The Founders' Documents
(and more)
on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

“We are inclined to think that every firearm in the hands of anyone who is not a law enforcement officer constitutes an incitement to violence. Let’s come to our senses before the whole country starts shooting itself up on all its Main Streets in a delirious kind of High Noon.” – Washington Post, August 19, 1965 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“We are beyond the stage of restrictive licensing and uniform laws. We are at the point in time and terror when nothing short of a strong uniform policy of domestic disarmament will alleviate the danger which is crystal clear and perilously present. Let us take the guns away from the people. Exemptions should be limited to the military, the police and those licensed for good and sufficient reasons.” – Patrick V. Murphy, New York City Police Commissioner, December 7, 1970 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“The only way to discourage the gun culture is to remove the guns from the hands and shoulders of people who are not in the law enforcement business.” – New York Times, September 24, 1975 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“By a curiosity of evolution, every human skull harbors a prehistoric vestige: a reptilian brain. This atavism, like a hand grenade cushioned in the more civilized surrounding cortex, is the dark hive where many of mankind’s primitive impulses originate. To go partners with that throwback, Americans have carried out of their own history another curiosity that evolution forgot to discard as the country changed from a sparsely populated, underpoliced agrarian society to a modern industrial civilization. That vestige is the gun – most notoriously the handgun, an anachronistic tool still much in use.” – Time Magazine, April 13, 1981 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“As you probably know by now, Time’s editors, in the April 13 issue, took a strong position in support of an outright ban on handguns for private use.” – Time Magazine, Letter to NRA, April 24, 1981 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“There is no reason for anyone in this country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution.” – Michael Gartner, former NBC News President, USA Today, January 16, 1992 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“As you know, my position is we should ban all handguns, get rid of them, no manufacture, no sale, no importation, no transportation, no possession of a handgun.” – Senator John H. Chafee (R-RI) (quoted in the Congressional Record of the 102^nd Congress, Senate; June 11, 1992; Page: S7966).

“Mr. speaker, we must take swift and strong action if we are to rescue the next generation from the rising of tide armed violence. That is why today I am introducing the Handgun Control Act of 1992. This legislation would outlaw the possession, importation, transfer or manufacture of a handgun except for use by public agencies, individuals who can demonstrate to their local police chief that they need a gun because of threat to their life or the life of a family member, licensed guard services, licensed pistol clubs which keep the weapons securely on premises, licensed manufacturers and licensed gun dealers.” – Congressman Stephen J. Solarz (D-NY) (quoted in the Congressional Record of the 102^nd Congress, Extension of Remarks, House of Representatives; August 12, 1992; Page: E2492).

“The goal is an ultimate ban on all guns, but we also have to take a step at a time and go for limited access first.” – Deputy Commissioner, Florida State Health Dept.; quoted in the Chicago Tribune of November 7, 1993 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“If it was up to me, no one but law enforcement officers would own hand guns...” – Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, November 13, 1998 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“So I seek support for my measure, S. 892, which bans all handguns except for the police and the military and licensed security personnel, licensed handgun shooting clubs where the weapons are controlled in a central place. – Senator John H. Chafee (R-RI) (quoted in the Congressional Record of the 103^rd Congress, Senate; June 8, 1993; Page: S6922)

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Public Health and Safety Act of 1993 on behalf of myself and nine of my colleagues: Mel Reynolds, Bill Clay, Jerry Nadler, Eleanor Holmes Norton, John Lewis, Nydia Velazquez, Ron Dellums, Carrie Meek, and Alcee Hastings. This legislation, first introduced in the Senate by Senator John Chafee, would prohibit the transfer or possession of handguns and handgun ammunition, except in limited circumstances. It would go a long way toward protecting our citizens from violent crime. The need for a ban on handguns cannot be overstated. Unlike rifles and shotguns, handguns are easily concealable. Consequently, they are the weapons of choice in most murders, accounting for the deaths of 25,000 Americans in 1991.” – Congressman Major R. Owens (D-NY), introducing the Public Health and Safety Act of 1993; (quoted in the Congressional Record of the 103^rd Congress, Extension of Remarks, House of Representatives; September 23, 1993; Page: E2233).

“ ...we could tax them [firearms] out of existence.” – Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Senator, Washington Post, November 4, 1993

“If it were up to me we’d ban them all [firearms].” – Mel Reynolds, U.S. Congressman, CNN Crossfire, December 9, 1993

“Gun registration is not enough.” – Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General, Associated Press, December 10, 1993

“Gun violence won’t be cured by one set of laws. It will require years of partial measures that will gradually tighten the requirements for gun ownership, and incrementally change expectations about the firepower that should be available to ordinary citizens.” – New York Times, December 21, 1993 (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“I want to make it as hard as possible. Gun owners would have to be evaluated by how they scored on written and firing tests, and have to pass the tests in order to own a gun. And I would tax the guns, bullets and the license itself very heavily.” – Jocelyn Elders, U.S. Surgeon General, Mother Jones magazine, Jan/Feb ‘94

“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in, I would have done it.” – Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), CBS 60 Minutes segment for February 5, 1995 (America’s First Freedom, July 2003)

“There is no personal right to be armed for private purposes unrelated to the service in a well regulated militia.” – Sarah Brady, Chairman, Handgun Control, Inc., Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 6, 1997

“To me, the only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes.” – Sarah Brady, Chairman, Handgun Control, Inc.

“Firearms are currently exempt from the health and safety laws that apply to every other consumer product in America, from toasters to teddy bears. Applying those same standards to guns is the real key to reducing firearm death and injury in America. Under these standards, handguns would be banned because of their high risk and low utility.” – Violence Policy Center (quoted from VPC website article titled, The False Hope of the “Smart” Gun, 1998)

“What is stopping President Clinton – and candidates seeking to succeed him – from calling for strong action to ban handguns?” – Washington Post, April 28, 1999

“I know it’s in the Constitution. But you know what? Enough! I would like to say, I think there should be a law – and I know this is extreme – that no one can have a gun in the U.S. If you have a gun, you go to jail. Only the police should have guns. It’s ridiculous.” – Rosie O’Donnell, interview with Carolyn McCarthy; quoted in the Ottawa Sun, April 29, 1999

“No presidential candidate has yet come out for the most effective proposal to check the terror of gunfire: a ban on the general sale, manufacture and ownership of handguns as well as assault-style weapons.” – Washington Post, July 19, 1999

“But people everywhere just might feel a whole lot better if handguns, assault-style weapons and other concealable firearms were banned.” – Washington Post, August 2, 1999

“…the answer to America’s gun problem isn’t trigger locks, ‘smart’ guns, or even licensing and registration. It’s banning handguns.” – Violence Policy Center Executive Director Josh Sugarmann (March 1, 2000, quoted from the VPC website article titled, VPC Releases New Handgun Ban Study, Unsafe in Any Hands: Why America Needs to Ban Handguns)

“The weapons’ menacing looks coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semiautomatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase that chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.” – Violence Policy Center Executive Director Josh Sugarmann (1988, explaining how fostering public confusion will help obtain enactment of a ban on “assault weapons”)

“It’s time to call for abolition, and he’s the one with the trumpet. … There is no reason for Clinton to take on a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns – no reason, that is, except that it’s the right thing.” – Washington Post, May 12, 2000

 ”Why are you only focusing on licensing and registration, why aren’t you going for more than that, why aren’t you going, for example, for a total ban?” – Bryant Gumbel, questioning the California coordinator for the “Million Mom March” (The Early Show, May 12, 2000) (quoted in Media Research Center Alert dated May 15, 2000)

“The League acknowledges that the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have ruled consistently that the Second Amendment confers a right to keep and bear arms only in connection with service in a well-regulated militia-known today as the National Guard.” – League of Women Voters (quoted from the LWV website, Where We Stand: Promoting Democracy in America: Gun control)

“The League, therefore, supports a ban on the further manufacture, sale, transportation and importation for private ownership of handguns and their parts.” – League of Women Voters of Illinois, Gun Control Position-in-Brief (quoted on the Firearms Coalition website)

“I would reccomend to any persons reading this who want to involve your self in the Gun Control movement: don’t even start conversing with the gun owner, you don’t need to because Gun Control will happen without thier input on the conversation - mark my word, they basically have a crappy arguement, and mainstream America won’t buy it! Attempting to pass legislation by moderating and talking with gun owners, is analogous to inviting RJ Reynolds Tobacco executives and chain smokers, to sit-in on legislative procedures to regulate tobacco as an addictive drug. Major conflicts of interest most often result in fraudulent and wasteful actions, in government, and in society in general. Fraudulent legislation like weak and unenforceable gun control in a single border less jurisdiction of the U.S.” – a self proclaimed “activist member” of Handgun Control Inc. (misspellings in original, from HCI website)

“With, as you’ve mentioned, at least 200 million guns out there, what about the argument that says ‘listen, there’s really no chance that we’re going to have meaningful gun control in this country unless you go out and get those guns back and that’s simply not practical.” – Bill Clinton, former President of the United States

“Men possess handguns in order to compensate for sexual dysfunction.” – Dr. Joyce Brothers, Psychiatrist, TV personality.

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Massachusetts' attorney Kim Weissman closed his website, Congress Action Newsletter, and has graciously selected TYSK as the repository for his very popular Second Amendment Information. Mr. Weissman and TYSK both hope that you will find what is contained here informative and enlightening and useful in refuting the claims, falsehoods, and distortions offered by those that want to restrict or eliminate the one pillar of the Bill of Rights which protects all others.