“When any nation mistrusts its citizens with guns it is sending a clear message. It no longer trusts its citizens with guns because such a government has evil plans.”
— George Washington
Category: Quote O’ The Day
“It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.” – Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
What it means to take rights seriously is that one will honor them even when there is significant social cost in doing so. —Sanford Levinson
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, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
You may not like guns, and choose not to own one. That is your right.
You might not believe in God. That is your choice.
However, if someone breaks into your home the first 2 things you’re going to do are:
1) Call someone with a gun.
2) Pray they get there in time.
– Unknown
There’s no such thing as a good gun. There’s no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys.
– Charlton Heston
“Smart” guns and “safety” locks aren’t meant to protect children. They’re meant to kill gun owners. —Victor Milan
And here’s what the founder of the nation thought about ‘democracy’.
I feel that the Second Amendment is the right to keep and bear arms for our citizenry. This is not for someone who’s in the military. This is not for law enforcement. This is for us. And, in fact, when you read that Constitution and the Founding Fathers, they intended this to stop tyranny.
–Sharron Angle
September 1, 2025
Observed the first Monday in September, Labor Day is an annual celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers. The holiday is rooted in the late nineteenth century, when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America’s strength, prosperity, and well-being.
Early Adopters
Before it was a federal holiday, Labor Day was recognized by labor activists and individual states. After municipal ordinances were passed in 1885 and 1886, a movement developed to secure state legislation. New York was the first state to introduce a bill, but Oregon was the first to pass a law recognizing Labor Day, on February 21, 1887. During 1887, four more states – Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York – passed laws creating a Labor Day holiday. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday.
McGuire v. Maguire: Who Founded Labor Day?
Who first proposed the holiday for workers? It’s not entirely clear, but two workers can make a solid claim to the Founder of Labor Day title.
Some records show that in 1882, Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, suggested setting aside a day for a “general holiday for the laboring classes” to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”
But Peter McGuire’s place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that machinist Matthew Maguire, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday.
Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, New Jersey, proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York.
According to the New Jersey Historical Society, after President Cleveland signed the law creating a national Labor Day, the Paterson Morning Call published an opinion piece stating that “the souvenir pen should go to Alderman Matthew Maguire of this city, who is the undisputed author of Labor Day as a holiday.” Both Maguire and McGuire attended the country’s first Labor Day parade in New York City that year.
The First Labor Day
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.
By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.
A Nationwide Holiday
Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties – festivities very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday, which suggested that the day should be observed with – a street parade to exhibit “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.
Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.
American labor has raised the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known and the labor movement has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article (THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN THE BILL OF RIGHTS) in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
– Tench Coxe, Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
Do not forget what the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government – and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws. – Edward Abbey
“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,’ ‘the security of the nations,’ and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,’ our founding father recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy…The 2nd Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the 2nd Amendment will always be important.” -John Kennedy
Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of a safety hazard don’t see the danger of the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use this same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like.
~ Alan Dershowitz
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
– SCOTUS in West Virginia v Barnette (1943)
Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
— Thomas Jefferson
“There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people had not been “brainwashed” about gun ownership and they had been well armed. Hitler’s thugs and goons were not very brave when confronted by a gun. Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half starved group of Jews took up 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazi’s.”
— Theodore Haas, former prisoner of the Dachau concentration camp
“Do you wish to preserve your rights?
Arm yourselves.
Do you desire to secure your dwellings?
Arm yourselves.
Do you wish your wives and daughters protected?
Arm yourselves.
Do you wish to be defended against assassins or the Bully Rocks of faction?
Arm yourselves.
Do you desire to assemble in security to consult for your own good or the good of your country?
Arm yourselves.
To arms, to arms, and you may then sit down contented, each man under his own vine and his own fig-tree and have no one to make him afraid….
If you are desirous to counteract a design pregnant with misery and ruin, then arm yourselves; for in a firm, imposing and dignified attitude, will consist your own security and that of your families.
To arms, then to arms….”—Tench Coxe
To all those yammering for gun confiscation:
Go get the guns from the criminals first. You know, like a test run.