James Brady Quotes
It [gun control] is not a loss of freedom. It's a measure to protect it.
James Brady, 1940-2014, White House Press Secretary (Republican), Congressional Testimony, March 21, 1991
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
10 years later the Supreme Court ruled that such a prohibition would be unconstitutional.
He was unhappy about the fact that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were still routinely carrying guns on duty. In England and Canada there has been a tradition of police officers on their beats being unarmed. When more force is needed special armed police are dispatched.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution has, according to all Supreme Court decisions, never given the right to bear arms to individual citizens—only to the state militia. Nonetheless, most polls show Americans believe the 2nd Amendment applies to individual citizens:
This was the critical Supreme Court decision which finally decided the long debated issue or whether the right to bear arms was an individual right or a collective militia right. Scalia’s majority opinion ruled it an individual right, but it allowed for exceptions where there might be unusual individual risk. It also upheld the right of the government to control where guns are carried and to regulate the commercial sale of firearms which some of the pro gun extremists had insisted the government had no right of regulaltion.
Thirty young black men and women carrying pistols, revolvers, and shotguns, appeared at the grand entrance of the California Capitol Building. The capital police stopped them and asked what they were going to do with their guns. Bobby Seal replied by asking the police officer what he was going to do with his gun. Seale and the Black Panthers then quoted the Second Amendment to the Constitution and insisted that they had a right to carry guns. Seale led his overtly armed followers inside while police and legislators looked on in horror. They were breaking no law. See the linked quote for Seale’s statement at Sacramento.
James Scott Brady was an assistant to the U.S. President and the seventeenth White House Press Secretary, serving under President Ronald Reagan. In 1981, Brady became permanently disabled from a gunshot wound during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Brady's death was ruled a homicide, caused by the gunshot wound he received 33 years earlier.
