Benjamin Franklin: Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Nov 11 1755, from the Pennsylvania Assembly's reply to the Governor of Pennsylvania.)
Samual Adams: "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." (Convention of the Commonwealth of Mass., 86-87, date still being sought)
Diane Feinstein: "US Senator, If I could have banned them all- 'Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns' -I would have!" (Statement on TV program 69 Minutes, Feb 5 1995)
Adof Hitler: "The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subject peoples to possess arms. So let's not have any talk about native militias." (Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-44, Farrar, Strauss and Young, 1953)
Adolf Hitler: "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead." (Chancelor's Speech, 1935)
George Washington: "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the people's liberty teeth (and) keystone... the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable... more than 99% of them [guns] by their silence indicate that they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference [crime]. When firearms go, all goes, we need them every hour." (Address to 1st session of Congress)
Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." (1787, Pamphlets on the Constitution of the US)
George Washington: "A free people ought to be armed." (Jan 14 1790, Boston Independent Chronicle.)
James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose people are afraid to trust them with arms." (Federalist Paper #46)
Mahatma Gandhi: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." ("Gandhi, an Autobiography," M.K. Gandhi, 446)
Bill Clinton: (US President, has sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution, (not to violate it, criticize it, and belittle it)) "When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it." (April 19 1994, on MTV)
Samual Adams: "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." (Convention of the Commonwealth of Mass., 86-87, date still being sought)
"Now there was no metal smith found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, "Lest the Hebrews make for themselves swords or spears"...But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, each man to sharpen his plow blade, his coulter, his ax and his maddock. So it came to pass on the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul or Johnathan; but with Saul and Jaohnathan there was found [other lethal weapons] 1 Samuel 13:19-22)
Today I got my fly rod out for the first time this year. I went down to the pond at the back of the pasture. I wasn't sure what I would catch (if anything at all). Last year when there was such a bad drought in the area.....we had a big fish kill. The water in the pond got so low and stagnant that I knew that most of the fish were dead. Anyways....I thought I would at least practice casting my rod. I did catch a fish....a little bluegill.....about 5 inches long.
