VALKYRIE ARMS, LTD

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin

Sic Semper Tyrannis (Death to All Tyrants)

-- Virginia State Motto

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

-- Edmund Burke - (British statesman - 1756)

"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. "

-- Patrick Henry, March, 1775

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

-- John Stewart Mills

"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."

-- Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure."

-- Albert Einstein

"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"

-- Winston Churchill

"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."

-- Senator Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minnesota) "Guns Magazine - Feb. 1960, Page 4"

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress."

-- Frederick Douglas

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

-- Mahatma Gandhi in "Gandhi, An Autobiography"

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

-- Thomas Paine

"...to disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them..."

-- George Mason

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."

-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" 1859

"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire; a dangerous servant and a terrible master."

-- George Washington

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."

-- Charles A. Beard

"...the rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."

-- Joseph Goebbels - Nazi Propaganda Minister

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States"

-- Noah Webster, 1888

"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived the use of them...the weak will become a prey to the strong."

-- Thomas Paine

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

-- Thomas Paine

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."

-- Richard Henry Lee, 1787

"A free people ought...to be armed..."

-- George Washington, 1790

"The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."

-- Patrick Henry

"...the people have a right to keep and bear arms."

-- Patrick Henry and George Mason Debates

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? ... 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?"

-- Patrick Henry

"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense..."

-- John Adams, (1788)

"The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

-- John Adams, (1772)

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."

-- John Adams

"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

-- John Adams

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined"

-- Patrick Henry

"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State."

-- Heinrich Himmler

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non ["something essential" lit. "without which not"] for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or police."

--Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938

"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ...The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government."

-- SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.

"There are going to be situations where people are going to go without assistance. That's just the facts of life."

--LA Chief of Police, Gates.

"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good.

--George Washington

"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

-- Patrick Henry, March, 1775

"...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."

-- Alexander Hamilton

"A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it, without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace."

-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers (No. 46).

"In political speculations 'the tyranny of the majority' is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. Society.... practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression,... penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them."

-- John Stuart Mill - "On Liberty" (1859)

"Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority."

-- President Andrew Jackson - (1832)

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits. ... and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

-- St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court 1803

"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."

-- James Burgh 1774

"An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man will remain safe among armed servants."

-- Machiavelli, "The Prince" (1532)

"Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows"

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them."

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"We, the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts -- not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."

-- Abraham Lincoln

"Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part, sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are barking up the wrong tree."

-- James Wright (scholarly research in collaboration with Peter Rossi)

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."

-- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."

-- Justice Robert H. Jackson

"The right of bearing arms for a lawful purpose is not a right granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence."

-- U.S. vs Cruikshan

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."

-- John Locke

"No slave shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass, unless with written orders from his master or employer, or in his company, with arms from one place to another. Arms in possession of a slave contrary to this prohibition shall be forfeited to him who will seize them."

-- A Bill Concerning Slaves, Virginia Assembly, 1779

"Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out just because I might yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater."

-- Peter Venetoklis

"This country was founded by religious nuts with guns."

-- P.J. O’Rourke

"When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."

-- Harry Truman

"Life, liberty and property do not exist because men made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place"

-- Frederic Bastiat

"All politics are based on the indifference of the majority."

-- James Reston

"The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man."

-- attributed to Horatio Bunce in Sockdolager

Two visions of the world remain locked in dispute. The first believes all men are created equal by a loving God who has blessed us with freedom. Abraham Lincoln spoke for us: "No man," he said, "is good enough to govern another without the other's consent."

The second vision believes that religion is opium for the masses. It believes that eternal principles like truth, liberty, and democracy have no meaning beyond the whim of the state. And Lenin spoke for them: "It is true, that liberty is precious," he said, "so precious that it must be rationed."

Well, I'll take Lincoln's version over Lenin's - and so will citizens of the world if they're given free choice.

-- Ronald Reagan

"When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ...... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities."

-- Bill Clinton, 3-22-94

Almost two centuries ago a group of disturbed men met in the small Pennsylvania State House they gathered to decide on a course of action. Behind the locked and guarded doors they debated for hours whether or not to sign the Declaration which had been presented for their consideration. For hours the talk was treason and its price the headsman's axe, the gallows and noose. The talk went on and decision was not forthcoming.
Then, Jefferson writes, a voice was heard coming from the balcony:

They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land. They may turn every tree into a gallows, every home into a grave, and yet the words of that parchment can never die. They may pour our blood on a thousand scaffolds and yet from every drop that dyes the axe a new champion of freedom will spring into birth. The words of this declaration will live long after our bones are dust.

To the mechanic in his workshop they will speak hope; to the slave in the mines, freedom; but to the coward rulers, these words will speak in tones of warning they cannot help but hear. Sign that parchment. Sign if the next moment the noose is around your neck. Sign if the next minute this hall rings with the clash of falling axes! Sign by all your hopes in life or death, not only for yourselves but for all ages, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom the bible of the rights of man forever.

Were my soul trembling on the verge of eternity, my hand freezing in death, I would still implore you to remember this truth: God has given America to be free.

As he finished, the speaker sank back in his seat exhausted. Inspired by his eloquence the delegates rushed forward to sign the Declaration of Independence. When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words he couldn't be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room.

-- Ronald Reagan

"Four out of five politicians surveyed prefer unarmed, ignorant peasants."

-- Unknown

"An experiment in blame. It amazes me how far to the left of "horse sense" some people are. To prove this, I conducted an experiment. I placed an air rifle on the living room floor, then set up a video camera to observe its actions. After several hours, the evidence was conclusive. My children never went near the gun. Not once did the gun go on a shooting spree. It did not sell itself to a minor or convicted felon. Do you think maybe criminals are to blame for gun-related crimes? "

-- Herbert R. Ashley, Schertz

"The danger to a free society is not the guns owned by the citizens but an unconstrained government.... An armed society is a self-governing society, just as a disarmed people are vulnerable to arbitrary power of every kind."

-- Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"What a crazy world we live in! Trying to treat addiction as a legal problem, and trying to treat criminal misbehaviors using guns as a medical problem! Beam me up, Scotty. Ain't no intelligent life down here."

-- Julie Cochrane

"Expecting a carjacker or rapist or drug pusher to care that his possession or use of a gun is unlawful is like expecting a terrorist to care that his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces."

-- Joseph T. Chew, "Usenet posting in talk.politics.guns"

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?"

-- Patrick Henry

"Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
Latin: "A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer's hand."

-- Seneca, Letters to Lucilius

"Every good communist should know that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

-- Mao Tse Tung