"...the age-old struggle for freedom and for civilization... is one that always must be fought for.  The weak, and those unwilling to make the struggle, soon resign their liberties for the protection of powerful men or paid armies; they begin by being protected, they end by being subjected"    -Louis L'Amour 

"I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him."    -Booker T. Washington. 

"One of the penalties for those who refuse to participate in politics is that they end up being governed by their inferiors."    -Plato

"History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration to ultimate national disaster"    -General Douglas MacArthur 

"Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest."    -Calvin Coolidge 

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."    -Thomas Jefferson 

The happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality.    -United States Supreme Court, 1892 

"We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic."    -James Madison, Federalist No. 10, (1787) 

"For the first time in history a civilized nation will have full gun control, our police will be more efficient, our streets will be safer, and the world will follow our lead into the future."    -Adolph Hitler (1935) 

"The fundamental basis of this nation's law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teaching we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in the right for anybody except the state."    -President Harry S. Truman. 

"Our Bill of Rights curbs all three branches of government. It subjects all departments of government to a rule of law and sets boundaries beyond which no official may go. It emphasizes that in this country man walks with dignity and without fear, that he need not grovel before an all powerful government."    -Justice William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court. 

"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable...The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."    -George Washington. 

Religion, morality, and knowledge are necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind.    -United States Supreme Court, 1892. 

"The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly, who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who, at the best, know the triumph of high achievement and who, at the worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."    -Theodore Roosevelt 

"The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next."    -Abraham Lincoln. 

"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, and the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."    -Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) 

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."    -James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and an original Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court 

"We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions ubridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."    -John Adams, address to the militia of Massachusetts, 1798. 

In 1982, Kennesaw, Georgia passed a city gun ordinance that required heads of households to keep at least one firearm in their homes. Crimes against persons which include homicide, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and burglary, plummeted 74 percent the first year, dropped another 45 percent the next year, and has remained notably low ever since, despite a doubling of the population. From 1983 to 1993, armed robberies averaged a mere 1.6 annually, rapes 1.5, and murders (none with firearms) 0.2. 

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."    -Samual Adams