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• Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a distinct order in the state.
  ...the end of the social compact is defeated... No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state....
• 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 Constitution of the United States of America Amendment 2, 1791...
• By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia'
  he 'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms', our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy....
• Militias, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves and include all men capable of bearing arms.
  [...] 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....
• In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length' at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia
  we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument....
• The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be _tremendous and irresistable_.
  Who are the militia? _are they not ourselves_. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms _each man against his own bosom_....
• Why aren't the members of the NRA required to do weekend National Guard Duty?
  That is a well regulated militia....
• No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime
  unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public dange...
• The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.
  -- Samuel Adams During Mass' Constitution ratification Convention, 1788...