The following show statements to the contrary made by our Founding Fathers. That their intent was far more personal than that.
Additionally, I have thrown in some other relevant quotes that you might find helpful.
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day. Events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - They deserve a place of honor with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour." - George Washington, Address to the Second Session, First United States Congress.
"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
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” - Benjamin Franklin
"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 ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.” - Patrick Henry
(Governments derive) "Their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, (absolute power or influence of any kind) it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” - Declaration of Independence
Found in the Pennsylvania State Constitution: "XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." May of those writers were the same Founding Fathers to our Constitution.
"Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; otherwise, this force would be annihilated on first exercise of acts of oppression. 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, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." - Noah Webster. Clearly, Webster wanted the people to remain armed since he saw it as their principle means of thwarting tyranny.
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." - Richard Henry Lee
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public servants." - George Mason
"...and that the said Constitution be never construed to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...” - Samuel Adams
New Hampshire Bill of Rights written by many of the same Founding Fathers of The Constitution; "XII. Congress shall never disarm any citizen, unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion."
From Virginia came the following: "Seventeenth, that the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural, an safe defense of a free state.”
From New York came the following: "That the people have the right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia, including the body of the people capable of bearing arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state."
Pennsylvania's 1790 Constitution states: "That the general, great, and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and unalterably established, we declare…Sec. 21, That the right of the citizens to bear arms, if defense of themselves and the State, shall not be questioned.”
In Kentucky, James Madison himself aided the drafting of their 1792 constitution. It says the following: "That the right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus, Roman Historian 55-117 A.D.
"In America, freedom and justice have always come from the ballot box, the jury box, and when that falls, the cartridge box." - Steve Symms, U.S. Senator, Idaho
"Americans have a right and advantage of being armed, unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison, The Federalist Papers. No.46 at 243-244.
"The right of the people to keep and bear... arms shall not infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." - James Madison, I Annuals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
"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." - The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, proposed Sept.25, 1789; ratified Dec.15, 1791.
"The ultimate authority... resides in the people alone.” - James Madison, The Federalist, No.46.
"The sacred Rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power." Alexander Hamilton
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." - George Mason, 1776.
"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effective way to enslave them..." - George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debate at 380.
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed…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… "-- Noah Webster, "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution" (1787), in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States (P. Ford, 1888).
GEORGE WASHINGTON, First President and Father of the Country: “A free people ought to be armed. " George Washington, speech of January 7, 1790, in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, 1790.
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations" - James Madison
"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samuel Adams, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, pages 86-87.
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are to be left in full possession of them." - Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliott, Debates at page 646.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, pages 184-188.
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense..." - John Adams, A defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471(1788)
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." - Richard Henry Lee writing in "Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic"
"Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands." - George Washington
"When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour." - President George Washington
"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)
"In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms... The phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments - that is, each and every free person. A select militia defined as only the privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of the press.” - Stephen P. Holbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right", University of New Mexico Press, 1984, pp.83-84.
"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 swords, 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, Revenue Commissioner appointed by President George Washington.
"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 "Political Disquisitions: Cr, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses" [London, 1774~1775]
"Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man, as far as by it he does not hurt and control the right of another; and this is the only check witch it ought to suffer, the only bounds which it ought to know. This sacred privilege is so essential to free government that the security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and in those wretched countries were a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of the nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to public traitors." - Cato's Letters. No.15, Feb. 4, 1720
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right, after all, is the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States. Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America." - (Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789)
"You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." - John Adams
The right of the people to bear arms is not “...in any manner dependent upon that instrument [The Constitution] for it's existence." - United States vs. Cruikshank, US Supreme Court, 1876.
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose that freedom. And the irony of it is that, if it is comfort or security that it values more, it will lose that too." - Somerset Maugham
"Necessity [or desperate times] is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." - William Pitt before the British House of Commons
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, Debates of 1776.
"It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from it's expression, that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of our federal judiciary; an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working by gravity by night and day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless footstep like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the states, and the government of all be consolidated into one." - Thomas Jefferson
"Such poor miserable creatures have misplaced values and are hiding their cowardice behind pretended family responsibility, blindly returning to see that the most glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is LIBERTY; and that the only true security is liberty." - Marvin Cool
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we attain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything it's value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated." - Thomas Paine (1776)
"The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power." - Daniel Webster
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
"The government turns every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself.” - John Adams
"I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. Let us not, I beseech you, deceive ourselves longer. We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm, which is now coming on. If we wish to be free we must fight, I repeat, we must fight." - Patrick Henry
"That no man should scruple, or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessing [as liberty], on which all the good and evil of life depends; is clearly my opinion; yet Arms...should be the last resort." - George Washington, (Letter to George Mason, 1789).
"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." - John Quincy Adams
"No rights are respected but those that are maintained by force." - Chief Justice John Marshall
"... the British Parliament was advised, by an artful man, to disarm the people that was the best and most effective way to enslave the people - but they should not do it openly; but to weaken them and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." - George Mason, Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1778.
"The invention of fire-arms, an invention which at first sight appears to be so pernicious, is certainly favorable both to the permanency and to the extension of civilization." - Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776).
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day. Events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - They deserve a place of honor with all that's good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour." - George Washington, Address to the Second Session, First United States Congress.
"... The right of the people to keep and bear.... may be regarded as the true palladium of liberty. The right to 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 limits possible." - Judge St. George Tucker, Editor, Blackstone's Commentaries, P.300 (1803)
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms, has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance; enable the people to resist and triumph over them." - Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, Ch. XLIV, 1897.
"...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.... Horrid mischief would ensue were [the law-abiding] deprived of the use of them." - Thomas Paine
"Government big enough to supply everything that you need is big enough to take everything that you have." - Thomas Jefferson
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... 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 Ceaser Beccria.
"Many cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid Almighty God, I know not what course others may take, but for me, give me liberty or give me death." - Patrick Henry
"I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves." - Thomas Jefferson, 1787.
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future…upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God." - Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and the blood of tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson
"We are completely saddled and bridled and the bank (the privately owned Bank of the United States) is so firmly mounted on us that we must go where they ill guide." - From Jefferson's letter to James Monroe.
"All the perplexities, contusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.” - John Adams in a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1787.
“If violent crime is to be curbed it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore, what he must be taught to fear is the victim." - Jeff Cooper, the father of modern combat hand gunning.
"He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense, incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself.” - A sermon, Philadelphia 1747.
"In truth, a state which deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists and thugs, and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat to state power than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and who act accordingly." - Jeffrey R. Snyder, The Public Interest, No.113, Fall 1993.
"As long as law-abiding citizens assume no personal responsibility for combating crime, liberal and conservative programs for curbing crime will fail." - Jeffrey R. Snyder, The Public Interest, No.113, Fall 1993.
"Republic -A system of government in which both the people and their rulers are subject to law. A government of laws and not of men. We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.” - Alexander Hamilton
"Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide." - Samuel Adams.
".... Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." - James Madison
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