Walter E. Williams Quotes

Where I stand at is on the Second Amendment where the right to bear arms is not just for hunting and fishing and things like that. But it's the right of the American people to have a means of defense against a tyrannical government. So, sometimes you got to have that back-up plan.

In the larger sense, however, the personal ownership of firearms is only secondarily a matter of defense against the criminal. Note the following from Thomas Jefferson: The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government. That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.

In an age where the government has tanks, rockets and missiles, it seems ludicrous to believe that citizen's having handguns are a protection against government power.

To the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to tell you something: You can have my gun. You can pry it from my cold dead hands!

The Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenryThis is for usThis is for us when our government becomes tyrannical

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

That guns do more than protect us from criminals; more importantly, they protect us from the ongoing threat of government.

Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen.

If there is no absolute right to freedom of speech, why must there be an absolute right to the freedom to bear arms.

No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people.

The majority falls prey to the delusion—popular in some circles—that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth—born of experience—is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.

The militia had the same equipment as the military to protect them against the tyrannical government. It's more important today than ever that we uphold our Second Amendment.

Guns are the ultimate bulwark against government misbehavior.

I think the Americans have it right. The idea of having guns is essentially to protect yourself from a totalitarian government.

This gun is liberty; hold for certain that the day when you no more have it, you will be returned to slavery.

I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and believe that law-abiding Americans have the right to self-defense.

Even if you don't like guns and don't want to own them, you benefit from those who do.

I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it's time for Negroes to defend themselves. Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle.

The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that's what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.

The Founding Fathers did not believe the primary purpose of their guns was to hunt ducks, but to keep the government in line within the bounds of the Constitution. The Founding Fathers said that armed citizens are a bulwark against a tyrant in the White House.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

The right is absolute ... government has no authority to forbid me from owning a firearm ... the debate is not about guns. It is about freedom.

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

I support people having a gun in public full stop, not just in your home. We don't have the right to bear arms because of burglars; we have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government. It's not about duck hunting; it's about the ability of the individual. It's the same reason we have freedom of speech.

I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family -- whether it's from an intruder, or whether it's from a government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.