[Malum Prohibitum]

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their words, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People."

~Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

Mr. Coxe's newspaper articles are perhaps my favorites.

Funny that he differentiates between the state government and the people. And, oddly, nobody wrote to the paper to correct him on this (oh, no, it is only the state-sponsored militia . . .).

Sometimes people forget that this state v. federal government stuff is a twentieth century argument, not an eighteenth century argument.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall have no power to disarm the militia. Their words, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American ... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the People."

~Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

AND James Madison wrote him a letter quoting it back to him! He let him know that both he and Col. Hamilton were pleased by it and approved of it.

I am aware of no writing negatively criticizing it.

"Your arguments appear to me to place the subject to which they relate in its true light . . ."

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only 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...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... 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."

~Thomas Jefferson, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in "On Crimes and Punishment."

This one made it into a GCO brief that is now forever part of the public record in the county in which it was filed.

http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/2007/05 ... ta-county/

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only 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...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... 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."

~Thomas Jefferson, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in "On Crimes and Punishment."

This one made it into a GCO brief that is now forever part of the public record in the county in which it was filed.

http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/2007/05 ... ta-county/

Although we did not recite it in the Court of Appeals.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

(Ok, maybe not the same guy.)

It's the same guy.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

I have carried a revolver; lots of us do, but they are the most innocent things in the world. â€" MARK TWAIN "Mark Twain Put to the Question" interview, Adelaide South Australian Register, 10/14/1895

More by him here (including a picture of him posing with a revolver after a burglary of his home):
http://www.twainquotes.com/Guns.html

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

Ghandi from memory,
Among the many misdeeds of the British, this one will be remembered as the blackest, that of depriving a whole race of the use of arms.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

I quoted that out of my head to a hippie lady I saw reading his autobiagraphy and asked her what she thought of it.

She just glared at me in silence.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

• -- Ida B. Wells

Interesting lady who bought her own pistol to protect her own life, which was in constant danger.

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

• --Ida B. Wells, Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in All Its Phases

What is most interesting about this quote is that the Winchester was the latest and greatest assault rifle of its day. A lever action, it had a tubular magazine that held a lot of rounds and could be fired rapidly by a competent operator with the lever. It was smaller and easier to handle than most rifles of the day.

Its superior firepower made it the "assault weapon" of the late nineteenth century.

It would hold off a lynch mob quite well.

:wink:

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

There is nothing we can do about the lynching now, as we are out-numbered and without arms.

• -- Ida B. Wells

 

[Malum Prohibitum]

I had never heard of Ida Wells, at least that I remember, and now I want to get my hands on some of her writings.