very well, here are my cites.....
“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
“The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.” --George Washington
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” --Thomas Jefferson
"Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry."
— Thomas Jefferson
“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.” --James Madison
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem [good justice is broad jurisdiction], and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
-Thomas Jefferson to W. Jarvis, 1820
The congress of the United States possesses no power to regulate, or interfere with the domestic concerns, or police of any state: it belongs not to them to establish any rules respecting the rights of property; nor will the constitution permit any prohibition of arms to the people; or of peaceable assemblies by them, for any purposes whatsoever, and in any number, whenever they may see occasion. —ST. GEORGE TUCKER'S BLACKSTONE
"The right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the law of society."
Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England.
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts' U.S. Constitution Ratification Convention (1788).
"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 #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 can not 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."
Noah Webster, An Examination Into the Leading Principals of the Federal Constitution (1787).
"To disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them..."
George Mason, 3 Elliott Debates (on the Constitution) 380.
"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, Pennsylvania Gazette, February 20, 1788.
The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. — William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 125-6 (2nd ed. 1829)
Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would. — JOHN ADAMS
The whole of the Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. — Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789.
