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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. Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.†(Quoting Cesare Beccaria) The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it. I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. (Back then!) When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. The god who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva, in the brain of Jupiter. In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock. What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society. When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality. Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man who began his learning very early in life and never stopped.At 5, he began studying under his cousins' tutor.At 9, he studied Latin, Greek and French.At 14, he studied classical literature and additional languages.At 16, he entered the College of William and Mary.At 19, he studied Law for 5 years, starting under George Wythe.At 23, he started his own law practice.At 25, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses.At 31, he wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " and retired from his law practice.At 32, he was a Delegate to the Second Continental Congress.At 33, he wrote the Declaration of Independence.At 33, he took three years to revise Virginia 's legal code and wrote a Public Education bill and a statute for Religious Freedom.At 36, he was elected the second Governor of Virginia succeeding Patrick Henry.At 40, he served in Congress for two years.At 41, he was the American minister to France and negotiated commercial treaties with European nations along with Ben Franklin and John Adams.At 46, he served as the first Secretary of State under George Washington.At 53, he served as Vice President and was elected president of the American Philosophical Society.At 55,he drafted the Kentucky Resolutions and became the active head of Republican Party.At 57, he was elected the third president of the United States.At 60, he obtained the Louisiana Purchase , doubling the nation's size.At 61, he was elected to a second term as President.At 65, he retired to Monticello.At 80, he helped President Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.At 81, he almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president.At 83, he died, on the 50th anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independencealong with John Adams.Thomas Jefferson knew because he himself had studied the previously failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, God's laws, and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. His is a voice from the past to lead us into the future. John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time.. He made this statement:" This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe , we shall become as corrupt as Europe . Thomas JeffersonThe democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas JeffersonIt is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes, a principle which if acted on, would save one-half the wars of the world. Thomas JeffersonI predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. Thomas JeffersonMy reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. Thomas JeffersonNo free man shall ever be deprived the use of arms. Thomas JeffersonThe 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 JeffersonThe tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots andtyrants. Thomas Jefferson To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson said in 1802:I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
Thomas Jefferson died broke and in debt. His spirit is alive and well.
