“An armed people are a free people. If our forefathers were not armed before the American Revolution we would all be speaking English today.”

Grover Norquist via Twitter, 02 Jan 2016, 23:12 UTC. https://twitter.com/grovernorquist/status/683425783470239744.
2015

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Conservative Lobbyist 1956

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Variant: [The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
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Context: Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

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:: A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.
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We will rely on God's almighty arm,
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Wir wollen sein ein einzig Volk von Brüdern,
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Wir wollen frei sein, wie die Väter waren,
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Act II, Sc. 2, as translated by C. T. Brooke
Variant translation: We shall be a single People of brethren,
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