According to the Jefferson Library, this is among the many statements misattributed to Jefferson. http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Category:Spurious_Quotations
Misattributed
“The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny of government.”
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Jeff Cooper 15
American journalist 1920–2006Related quotes
Quoted in Guns magazine "Know Your Lawmaker" column, p. 4. (Feb. 1960)
Source: This Law of Ours and Other Essays (1987), Chapter: Calling All Muslims, Radio Broadcast # 7, p 116
Letter to George Richards Minot (June 12, 1789), reported in Fisher Ames, Seth Ames, John Thornton Kirkland, Works of Fisher Ames: With a Selection from His Speeches and Correspondence (1854), p. 54.
“The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”
Original: (fr) Le gouvernement de la révolution est le despotisme de la liberté contre la tyrannie.
Source: Speech to the National Convention http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_principes_morale_politique_05_02_94.htm (5 February 1794)
“The revolutionary government is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.”
Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)
In Miriam Bensimhorn, Advocates: Point and Counterpoint, Laurence Tribe and Robert Bork Debate the Framers' Spacious Terms, LIFE magazine, Fall 1991 (Special Issue).
Source: The Constitution of the United States of America
In Quest of Democracy (1991)