Editor, Times-Union: "This year will go down in history. For the first time a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future."
Adolph Hitler - 1935 "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 subject races to carry arms have prepared their downfall by so doing."
Adolph Hitler "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed."
Noah Webster "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence that an armed man."
Cesare Beccaria, 18th century Italian criminologist
"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
George Mason, American statesman and author
of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Constitution of the United States (Amendment II)
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which ... historically has proved to be always possible."
U.S. Senator Hubert Humphrey
"Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years."
Nicollo Machiavelli, 16th century Italian political theorist
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest."
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader
"In countries under arbitrary government, the people oppressed and dispirited neither possess arms nor know how to use them. Tyrants never feel secure until they have disarmed the people."
Unknown author, from the Connecticut Courant (1788)
"Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people."
Patrick Henry (1782 speech)
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of firearms."
Thomas Jefferson (Virginia Constitution of 1776)
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence."
George Washington Whose gun will be taken? Your gun and my gun, not the gun that you fear. Then we would have no protection from the gun that we fear. Some who wish to disarm us have an ulterior motive, hopefully they will never get in power. Who wants to disarm the citizens of the United States, and why? What is the real reason? Crime of all kinds increases in cities that have strict gun control, so it is not crime control. The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting and target practice.
We know why Hitler disarmed his German citizens. Why does our government and those in government want to disarm us?
You will never need the 2nd Amendment until they try to take it away from you.
Wallace W. Huffman, Warsaw
Another Tragedy
Editor, Times-Union: Such a sad, sad, tragic story. Jill Carpenter ... only 33 years old, the mother of two beautiful little children. I didn't know her, but many people that did have told me that she was one of the nicest people they have ever known. I can't get the vision out of my mind of her sitting at that stoplight listening to the radio, thanking God for the beautiful day he gave her, thinking about how much she loved her husband and her two little boys, and spending the day at a job she loved with co-workers and friends she shared smiles and laughs with every day. And then, in a flash of an eye she was gone, her life over. WHY? Because there just happened to be a semi truck driver behind her that didn't follow the rules. So sad, so tragic, so shocking for her family, friends, co-workers and even people like me who didn't know her personally. A lot of truckers just won't slow down for anyone or anything. I know, I drive to Plymouth every day on U.S. 30 and there are times that my little car just shakes when they pass me going way over the speed limit. I was sick when I heard about this senseless, senseless accident ... another mother and father lose a daughter ... another man loses his life's love ... two little boys lost their Mommy. I say to YOU, State of Indiana, if you don't have enough officers to patrol that area; if you don't have the time to have your officers write ticket after ticket; if you can't get them to SLOW DOWN with your big signs and flashing yellow lights warning of congested area ahead ... then get that light out of there for our sakes! We were all much safer when it wasn't there! Don't make another human being be a sitting duck for another speeding trucker! I don't care about the excuses that it was foggy or the sun was so bright. The fact is, that trucker totally ignored the congested area signs that he drove right past. He CHOSE to not slow down! I don't want to hear that when it's your time, it's your time. I am a firm believer in God's ways, BUT the fact is, he was going WAY TOO FAST for the conditions and because of that, tragedy struck and Jill Carpenter lost her life ... with her husband, her sons, her parents, her family and all her friends that loved her for just being Jill. To all of Jill's family, I pray for your comfort.
