<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div><font size="4">In an attempt to keep right wing bullshit off the Occupy!™ listserve I offer the following commentary:</font></div><div><div class="original-url" style="font-family: Futura-Medium;"><a href="http://kryo.com/2ndAmen/Quotes.htm">http://kryo.com/2ndAmen/Quotes.htm</a><br><br></div><div id="article" class="auto-hyphenated" style="-webkit-hyphens: auto;"><div class="page" style="text-align: justify;"><h1 class="title" style="line-height: 1.25em; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 1.33em; text-align: start; -webkit-hyphens: manual;">Quotes, Misquotes, Out-of-Context Cites, Hoaxes</h1><i style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><a href="mailto:SK@Krulick.com" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127);">SK@Krulick.com</a> <br>PO Box 467, Ellenville NY 12428<br>© 2009, Kryolux Inc</i><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Whenever those who can't deal with the challenge to their cherished and stubbornly-held beliefs about the 2nd Amendment feel "out of ammo," the dreary and predictable tactic is to go to some pro-gun site, where they can conveniently cut & paste the same pre-digested boilerplate list of "Founders' Quotes" that are copied from site to site, from the NRA on down, but with nary any attempt to determine which are REAL quotes, which are ACCURATE quotes, which are FULL-IN-CONTEXT quotes, and which even mean what they <i>think</i> they mean.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">My introduction to 2nd Amen studies BEGAN with getting hit with one of these "walls of quotes" and a gut feeling that some didn't even sound like the supposed authors' styles or beliefs, others seemed chopped... and truncated... too much, others seemed irrelevant to the issue of the meaning and purpose OF the 2nd Amen, and still others seemed to lack a surrounding context to determine WHY the quote even exists at all. Tracking down the ORIGINAL versions often took wading through hundreds of the bogus versions, as these bogus versions were the ones that got repeatedly posted to hundreds of sites without any attempt to determine IF the cite were valid or properly framed.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">And in EVERY case, the quotes simply didn't hold up as real or accurate or relevant, didn't support the claims of the hoplophile apologists, and raised questions about the integrity and scholarship of the spewers of these quote lists, the sites that post them, and those "responsible" for the original distortions or disingenuous fabrications.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Here are some of the most egregious of the bogus or misrepresentative quotes, by supposed author, in rough chronological order.</p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">-----</span><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>THOMAS JEFFERSON:</b></p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><b></b></span><i style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><p>"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"</p></i><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Occasionally this phony quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson is given with the following citation: <i>Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J.Boyd, Ed., 1950)</i>. The publication exists, but the quote does not. And the editor's correct name is Julian P. Boyd, not C.J. Boyd. In other cases, this quote is added to the end of a proven Jefferson quote <i>"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms..."</i> Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776, Jefferson Papers 344.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>HOWEVER, HE DIDN'T SAY IT! IT'S BOGUS! IT'S MADE UP!</b></p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">(For what Jefferson REALLY said about the reason for and meaning of the 2nd Amen, see reference to the Priestley letter at <a href="Purpose.htm" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127);">Purpose of the 2nd Amendment</a>.)</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">But even the partially true cite is not the whole story:</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">This is NOT the same as what he ACTUALLY said, in context:</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">"No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements."</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">AND it is NOT complete. It is therefore a MISQUOTE, rather than being a quote. Misquoting and partial quoting out of context is typical of hoplophile pseudoscholarship, and one merely has to GO to the URL site where these bastardized quotes are compiled to see a whole string of similar pettifoggery, a whole series of INACCURATE, INCOMPLETE, and OUT-OF-CONTEXT misquotes that misrepresent what each author was actually saying.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Sloppy research leads to sloppy presentation, and hoplophiles have been doing this consistently.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Back to the cite: Incomplete, inaccurate, out of context, never enacted.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Therefore, irrelevant and misleading.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">This 1776 "mis"quote is NOT a reference to the 2nd Amen, written 13 years later! Therefore, it obviously has nothing to do with what TJ had to say about the 2nd Amen and what it meant, or what Madison meant by "bear arms."</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">This PROPOSAL -- "No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements" -- by Jefferson for the 1776 Virginia Constitution WAS REJECTED; it did not make it into the VA Const, nor was it used later in the US Const. BTW, most leave out the part that restricted use of arms to one's OWN lands; even then the proposal was still left out. Also, "the use of arms" is not the same as "bear arms" which is a military expression that means to serve as a soldier in the militia or army.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">What WAS passed was the VA Declaration of Rights, which became part of the 1776 VA Const; Article 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights provides:</p><i style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><p>"That a well-regulated Militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defence of a free State; that Standing Armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power."</p></i><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">There is no mention of an individual right to "keep and bear arms," as Adams and Madison meant it, or, indeed any "individual" right at all, certainly not one independent of a well-regulated Militia. The focus of the article is on the role of the militia versus a standing army.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">As for the later US Constitution ratification debates, there is no mention in the Virginia debates of individuals carrying weapons, or of the need to assure individuals that the federal government would not confiscate their arms. The debate was solely in the context of whether the government would affirmatively provide arms for the militia.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">"Then there's the original Virginia Bill of Rights, the first adopted, that expressed both the colonists' allegiance to the idea of a citizen militia and their fear of standing armies:</p><b style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i></i></b><i style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><p><b>That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.</b> Reprinted in Sources of Our Liberties 312 (Perry & Cooper ed. 1959)</p></i><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">There is little doubt that this provision of the Virginia Bill of Rights was concerned exclusively with the distribution of military power and the proper role of the military in a free society. The language makes no suggestion of a right to bear arms.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">[In fact, the word "right" or "rights" isn't mentioned AT ALL! So THEY considered it A RIGHT, of ITSELF, that a well regulated militia for State defense merely EXISTED!]</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">The first state to adopt such language was Pennsylvania, which did so as part of its constitutional provision addressing military matters:</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">[Let me repeat THAT: <i>"which did so as part of its constitutional provision addressing military matters"</i>]</p><b style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i><p>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 kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.</p></i></b><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Other state constitutions proceeded to adopt variations of either the Virginia or Pennsylvania models. The states which included "right to bear arms" language did so in the context of provisions dealing with military matters.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">[Let me repeat THAT: "did so in the context of provisions dealing with military matters"]</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">...Thus, there is no indication from the history of the 2nd Amendment that the Founders were seeking a broad guarantee of the individual right to own firearms for any purpose. On the contrary, the expressed intention of the framers was to guarantee that state militias remained armed and viable, and the "right to keep and bear arms" must be understood as implementing that purpose. The implication of this intention is that the constitutionality of a statute regulating firearms should turn on whether the statute affects firearms in such a way as to adversely affect a state's ability to raise and maintain an armed "well-regulated militia."</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">-----</p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i></i></span><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed unless they try to take it." </i>-- Thomas Jefferson</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Another HOAX quote! TJ NEVER said this! And one can't show WHERE or WHEN, hence the name without a place, or date!</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">-----</p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i></i></span><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>"The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." </i>--Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:45</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">THE PEOPLE COLLECTIVELY! THAT idea is repeated over and over. Care to show a cite that REQUIRES EACH AND EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHATSOEVER "to be at all times armed"?</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">When established as a well regulated militia; otherwise you could justify insurrection and mobs.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">That's what the militia does and is: it is at all times armed!</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Can you point to any law that REQUIRED each and every individual person to own a gun and carry it "at all times"? (Only the PEOPLE in the collective sense can do THAT, "at all times"!)</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">It's as ludicrous as saying that in:</p><i style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><p>"That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted upon payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead."</p></i><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">"bear arms" here means simply "carry guns"!</p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><b></b></span><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><b>THE PEOPLE</b> is here THE WHOLE PEOPLE, the collective enfranchised body politic of freemen as the<i> populus armatus,</i> and NOT each and every individual sleeping with guns under their pillows! HE is referring to the <i>jus militiae</i> right of THE WHOLE PEOPLE, acting in concert, to democratically organize and control their military function, maintain their permanent readiness and upkeep as a militia (as opposed to armies being "raised" and "deponed"), and keep the military under civilian control.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">NOT each and every individual, but THE PEOPLE AS A WHOLE! And not necessarily that each had a gun, which in his time was perhaps 10% of the population, as proven by the very returns of militia HE demanded getting! It meant that THE PEOPLE AT LARGE maintain and control THEIR ever-ready well-regulated militias to defend against both foreign AND domestic enemies, and prevent the need for a professional army to get large enough to be a threat (<i>"standing armies... the bane of liberty"</i>).</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">-----</p><span style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i></i></span><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><i>"One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them."</i> --Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">First, let's even PRESUME this was about "GUNS"; this still wouldn't have anything to do with the 2nd Amen.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Irrelevant to the 2nd Amen, and has nothing to do with Madison's concept of "bearing arms." So wealthy landowners and slaveholders like Tom and George loved to collect expensive weapons. What does THAT have to do with anything, particularly a well regulated militia?</p><div style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">"To possess arms" has nothing to do with "to keep and bear arms"! The first is what one person does in personal ownership; the second is what THE PEOPLE do as the collective body politic, that is, they maintain the permanent readiness and upkeep of the state militia ("to keep arms" as John Adams meant it), and they render military service in person if qualified ("to bear arms" as Madison meant it in his original draft)</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">The founders loved pets too, but they saw no reason to protect the rights of pet owners. This is irrelevant to the 2nd Amen.</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">However, it turns out this line had NOTHING to do with firearms at all! It was a metaphor in which Jefferson was telling Washington that in a political debate one should have rhetorical and even blackmailing "weapons" at the ready to use against political opponents, but that it's better if one doesn't have to rely on such!</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Excerpt from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, June 19, 1796 (Jefferson is pleading with Washington to "arm" him with a copy of a report he thinks he might need for political defense. He's not really talking about guns at all.):</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">"While on the subject of papers, permit me to ask one from you. You remember the difference of opinion between Hamilton and Knox on the one part, and myself on the other, on the subject of firing on the Little Sarah, and that we had exchanged opinions and reasons in writing. On your arrival in Philadelphia I delivered you a copy of my reasons, in the presence of Colonel Hamilton. On our withdrawing, he told me he had been so much engaged that he had not been able to prepare a copy of his and General Knox's for you, and that if I would send you the one he had given me, he would replace it in a few days. I immediately sent it to you, wishing you should see both sides of the subject together. I often after applied to both the gentlemen, but could never obtain another copy. I have often thought of asking this one, or a copy of it, back from you, but have not before written on subjects of this kind to you. Though I do not know that it will ever be of the least importance to me, yet one loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. They possess my paper in my own handwriting. It is just I should possess theirs. The only thing amiss is, that they should have left me to seek a return of the paper, or a copy of it, from you"</p><p style="line-height: 1.4; font-family: Palatino, Georgia, Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">See page 339 of this: <a href="http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff09.txt" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(32, 0, 127);">http://www.constitution.org/tj/jeff09.txt</a></p><div><font size="4"><span style="line-height: 25px;">“If it’s on the internet it must be true.” </span></font>Regards, Mark </div></div></div></div></body></html>