Together We Stand - Divided We Fall

Are you a subservient, kept beggar… or a proud American?

While running for the U.S. Congress in 2004 I learned some things.

Baby-boomers are regularly being demoted and “re-classified” into lower pay scales. Seniority and job performance are being cast aside with preference of better jobs going to younger and cheaper employees. American citizens are not being hired… because they can only speak ENGLISH! Some employees are being forced to travel to foreign countries, training the foreign workers who will soon have their jobs! Employees are being forced into humiliating and degrading situations and have no protections. If they do not submit to the will of their employers, they are fired.

Business’s response to employee concerns? Increasingly employees are reminded, “Your employment is AT WILL. You, or we, can terminate your employment at any time for any or no reason.” In other words, “If you don’t like it, there’s the door.”

Who has orchestrated this callous abandonment of principle and loyalty to American employees? Was it deliberate? You bet it was!

Businessmen are smart - and organized. They have their “unions”; they just call them “associations” or “country clubs”. They eat together, drink together and socialize together. For their mutual benefit they discuss controlling business expenses (the largest being employee salaries and benefits), formulate plans and then work together to accomplish them. Just who do you think got the Arkansas Legislature to make Arkansas a “Right To Work – At Will Employment” state? Hint: They hire and fire you and reap the financial benefits of being able to coerce and dictate all terms of employment.

Unless Arkansas workers get smart and organized (unionized), standing together like their bosses do, they will remain on the bottom of the corporate food chain never being paid what they are worth, never having the legal protections they deserve; just stabled, slavish and servile income beggars, with outstretched hands.

Brummett's Bigotry

John Brummett’s Time Record column of Sunday, August 19th entitled “Religious Kooks Not True Christians” is a perfect example of a growing institutionalized anti-Christian bigotry. From his purely secular perspective, Brummett regularly castigates that of which he has no knowledge (real Christianity) and conjures from his humanistic crystal scepter what all “true Christians” can, according to The Book of Brummett 1:1, properly say or do.

Where is the outrage?

Come, let us reason together: The First Amendment guarantees a free press… imagine if the press were told that they could no longer cover or comment on certain legitimate stories…?

The primary reason columnists like Brummett and their employers can get away with publishing attacks on Christianity is the increasing cowardice of most American pastors. They have long ago put aside the Shepard’s staff, surrendering to the fear of man, and are allowing their flocks to become the disunited and wounded crippled prey of the enemy.

Despite America’s highest law of the land specifically guaranteeing the FREE EXERCISE of their faith, which definitely includes the Biblical calling to shepard, stand and preach against specific sin and evil. Pastors cower, retreat and surrender to the intimidations of the IRS, organizations like “Americans United for Separation of Church and State”, and columnists like John Brummett.

Pastors – Who are you that you fear mortal man? Why have you forgotten the Lord your maker? Why have you compromised your calling? Fear God… and nothing or no one else! While that should be enough, you also have the protection of the Constitution! Stop cowering!

You want America to again be a God-ly nation? Stand – proclaim the whole truth or resign… and get a job where your hypocrisy and dereliction will not be such an affront and offense to Almighty God.

Labor Unions - A Necessity

My grandpa was a Republican his entire adult life. He also was a small business owner… and an outspoken advocate of unions and union membership.

He saw unions as necessary to grow a good future for the “regular guy” and to provide vocational choice protections. He was right. Businessmen look out for one another through various organizations, associations, political contacts and the prudent use of contracts. Unions, if done right, provide for the employees the same good business practices long recognized by business owners and managers as essential for business success.

Many have forgotten that the American middle class owes its very existence to unions. Who brought the employers to the bargaining table? The unions did.

FACT: Under Arkansas law, what employers give, they can take away… arbitrarily and with impunity – unless there is a contract. Individual employees have minimal rights at best and can lose all, much or most, at the whim of the employer. Employers are quick to say “Trust me”, but why then won’t they put it in a contract? Our bosses realize the business benefits of contracts… why do some employees not?

With active local control and local people in charge, unions will reflect the character and concerns of the employees represented, including the continued well-being of the business they are in. Union jobs historically have and will pay more, have better benefits and working conditions, and will be more secure.

Being nearly 3 years into a legal battle to regain my job and life investment of 28 years, lost for just contacting a union to protect myself and my fellow employees, I believe it crucial that all employees, especially middle-aged and older employees, become educated about their rights under the law and the potential real benefits and safeguards available to them through union membership.

False Patriots

Christendom is warned about false preachers, teachers, apostles, prophets and brethren. Throughout the years watchmen within the Church have sounded a clarion warning while most in the Church chose to turn a deaf ear. That shameful disregard has had tremendous consequence.

The writings of the Founders of our Country warn Americans of false patriots - those that will claim great patriotism, wrap themselves in the Flag, yet are dedicated to serving themselves, their ideologies and interests - and not the Country. Most Americans have turned a deaf ear to those warnings (or are completely oblivious to them) and our Country is suffering the consequences. The damage already done… is rapidly approaching the irreparable.

The one single standard given to identify a false patriot is remarkably simple… and greatly alarming. You are a false patriot if you do not sincerely support and defend the Constitution. And mere lip service disqualifies. By definition: You cannot be an American patriot if you are constitutionally illiterate.

The whole identity, and uniqueness of America lies within the Constitution and its framework and philosophy of and for government. Those that bend, twist and contort the Constitution, claiming it to be a “living document” are false patriots. "On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." - Thomas Jefferson

Using the Constitution as the sole standard, you can easily recognize false patriots by their words, resolutions, acts, and votes… and for whom they vote. If a legislator or citizen cannot give a clear constitutional basis for what they support and why – they are false patriots.

Arrested for having UNREGISTERED BIBLES...

Fayetteville, AR:

Eight law enforcement agencies headed by Federal BATF Agents descended on the home of a friend of mine and placed him under arrest for having in his possession three handwritten, unregistered and untaxed Bibles and an unregistered copy of John MacArthur’s book “Reckless Faith – When the Church Loses Its Will To Discern”. It is rumored that my friend also had in his possession unregistered copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Ass. U.S. Attorney Wendy Johnson filed motions asking U.S. District judge Jimm L. Hendren to prevent my friend and his attorney from arguing that his arrest was a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Hendren granted the motion.

Hendren cited a 1984 federal law that made it illegal for U.S. citizens to have in their possession unregistered and untaxed Bibles, religious writings and copies of any documents that include or support the philosophies contained in the Declaration and Constitution.

Recent judicial rulings have determined that the 1984 federal law used by Ass. U.S. Attorney Wendy Johnson and U.S. District judge Jimm L. Hendren, despite actually saying so, prohibits the public from having most “religious” and/or “patriotic” books and documents in their possession unless they first purchase a license and pay the prescribed tax for that privilege.

Local religious and political leaders were contacted for comment. Most did not know of the case, and didn’t care. Those that were aware of the case refused comment, using Constitutional illiteracy as their affirmative defense.

My friend has subsequently been “tried”, in the kangaroo sense of the term, and is now serving six years in prison.

OK, OK… I substituted Bibles for guns and used the First Amendment instead of the Second Amendment for this parody. So… what’s the Constitutional difference?

Free Wayne Fincher!!!

Can you morally disqualify yourself from elective and/or appointed office?

Can you morally disqualify yourself from elective and/or appointed office? Yes. Will that moral disqualification prevent you from getting that office? In America today… probably not.

The character of John Adams in the musical “1776” eloquently asks, “Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see, what I see?”

Open hostility to Almighty God and the Lord Jesus Christ, practicing, supporting, enabling and defending sexual promiscuity, adultery, homosexuality, lesbianism and the murder of unborn children; lying, violating solemn oaths of office, ignoring the Constitution and other established laws (lawlessness), the inability to judge right from wrong or good from evil are now all pretty much tolerated and accepted by the majority in America today.

What happened? What happened to the moral compass of the greatest country the world has ever known?

I talk all the time to professing fundamentalist Christians who, come Election Day, set aside Biblical truth and blindly vote for their political party, both Democrats and Republicans. Principle… that standard which made BOTH parties great, is compromised for pragmatism and a corrupting, deceiving party spirit.

Nineteenth Century revivalist Charles G. Finney correctly observed, "If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it."

Fear of man, fear of conflict and especially fear of the government (IRS) has caused a winnowing of the American pulpits… finding most empty.

A DISHONEST MAN by Don Bright

U.S. District Judge Jimm Larry Hendren is a dishonest man. Hendren practices dishonesty in the most devious and destructive form there is. Hendren lies for the State. Hendren lies in order to keep the benefits of power: Power for himself and power for others of his ilk who use their power to strip others of their freedom. It takes a powerfully warped ego to make a person so arrogant as to lead that person into the corruptness that is manifested in Hendren’s judicial vacuousness.

Jimm Hendren is the antithesis of “honorable”, a term that is attached to his black robe and, in this case, not the man. I have been in many courtrooms in my life and have always performed as instructed by the phrase “all rise!” On January 12, 2007 I stayed in my seat when that call came to announce the judge’s leaving the courtroom. I did that because after being exposed to the gangrenous demagoguery and arrogance that flowed so eloquently from the lips of this man I felt no need to “rise!”. It felt good.

What I had just witnessed was the behavior of the generic target of our forefathers when they defined the danger of the state without boundaries. Our Constitution was written for the sole purpose of stopping men like Hendren. Most troubling is the fact that Hendren is well aware of that. His fear of being exposed as the power groping statist he is was, I am sure, the very reason he took the actions and made the declarations he did during the trial I witnessed.

The trial I am writing of was The United States vs. Hollis Wayne Fincher. Mr. Fincher was subjected to a “no knock” assault from the minions of the federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies and arrested for having “illegal” guns in his possession. The raids (there were warrants for 13 other friends of Wayne) themselves were of little note here. Although more “illegal” guns were confiscated from others who were raided, only Wayne was arrested. Why? I’ll let the officer that was part of one of the raids where the person involved was not placed under arrest speak on that. That officer, when asked by the victim of the raid why he (the victim) was not being arrested, made the following statement, “we’re after Wayne Fincher”.

This startling revelation made the reasons behind the “get Wayne Fincher” raids very clear to all of us who follow local politics in the Washington County area. Wayne was a very brilliant and formidable opponent of those in power in the area. His imposition of constitutional guidelines and laws into the give and take of Washington County politics frightened his opponents. It made sense that they would stop at nothing to get rid of this man. They did. I’ll let the reader fill in the blanks here… I want to get back to that Hendren fellow.

It is no secret that our federal government is exercising more and more power over the individual is the last half of this century, give or take. And one does not need to have an IQ in 3 digits to know that the Constitution is an offense to those whose thinking is statist.

They hate it. Thus it has become necessary for these elitists to make the Constitution irrelevant. How best to do that? Simple. Instruct the judiciary to exercise control of it.

This they have done. The simple exerting of two fictions is all that is necessary for this task. (1.) Instruct the populace that only they (the judiciary) can interpret the meaning of the Constitution, and (2.) buttress that fiction by excising the Constitution from the courtroom.

That is how we end up with lapdogs the likes of Hendren. He will resort to any kind frightening rhetoric and gavel thumping arrogation to protect his naked regalia and that of his fellow travelers. To exercise control over the commons is commonplace in these exalted waters.

Let’s take a look at how Hendren did just that in ruling over the Fincher trial. With inordinate comfort and a hubristic smile “judge” Hendren did the following:

* Refused to “allow” the use of Fincher’s ultimate and necessary defense, i.e. the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas.

* Refused to “allow” Fincher his inalienable and constitutional right (6th Amendment) to be tried by a jury. Hendren would only “allow” Fincher to give testimony in front of Hendren, himself, and then denied Fincher the right to be heard by a jury of his peers.

* Intimidated the jury by telling the jury it could not think outside the box the judge defined.

To back up these charges, I offer the following quotes from Hendren’s instructions to the jury:

“You are the sole judges of the facts: but you must follow the law as stated in my instructions, whether you agree with it or not.” (Editor’s note: Simply a lie. All jurors in the United States have the right to acquit if they think the judge is incorrect in his definition of the law, if they think the law is a bad law, or if their conscience tells them the defendant is being abused by the prosecution or judge. http://www.fija.org/)

“It is your duty to find from the evidence what the facts are. You will then apply the law, as I give it to you, to those facts. You must follow my instructions on the law, even if you thought the law was different or should be different.” (Editor’s note: See above notation.)

Compare the above quote from earlier ones in his instructions to the jury:

"Each of you must make your own conscientious decision, but only after you have considered all the evidence, discussed it fully with your fellow jurors, and listened to the views of your fellow jurors.”

“You are entitled to consider that evidence in the light of your own observations and experiences in the affairs of life”). Emphasis is mine.

About the defense introducing and interpreting the Second Amendment as evidence Hendren had this to say: “…and I don’t know that I’ve got a problem with that, but I think that there would be a problem if the matter were going to be submitted to the jury about whether they think that is what the First Amendment – the Second Amendment – says or not, because that’s not a matter for the jury to decide. The Court will tell it what the law is, the applicable law.”

On the role of the judge and that of the jury Hendren makes this arrogant and errant barrage of affluent:

“The judge, being myself in this case, is tasked with determining issues of law, evidence, (sic) and procedure. Those matters are not for the consideration of the jury. It would be unfair to put it to them. They are not legally trained. They’re not judges. They’re not trained and hopefully experienced (sic). They’re not experienced in such things.”

In other words, according to Hendren, American citizens who sit on a jury are too stupid to be there. Why, then, I ask, do we even have juries? Hendren, obviously, considers juries one of life’s burdens put upon judges.

So what to think?

I think that Hendren’s chicanery, evasion and ambivalent stratagem points to the existence today of the very thing that our forefathers sought to avoid through the Constitution – a dictatorial judiciary that sets the rules for the other two “co-equal” branches of government and the citizenry a large.

I think that there are men who are so unlimited in ego and self delusion that they not only break the rules and laws of society…they indeed break the bonds of humility that must govern civilized society.

Jimm Hendren does not judge…he cheats.

Rebirth of Congressman John Boozman...?

The apparent ineptness of Arkansas 3rd Congressional District voters to be able to rightly discern fact from fiction, and truth from lies in politics, is bordering on the cataclysmic.

Congressman John Boozman 01/09/07 on the IRAQ WAR: “At this point, I think all of us have some real concerns about the direction of the war…”

Boozman 01/17/07 on TAX REFORM: “It is time we end the talk of reforming the tax code and get to actually doing something about it.”

Two serious and major issues spoken on publicly in only about a week’s time… but wait.

Look at the dates.

What you are witnessing is a first hand lesson in political expedience or what is more euphemistically referred to as “political CYA”.

Up until recently, during his entire tenure as a congressman, Boozman has enjoyed the benefits of being a member of the majority party… and yet he chose to do nothing of substance. His party falls out of favor… and now he speaks out?

When I caught Boozman abusing the franking privilege and converting $35,000 of taxpayer money to his own re-election effort… where was his call for reforming the congressional frank…? He instead relied on his majority party cohorts to run interference and protect him.

John Boozman has not been politically re-born and motivated to real action. His derelict silence on the unconstitutional arrest, staged trial, conviction and imprisonment of constituent Wayne Fincher for practicing specific constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights exposes the real Boozman – fearful, inept, conflict adverse and a domestic enemy of the Constitution.

Will Arkansans again be deceived by Boozman’s continued bluff and bluster and hypocritical speech? We’ll see come 2008.

Remember: If your religion is wrong, you go to Hell. If your politics are wrong, your country goes to Hell.
________________________

Take the time to click on the Pardon button (upper right margin) and follow the instructions - you can bet Boozman hasn't.

Free Ramos and Compean!

Two brave U.S. Border Patrol agents -- Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean -- are in prison for faithfully doing their job.

Take the time and click on the PARDON button (on right).

Join the effort to free these men.

U.S. Constitution One Nail Closer To Burial

Today, January 12, 2007, another nail was violently placed into the coffin of the U.S. Constitution, not with a hammer, but with a judge’s gavel. United States District Judge Jimm L. Hendren, U. S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas presided over the staged trial of Hollis Wayne Fincher, a member of the Washington County Militia (WCM) for illegally possessing unregistered weapons. Fincher was found guilty.

In true kangaroo fashion the government illegally and unconstitutionally conceived, constructed and carried out its crime against Fincher.

The conception began with the government infringing on the Second Amendment right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. They illegally, and with no regard for the U.S. Constitution, passed a law that says Americans can only possess certain weapons if they first register them and pay an arms tax. Contrary to a clearly enumerated constitutional right, ignoring the Constitution, they restricted (infringed upon) the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Their action should be binding upon no law abiding American citizen. - "A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law." -- Justice John Marshall (1755-1835) US Supreme Court Chief Justice

Those that conceived the attack upon Fincher and the U.S. Constitution have become so inflated with their own preconceptions of what the Second Amendment means that they ignore those who truly knew its meaning. "The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833 – Justice Story is known as one of the Fathers of American Jurisprudence

The construct of the government’s case was… bizarre at best. The BATF was notified many years ago that Fincher possessed “prohibited” firearms – and took no action. The BATF then, on their own admission, recently began an investigation of Fincher months after learning through a local newspaper report that he and the WCM had “illegal” weaponry. Months after…(?) After learning of such a dangerous crime and obvious threat to the United States, it took months, to begin the investigation…(?)

The BATF then investigated Fincher for eight months - to learn what they could have learned in fifteen minutes on the website of the WCM or within a couple of minutes by attending a single regular WCM meeting. Did they feel that the length of time would somehow legitimatize their actions?

The carrying out of the crime against Fincher, and the Constitution itself, was a conspired work of art. The apparent and obvious collusion and orchestration in this case between Federal Magistrate Beverly Jones, Judge Jimm L. Hendren, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the BATF in inflating and fabricating the case against Fincher demonstrates a level of corruption that should be chilling for all Americans. These individuals and members of those agencies have willfully and deliberately set aside and ignored the U.S. Constitution to pursue their own agendas.

Since they were launching a full fledged attack upon the U.S. Constitution the government’s players had to make a mountain out of a molehill. A very dramatic no-knock warrant was served on Fincher’s home by eight law enforcement agencies – confirming only that Fincher was an American citizen in possession of firearms. Fraudulent testimony was offered, painting Fincher as a dangerous man, with the BATF and Federal Magistrate Jones conjuring up a paranoiac and dishonest fear of Fincher and the WCM resulting in their violating Fincher’s protected right to a reasonable bail.

Then… we have the trial.

The question before the court was whether or not a law abiding citizen, as protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 2 Sec. 5 of the Constitution of the Sovereign State of Arkansas, can legally possess weapons arbitrarily singled out by federal statute as not legally possessed unless they are registered with the federal government and a $200/weapon tax is paid. Simply stated: Are the U.S. Constitution and the Arkansas Constitution in full force and effect as the law of the land and do they mean what they so clearly say…?

In a classic demonstration of judicial tyranny, Hendren prohibited Fincher from raising a constitutional defense and freely testifying on his own behalf. Hendren struck down Fincher’s ability to argue the constitutional context of the alleged crime in front of the jury, insulating the law Fincher was accused of violating and then censored Fincher from telling the jury, in his own words, his (Fincher’s) motive and intent for committing the act he was being charged with. When a law is insulated from deliberative scrutiny; you can be sure that those insulating it know it cannot bear that scrutiny.

Hendren, relying on an ignorant, uninformed and constitutionally illiterate jury pool, egregiously denied the jury seated for Fincher from hearing any testimony regarding the offending law as being a clear usurpation of the Constitution. Not only was this an offense against Fincher, but also a deliberate judicial infringement by Hendren on the rights of the jury. In the words of America’s first U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice -"The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." - John Jay, in Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794:4) and "The people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation." - Theophilus Parsons (2 Elliot's Debates, 94; 2 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, p. 267) - (Parsons was a leading supporter of the Constitution in the convention of 1788. He declined President Adams' nomination to be Attorney General and became Chief Justice of Massachusetts).

The results of this governmental abuse of power are the tragedies of an innocent man in jail, his family broken-hearted and the abusers celebrating their contrived victory.

This case truly has never been about the law, evidence and justice. If it had, Fincher would have remained a free man and would have been found not guilty by the jury.

My final word:

To those who are unwilling to stand against the government in this case, I say with all sincerity – I pray that your complacency and apathy will result in your suffering a similar persecution. May your personal legacy be remembered as one of cowardice and shame, and may your descendants rightly find you to be without honor and consider you to be a disgrace upon your family’s name.

Founders Second Amendment Intent

You will note that the primary concern expressed in this small sample of quotes was that government might become tyrannous and destroy the liberty and freedom won by the Founders. The emphasis is on the right to keep and bear arms, the need to do so… in control of the government. (Not a single mention of squirrel hunting found.)

“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.” - Thomas Jefferson

"What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms… The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Source: in a letter to William S. Smith, 13 November 1787

“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.” - Thomas Jefferson

"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833 – Justice Story is known as one of the Fathers of American Jurisprudence.

"The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- Tench Coxe (1755-1824) American political economist Source: Pennsylvania Gazette, February 20, 1788

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794) Founding Father

"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 inevitably ruined." - Patrick Henry

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." -- James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -- George Mason (1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington Source: June 14, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.380 (Philadelphia, 1836)

"The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." -- Cockrum v. State Source: 24 Tex.394, at 401-402 (1859)

"Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny." -- James Monroe (1758-1831), 5th US President

"[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." --Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).

In 2004 the U.S. Attorney General’s Office properly recognized that “The Second Amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of States or a right restricted to persons serving in militias.”

The spirit of the Founders is also found in more recent quotes.

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom." --John F. Kennedy

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America but which historically has proven to be always possible." -- Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978) US Vice-President, US Senator (D-MN)


Of course there are those that believe the right to keep and bear arms is not a good idea and should be eliminated and/or at the very least, controlled…


"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed the subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty."
-- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) German Nazi Dictator
Source: Hitler's Table Talks 1941-1944, Edited by H.R. Trevor-Roper (London: Widenfeld and Nicolson, 1953), pp. 425-426.

"A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov] (1870 - 1924), First Leader of the Soviet Union