Quotes from Stephen P. Halbrook

the Nazis confiscated firearms to prevent armed resistance, whether individual or collective, to their own criminality.

A vegetarian, the führer was sensitive to the feelings of animals and remarked: "The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would do well to turn its attention to the sportsmen themselves."6 As the war and the Holocaust would prove, he had no such sensitivity to humans.

the killing of dangerous Rioters, by any private Persons, who cannot otherwise suppress them, or defend themselves from Them, inasmuch as every private Person seems to be authorised by the Law to arm himself for the Purposes aforesaid.

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 a prey to the strong.

This argument—"We are all of us carried along by a fiery zeal to recover our liberty; our arms cannot be wrested from our hands,"97—was a politico-military ideal but an inaccurate prediction, for both Cicero and the Roman republic, in part due to the inferiority of their arms, were killed within the year by Caesar's standing army.

One of the signal virtues of Halbrook's scholarship is his willingness to let historical sources speak for themselves. Many professional historians who write about the Second Amendment expect the reader to take on trust that the author knows what people were thinking when the Bill of Rights was adopted.

In a 1774 court case, Adams wrote that "an Englishman's dwelling House is his Castle," and that every person "shall enjoy in his own dwelling House as compleat a security, safety and Peace and Tranquility as if it was . . . defended with a Garrison and Artillery."67 Adams exercised the right personally—when he sailed to France in 1778, he took along a pocket pistol.68

The Supreme Court has ruled that government may not forbid law-abiding citizens to keep a handgun in their home for self-protection. But as this is written, most lower courts have found a way to uphold almost every other form of gun control, including laws that strip you of your constitutional right the moment you set foot off your private property.

Joseph Spencer sent Madison a copy of John Leland's "Objections to the Constitution," which began: "There is no Bill Rights, whenever a Number of men enter into a State of Society, a Number of individual Rights must be given up to Society, but there should always be a memorial of those not surrendered . . . . "6 Madison would meet with Leland and win him over to the federalist cause.

the Tenth Amendment clarifies that governmental powers are either "delegated" or "reserved," in contrast with rights of the people, which may not be "infringed" or "violated." The people also have powers that are "reserved.

Patrick Henry shot back that the power to resist oppression rests upon the right to possess arms: Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

The establishment of a militia, which is putting arms in the hands of the people, for their defence, was a point which the patriots lately carried in the mother country, and contended for, as essential to the preservation of their liberties.

Patrick Henry retorted in a single argument asserting both the individual right to have arms and the state power to encourage a militia consisting of the armed populace: May we not discipline and arm them, as well as Congress, if the power be concurrent? So that our militia shall have two sets of arms, double sets of regimentals, & c.; and thus, at a very great cost, we shall be doubly armed. The great object is, that every man be armed.

Even so, the right of a pacifist not to bear arms was recognized too: "No person who is conscientiously scrupulous about the lawfulness of bearing arms, shall be compelled thereto, provided he will pay an equivalent."98 To be sure, the Bill of Rights had limits. The Protestant religion was state supported, and only Christians "shall be equally under the protection of the law."99 Freedom of speech was recognized only in the legislature.

One of the final speeches, and the final word on the right to have arms, was by Zachariah Johnson, who observed that the new Constitution could never result in religious persecution or other oppression. He added: "The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons.

The Virginia Declaration did not mention the right to assemble and to petition at all; it protected a free press but neglected free speech; and it included the above militia language but not the right to keep and bear arms. Also new was the allowance that standing armies should be avoided only "as far as" possible. The author apparent was George Mason, who simply added these new clauses to the Declaration's language he had drafted in 1776.

Boys on horseback resupplied the militia.31 Militiamen on the way to Lexington and Concord stopped at a farm in Braintree, Massachusetts. To their amusement, 8-year-old John Quincy Adams, son of Abigail and John Adams, was executing the manual of arms with a musket taller than he was.

By contrast, freedom of religion sparked controversy. When Benjamin Franklin revised the Declaration of Rights, he suggested no change in the right to bear arms clause yet unsuccessfully opposed the profession of faith required for assemblymen.94 Newspaper attacks on the religious guarantees and certain other matters were extreme and persistent, but bearing arms was not questioned.

Some 50 Americans were killed, 39 wounded, and 5 missing, for a total of 94 casualties. According to Gage, the Redcoats suffered 65 killed, 157 wounded, and 27 missing, for a total of 272 casualties.41 The patriots exhibited excellent marksmanship for shooting flintlocks in anger, many for the first time in their lives. By comparison, U.S. forces in Vietnam expended 50,000 rounds to cause a single enemy casualty.

Timothy Dwight, a chaplain in the Connecticut Continental Brigade during the Revolution and later president of Yale College, would write: "The people of New-England have always had, and have by law always been required to have, arms in their hands. Every man is, or ought to be, in the possession of a musket." Yet he did not know of "a single instance, in which arms have been the instruments of carrying on a private quarrel."121

Virginia had taken the decisive step—this large and influential state ratified the Constitution but was committed to use her great influence to demand a bill of rights. The remaining states, both large (New York and North Carolina) and small (Rhode Island and the future state of Vermont), would ratify the Constitution and follow Virginia in insisting that individual rights be declared.

The British attempt to disarm the militiamen and other inhabitants at Lexington and Concord could be regarded as a milestone in Second Amendment historiography. It undoubtedly helped inspire recognition of the right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, virtually every citizen was a militiaman who owned and kept his firearms at home, and the British sought to seize these private arms, as well as the stores of gunpowder and cannon held by the towns or controlled by committees of safety.

While assuring the authorities of their loyalty, the patriots made thinly veiled threats concerning their prowess with firearms. The Boston Gazette declared: "Besides the regular trained militia in New-England, all the planters sons and servants are taught to use the fowling piece from their youth, and generally fire balls with great exactness at fowl or beast.

Only "Persons professing the Christian Religion ought forever to enjoy equal Rights and Privileges in this State."142 A critic commented that "there are some good things in the Delaware constitution, which are evidently borrowed from the Pennsylvanian, but mangled like a school-boy's abridgement of a Spectator's paper. Some of their bill of rights, explained by tories, might prevent all American defence.