“I know
it’s stupid to not own a gun yet have

so many triggers, but in some other world
gigantic seashells hold humans

to their ears and listen to the echo
of machines.”

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 21.

Review of Power: A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell in The Adelphi (January 1939); Paraphrased variant: Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
Context: If there are certain pages of Mr Bertrand Russell's book, Power, which seem rather empty, that is merely to say that we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. It is not merely that at present the rule of naked force obtains almost everywhere. Probably that has always been the case. Where this age differs from those immediately preceding it is that a liberal intelligentsia is lacking. Bully-worship, under various disguises, has become a universal religion, and such truisms as that a machine-gun is still a machine-gun even when a "good" man is squeezing the trigger — and that in effect is what Mr Russell is saying — have turned into heresies which it is actually becoming dangerous to utter.

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

At the University of Southern California (February 6, 1989) when asked his opinion on gun control after the January 17, 1989 Cleveland Elementary School shooting that killed five schoolchildren in Stockton ([Becklund, Laurie, `Saddled Up' Reagan Vows to Speak on Issues, Los Angeles Times, February 7, 1989, 1]).
Post-presidency (1989–2004)

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Source: Witness (1952), p. 58