of 2nd col.)
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The Secretary of Defense at this time was Robert S. McNamara, who served under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Rep. John Flynt (GA), 2/8/1964
“One of the prized possessions throughout our history always has been to bear and own arms. This attitude toward firearms has become a historical tradition in the United States. Convictions on the right of reputable citizens to own and use firearms for lawful purposes were so strong that the Bill of Rights contains an amendment to the Constitution providing that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’” (p. 2641, top of 3rd col.)
