“(1) Every year, in this nation of more than a quarter billion individuals, a few thousand (three quarters of them suicides) are killed with firearms, while millions of Americans successfully use personal weapons to save themselves and others from injury or death. Guns save many, many times more lives than they take.
(2) In every jurisdiction that has made it even microscopically easier for individuals to carry weapons, violent crime rates have plummeted by double-digit percentages. Vermont, where no permission of any kind is required to carry a gun, is named in many respectable surveys as the safest state to live in.
(3) More telling and urgent, every episode of genocidal mass murder in history has been preceded by a period of intense disarming of the civil population, usually with 'public safety' or 'national security' as an excuse. According to Amnesty International — hardly a gang of right wing crazies — in the 20th century alone (in events entirely separate from war), governments have slaughtered more than a hundred million people, usually their own citizens.”

[Koper, Christopher S., w:Christopher S. Koper, America’s experience with the federal assault weapons ban, 1994–2004, Reducing Gun Violence, 2013, 168, 9781421411101, http://www.uiw.edu/library/documents/reducing_gun_violence_in_america.pdf]

The Big Picture: An American Commentary (1991)

2010s, 2016, August, Speech at rally in Wilmington, North Carolina (August 9, 2016)

Man's Rise to Civilization (1968)
Context: Millions of dollars have been expended to excavate and transport to museums the tools, weapons, and other artifacts of Indians—but scarcely a penny has been spent to save the living descendents of those who made them. Modern man is prompt to prevent cruelty to animals, and sometimes even to humans, but no counterpart of the Humane Society or the Sierra Club exists to prevent cruelty to entire cultures.<!-- p. 275

&quot; My Philanthropic Pledge http://givingpledge.org/pdf/letters/Buffett_Letter.pdf&quot; at the The Giving Pledge (2010) <br class="br">Context: More than 99% of my wealth will go to philanthropy during my lifetime or at death. Measured by dollars, this commitment is large. In a comparative sense, though, many individuals give more to others every day.<br>Millions of people who regularly contribute to churches, schools, and other organizations thereby relinquish the use of funds that would otherwise benefit their own families. The dollars these people drop into a collection plate or give to United Way mean forgone movies, dinners out, or other personal pleasures. In contrast, my family and I will give up nothing we need or want by fulfilling this 99% pledge.<br>Moreover, this pledge does not leave me contributing the most precious asset, which is time. Many people, including — I’m proud to say — my three children, give extensively of their own time and talents to help others. Gifts of this kind often prove far more valuable than money.

The Socialist Party and the Working Class (1904)

California Legislature Stunned By Invasion Of Armed &quot;Black Panthers&quot; https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&amp;dat=19670503&amp;id=ClcmAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=ZP8FAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=1072,5010951&amp;hl=en, Gettysburg Times (3 May 1967) <br class="br">1960s

As quoted and paraphrased in "I Have Been a Babe and a Boob" by Joe Winkworth, in Collier's (October 31, 1925), p. 15
Context: "I am through—through with the pests and the good-time guys. Between them and a few crooks I have thrown away more than a quarter of a million dollars. I have been a Babe—and a Boob. I'm through." [Ruth] confesses he faces either oblivion or the hard task of complete reformation. [He] realizes that he must make good all over again. "I am going to do it," he said. "I was going to be the exception, the popular hero who could do as he pleased. But all those people were right. Babe and Boob—that was me all over. Now, though, I know that if I am to wind up sitting pretty on the world I've got to face the facts and admit I have been the sappiest of saps. All right, I admit it. I haven't any desire to kid myself."

October 2011; Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102012242?q=Ban+Ki-moon&amp;p=par