Quotes of gun-smart people

It's unfortunate we don't have people this smart in the White House and Congress now!

"Bulworth" posted these on CNN.com:

GEORGE WASHINGTON
"The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference. They deserve a place of honor with all that is good."

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr,1785

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796.

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. Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment, by criminologist Cesare Beccaria, 1764

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, 1776, Jefferson Papers 344.

JAMES MADISON
"Americans [have] the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust their people with arms."

SAMUEL ADAMS
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms . . ."

TENCHE COXE
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves?

RICHARD HENRY LEE
"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves ... and include all men capable of bearing arms."

ALEXANDER HAMILTON
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."