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"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty -- so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator -- and subject innocent persons to the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws makes things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree." - Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes And Punishment", 1764

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.  We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.  It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." - Samuel Adams, 1771.

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