The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.
Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session ( February 1982 )
Gore’s Negro tolerance level has never been too high.
Cynthia McKinney
‘Rep. Cynthia NcKinney, a black Georgia Democrat,’ [U.S. News’ description] U.S. News & World Report, September 18, 2000
We hold this annual celebration to remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of how it was done and who did it, and how we are historically connected with it; and we go from these meetings in better humor with ourselves – we feel more attached the one to the other and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. Abraham Lincoln
Speech July 10, 1858 in Chicago on the Declaration of Independence and its celebration (1809-1865)
He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections. Samuel Adams
(1722-1803) – American revolutionary, letter to James Warren (Nov. 4, 1775)
The First Amendment requires the invalidation of the Act’s independent expenditure ceiling, its limitation on a candidate’s expenditures from his own personal funds, and its ceiling on overall campaign expenditures, since those provisions place substantial and direct restrictions on the ability of candidates, citizens, and associations to engage in protected political expression, restrictions that the First Amendment cannot tolerate. .. . The First Amendment denies government the power to determine that spending to promote one’s political views is wasteful, excessive, or unwise. In the free society ordained by our Constitution it is not the government, but the people-individually as citizens and candidates and collectively as associations and political committees-who must retain control over the quantity and range of debate on public issues in a political campaign. Chief Justice Burger
Partial Dissent/Partial Concurrence of Chief Justice Burger in Buckley v. Valeo