John Ensign: “I am glad the Senator from Alabama asked that critical question. I think it is so important for Americans, people in…”

“I am glad the Senator from Alabama asked that critical question. I think it is so important for Americans, people in this body, but especially our Supreme Court Justices, to understand. We have to remember that the founding generation had just finished fighting the Revolution against a tyrannical government. They knew the true value of having an armed citizen population. Thomas Paine wrote in "Thoughts on Defensive War" in 1775: 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 Jefferson once said in a 1787 letter to William Smith: And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. . . . Patrick Henry said: Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? In fact, if you only take a cursory look at the 20th century, every single government that has perpetrated genocide has first disarmed its citizens.”