Quotes about gun (918 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“In democracy, wishing bad for an incoming government is like buying a gun, buying the bullets, loading it and wishing to be killed with it: sovereign dogmatic stupidity.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: 1480 AM Rock&Pop.

Democracy , Stupidity

“It's like I've got a shotgun in my mouth with my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal.”

Robert Downey Jr. (1965) American actor

Source: explaining his drug addiction in 1999 to a judge

“One man with a gun can control 100 without one.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Not found in Lenin's Collected Works. Began to surface on the internet in the mid-1990s.
Misattributed
Variant: One man with a gun can control a hundred without one.

“Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms, a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.”

Thomas Sankara (1949–1987) President of Upper Volta

Men , Food , Fight

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Often attributed to Stalin, there is not a single source which show that Stalin said this at any given time. There is only one source outside the blogosphere which attributes the quote to Stalin, but does not provide any evidence for the attribution. That source is the book Quotations for Public Speakers : A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology (2001), p. 121 by the former US senator Robert Torricelli.
Misattributed

Powerful , Idea

“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.”

Al Capone (1899–1947) American gangster

Misquoted in Forbes (6 October 1986), actually attributed to humorist Professor Irwin Corey (1953) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/11/03/kind-gun/
Disputed
Variant: You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

“i will live by the gun and die by the gun”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

Radio broadcast (1936), as quoted in The New Language of Politics: An Anecdotal Dictionary of Catchwords, Slogans, and Political Usage (1968) by William L. Safire, p. 178
Variants:
Guns will make us strong, butter will only make us fat.
We have no butter... but I ask you, would you rather have butter or guns? Preparedness makes us powerful. Butter merely makes us fat.

“Load up on guns, bring your friends.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

“I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people.”

Ozzy Osbourne (1948) English heavy metal vocalist and songwriter

SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 1998: QUESTIONS FOR; Ozzy Osbourne New York Times.

People

“He's the one
Who likes all our pretty songs
And he likes to sing along
And he likes to shoot his gun
But he knows not what it means.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

Song lyrics, Nevermind (1991)

Singing

“I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Variant: I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.

“Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages. They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler [sic], and then Biebler [sic] says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, talking about Justin Bieber! It's pure evil! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex Jones: The "Justin Biebler" Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMB0KyhPN8, 21 February 2011.
2011

Love , Life , Children , People

“Oh, you've got a gun? So, you want to pop that?”

Snoop Dogg (1971) American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

"Drop It Like It's Hot" (2004), R&G: The Masterpiece (2004).

“Cause the registration of firearms so that you can eventually confiscate them. Gun control, Communist idea. Lenin said, "One person with a gun can control a hundred people without one." Imagine this scene. You're standing in a bank trying to cash a check. Somebody runs in there, pulls out a gun, and says, "Everybody lay on the floor!" So everybody lies on the floor. Now imagine this scene. Every citizen is armed. The guy runs in the bank, "Lay on the floor!" Everybody else pulls out their guns. You lay on the floor while they all stomp on your head. Every dictator throughout history has wanted gun control. It's just a normal thing. You have to control the guns. Every dictator has wanted that. Gun control isn't about guns, it's about control. Somebody sent me this button as a joke, "Proudly Unarmed". Would you wear this? What does this say to a criminal? "Rob me!"”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Isn't that what it says?
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

People , Guy , Imagination , History

“Violence is sometimes a very practical solution but I don’t think it is the ultimate solution. Owning a gun is not OK for me. But I could argue both sides. Why shouldn’t people own them? I’m not fundamentally against citizens having access to a weapon but I think it has complications. It’s probably not the wisest idea. Obviously, it has consequences. Personally, I do not own a weapon.”

Keanu Reeves (1964) Canadian actor, director, producer and musician

Idea , Thinking , People , Personality

“The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun”

Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor

“If guns cause crime, all of mine are defective.”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

Source: God, Guns & Rock'N'Roll

“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Peaceful

“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

Religion

“Bombardment, barrage, curtain-fire, mines, gas, tanks, machine-guns, hand-grenades - words, words, but they hold the horror of the world.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

World

“Today I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter's gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat, do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) former Palestinian President, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

1970s, Speech to UN General Assembly (1974)

Freedom

“I walked into the range, rented a handgun from the ugly old redneck cashier, and started to practice shooting at paper targets. As I fired my first few rounds, I felt so sick to the stomach. I questioned my whole life, and I looked at the gun in front of me and asked myself “What am I doing here? How could things have led to this?” I couldn’t believe my life was actually turning out this way. There I was, practicing shooting with real guns because I had a plan to carry out a massacre. Why did things have to be this way, I silently questioned myself as I looked at the handgun I was holding in front of me. I paid my fee and left the range within minutes, feeling as if I was going to be sick.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), 19-22, UC Santa Barbara, Building to Violence

Life , Way , Feeling , Question

“And now in America itself after 30 years of experimenting with the Great Society programmes, there is widespread crime and violence, children kill each other with guns, neigbourhoods are insecure, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself.”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

Lee Kuan Yew, Interview with Nathan Gardels of Global Viewpoint, Sept 26 1995 http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/017-1995-09-26.pdf
1990s

Children , People , Family , Feeling

“It's not my liking for guns, what about the NRA? We all have the rights to bear arms, I have that, I have that same right as you do. Just because I'm black doesn't mean I shouldn't have a gun; I legally own guns.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Interview outside courthouse (1994)

“The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities that we've ever seen in history. Now, what they will argue, is that they don't use this for nefarious purposes against American citizens. In some ways, that's true but the real problem is that they're using these capabilities to make us vulnerable to them and then saying, 'well I have a gun pointed at your head. I'm not going to pull the trigger. Trust me.”

Edward Snowden (1983) American whistleblower and former National Security Agency contractor

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M&feature=youtu.be&t=1048,
2016

Way , History , Problem

“We have to understand who we are and where we fit in the natural order of the world because our oppressor deals in illusions. They tell us that it is power, but it is not power. They may have all the guns and they may have all the racist laws and judges, and they may control all the money, but that is not power. These are imitations of power and they are only ‘power’ because in our minds we allow it to be power.”

John Trudell (1946–2015) Native American rights activist, musician, poet

"We are Power" speech (1980)

Money , World , Law , Understanding

“The thing that I think very striking is that no one, or no one I can remember, ever writes of an execution with approval. The dominant note is always horror. Society, apparently, cannot get along without capital punishment—for there are some people whom it is simply not safe to leave alive—and yet there is no one, when the pinch comes, who feels it right to kill another human being in cold blood. I watched a man hanged once. There was no question that everybody concerned knew this to be a dreadful, unnatural action. I believe it is always the same—the whole jail, warders and prisoners alike, is upset when there is an execution. It is probably the fact that capital punishment is accepted as necessary, and yet instinctively felt to be wrong, that gives so many descriptions of executions their tragic atmosphere. They are mostly written by people who have actually watched an execution and feel it to be a terrible and only partly comprehensible experience which they want to record; whereas battle literature is largely written by people who have never heard a gun go off and think of a battle as a sort of football match in which nobody gets hurt.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please" column in The Tribune (3 November 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup>
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

People , Feeling , Literature , Question

“I was a soldier, and I created a machine gun for a soldier. It was called an Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov — AK — and it carried the date of its first manufacture, 1947.”

Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013) Soviet and Russian small arms designer

For Patriotism and Profit (2001)
Context: I was in the hospital, and a soldier in the bed beside me asked: "Why do our soldiers have only one rifle for two or three of our men, when the Germans have automatics?" So I designed one. I was a soldier, and I created a machine gun for a soldier. It was called an Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov — AK — and it carried the date of its first manufacture, 1947.

“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”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

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.

Age , Religion , Universe

“You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: The Dresden Files, Turn Coat (2009), Chapter 24
Context: Harry Dresden: You’re in America now. Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you’d prefer.
Anastasia Luccio: Did you bring a sandwich?
Harry Dresden: What do I look like, Kissinger?

Idea

“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?”

Ernest J. Gaines (1933–2019) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

Men

“When I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Feeling , Happiness

“Who shot him? I asked.
The grey man scratched the back of his neck and said: Somebody with a gun.”

Dashiell Hammett book Red Harvest

Source: Red Harvest

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

1950s, The Chance for Peace (1953)
Context: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?

Money , Hunger , Children , World

“I have a very strict gun control policy: if there's a gun around, I want to be in control of it.”

Clint Eastwood (1930) actor and director from the United States

“The lawyer with the briefcase can steal more money than the man with the gun.”

Mario Puzo The Godfather

Variant: Lawyers can steal more money with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks."

-Don Vito Corleone
Source: The Godfather

Money

“It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 11
Jean Louise (Scout) Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Father's Day , For Father , Hate , War

“Speaking personally, you can have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead fingers off of the binding.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Books , Personality , Dead

“Sweet dreams though the guns are booming.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

Dreams

“To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or a hen not to cackle.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

“Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: Enough Rope

Pain , Law

“Every day in the United States, seventeen children are killed by gunfire. That’s about 6,000 children each year who are killed by guns, as compared, for example, with about 3,000 a year who died at the height of the polio epidemic of the 1950s. We rose up as a society to fight against polio. Why do we not act more forcefully to halt today’s even greater scourge?”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

Source: Sources of Strength: Meditations on Scripture for a Living Faith

Children , Fight

“We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Love , Death , Family , Law

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they’re defeated by better ideas -- a more attractive and compelling vision.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Leaders' Summit on Countering ISIL and Violent Extremism speech (September 2015)

Idea

“The answer to crime is not gun control, it is law enforcement and self-control.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes, U.S. Senate debate in Illinois, October 21, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_21debate2.htm.
2009

Law

“One may view the individual’s everyday life in terms of the working away of a conversational apparatus that ongoingly maintains, modifies and reconstructs his subjective reality… [for example] ‘Well, it’s time for me to get to the station,’ and ‘Fine, darling, have a good day at the office’ implies an entire world within which these apparently simple propositions make sense… the exchange confirms the subjective reality of this world… the great part, if not all, of everyday conversation maintains subjective reality… imagine the effect…of an exchange like this: ‘Well, it’s time for me to get to the station,’ ‘Fine, darling, don’t forget to take along your gun.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 147-163

Life , World , Imagination , Reality

“Hitler took the guns, Stalin took the guns, Mao took the guns, Fidel Castro took the guns, Hugo Chávez took the guns. And I am here to tell you, 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms! It doesn't matter how many lemmings you get out there on the street begging for them to have their guns taken; we will not relinquish them, do you understand? That's why you're going to fail, and the establishment knows, no matter how much propaganda, the Republic will rise again when you attempt to take our guns!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex Jones on Piers Morgan Tonight http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1301/12/pmt.01.html debating gun control, CNN, 7 January 2013 ( video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XZvMwcluEg).
2013

Understanding

“Because of the work of generations, because we’ve stood together in a great alliance, because people across this continent have forged a European Union dedicated to cooperation and peace, we have made historic progress toward the vision we share -- a Europe that is whole and free and at peace. And yet, as we gather here today, we know that this vision is threatened by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. It is a brazen assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine -- a sovereign and independent European nation. It challenges that most basic of principles of our international system -- that borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun; that nations have the right to determine their own future.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

It undermines an international order where the rights of peoples and nations are upheld and can’t simply be taken away by brute force.
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People , Peace , Future

“Nowadays you don't go around on the street kicking people, punching people — because if you do (makes gun shape with hand), well that's it — I don't care how good you are.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Bruce Lee interview on the Pierre Berton Show (1971)

People

“I refuse to accept the notion that we couldn’t have prevented some of those murders, and suicides, and kept more families whole. I know we won’t all agree on this issue. But it’s time to be honest — fewer gun safety laws don’t mean more freedom, they mean more fallen officers. They mean more grieving families, and more Americans terrified that they or their loved ones could be next.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Obama Police Chiefs (10-27-2015) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-police-chiefs_us_562fa716e4b06317990f8af3?654mfgvi=
2015

Love , Family , Law , Suicide

“We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don’t work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.
We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours — Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks after the Umpqua Community College shooting (October 2015)

Death , Law , Way , Country

“I do not believe in taking away the right of the citizen to own guns for sporting, hunting and so forth, or for home defense. But I do believe that an AK-47, a machine gun, is not a sporting weapon.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

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)

Home , Sport

“Guns are not only for soldiers. Every person can own a gun. If they shoot, you shoot back.”

Jean Kambanda (1955) Rwandan politician

Translated from Rwanda-Rundi
PBS Frontline: Ghosts of Rwanda http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/etc/script.html. Transcript.

Personality

“Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles away from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.
Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.
And everyday my government gives me a count of corpses created by the military service in Vietnam. So it goes.
My father died many years ago now — of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

Home , Nature , Summer , Night

“At present, many of the ablest minds are trying to devise expedients for preventing a repetition of the awful conflict which is only theoretically ended and the duration and main issues of which I have correctly predicted in an article printed in the Sun of December 20, 1914. The proposed League is not a remedy but, on the contrary, in the opinion of a number of competent men, may bring about results just the opposite. It is particularly regrettable that a punitive policy was adopted in framing the terms of peace, because a few years hence, it will be possible for nations to fight without armies, ships or guns, by weapons far more terrible, to the destructive action and range of which there is virtually no limit. Any city, at a distance, whatsoever, from the enemy, can be destroyed by him and no power on earth can stop him from doing so.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Men , Peace , Sun , Fight

“It is not also taught you in Scripture, that you should desire St. Rock to preserve you from the pestilence, to pray to St. Barbarra to defend you from thunder or gun-shot, to offer St. Loy an horse of wax, a pig to St. Anthony, a candle to St, Sithine. But I should be too long, if I were to rehearse unto you all the superstitions that have grown out of the invocation and praying to saints departed, wherewith men have been seduced, and God's honour given to creatures.
This was also no small abuse that we called the images by the names of the things, whom they did represent. For we were won't to say, "This is St. Ann's altar;"-"My father is gone a pilgrimage to our Lady of Walsingham;"-" In our church St. James standeth on the right hand of the high altar." These speeches we were wont to use, although they be not to be commended. For St. Austin in the exposition of the 113th Psalm affirmeth, that they who do call such images, as the carpenter hath made, do change the truth of God into a lie. It is not also taught you in all Scripture.
Thus, good children, I have declared how we were wont to abuse images, not that hereby I condemn your fathers, who were men of great devotion, and had an earnest love towards God, although their zeal in all points was not ruled and governed by true knowledge, but they were seduced and blinded partly by the common ignorance that reigned in their time, partly by the covetousness of their teachers, who abused the simplicity of the unlearned people to the maintenance of their own lucre and glory. But this be profitable, for if they had, either Christ would have taught it or the Holy Ghost would have revealed it unto the Apostles, which they did not. And if they did, the Apostles were very negligent that would not make some mention of it, and speak some good word for images, seeing that they speak so many against them. And by this means Anti-christ and his holy Papists had more knowledge or fervent zeal to give s godly things ad profitable for us, than had the very holy saints of Christ, yea more than Christ himself and the Holy Ghost. Now forasmuch, good children, as images be neither necessary nor profitable in our churches and temples, nor were not used at the beginning in Christ's nor the Apostles' time, nor many years after, and that at length they were brought in by bishops of Rome, maugre emperors' teeth; and seeing also, that they be very slanderous to Christ's religion, for by them the name of God is blasphemed among the infidels, Turks, and Jews, which because of our images do call Christian religion, idolatry and worshiping of images: and for as much also, as they have been so wonderfully abused within this realm to the high contumely and dishonor of God, and have been great cause of blindness and of much contention among the King's Majesty's loving subjects and are like so to be still, if they should remain: and chiefly seeing God's word speaketh so much against them, you may hereby right well consider what great causes and ground the King's Majesty had to take them away within his realm, following here in the example of the godly King Hezekias, who brake down the brazen serpent, when he saw it worshiped, and was therefore praised of God, notwithstanding at the first the same was made and set up by God's commandment, and was not only a remembrance of God's benefits, before received, but also a figure of Christ to come. And not only Hezekias, but also Manasses, and Jehosaphat, and Josias, the best kings that were of the Jews, did pull down images in the time of their reign.”

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury

The Life, Martyrdom, and Selections from the Writings of Thomas Cranmer https://books.google.com/books?id=FvNeAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=The+Life,+Martyrdom,+and+Selections+from+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Cranmer+...&source=bl&ots=LbXiMjz5Zp&sig=0pi5SHuxfdt_YUoiJcxvLgr7x5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjzmZL_wsfaAhVl6YMKHWubBkcQ6AEILDAB by Thomas Cranmer, p.139-142, (1809)

Love , Men , God , Children

“A few guys with guns can spoil everything.
-- The Masked Rider ()”

Neil Peart (1952–2020) Canadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author

Rush Lyrics

Guy

“I regard [the many worlds interpretation] as self-evidently correct. [T. F.: Yet some don't find it evident to themselves. ] Yeah, well, there are some people who spend an awful lot of time talking about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. My attitude — I would paraphrase Goering—is that when I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Heard in person by this contributor when Hawking showed-up in a Caltech physics class taught by Robert Christy in 1980 or '81; when asked about collapse of the state-vector he whispered to his assistant Chris (surname unknown) something at which point Chris stood up and said 'Stephen is paraphrasing Herman Göring by saying "When I hear the words 'Schrödinger's Cat' I reach for my gun."'.
Source: In a conversation with Timothy Ferris (4 April 1983), as quoted in The Whole Shebang (1998) by Timothy Ferris, p. 345 http://books.google.com/books?id=qjYbQ7EBAKwC&lpg=PA345&ots=F6VWymjiPx&dq=%22reach%20for%20my%20revolver%22%20hawking%20-%22oft-made%22&pg=PA345#v=onepage&q=%22reach%20for%20my%20revolver%22%20hawking%20-%22oft-made%22&f=false

World , People , Time , Cats

“What can you do? More and more Americans are carrying a gun in the car. An ex-cop I know advises that if you have to use a gun on a youth, you should leave the scene immediately, disposing of the wiped off gun as soon as possible. Such a gun cannot, of course, be registered to you, but one bought privately (through the classifieds, for example.)
I frankly don't know what to make of such advice, but even in my little town of Jackson, Texas, I've urged everyone in my family to know how to use a gun in self-defense. For the animals are coming.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

1992
October
Blast 'Em?
Ron Paul Political Report
2
http://www.tnr.com/sites/default/files/PR_Oct92_p2.pdf
Disputed, Newsletters, Ron Paul Political Report

Youth , Family , Cars , Animals

“Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun.”

Martin Amis book Einstein's Monsters

"Introduction: Thinkability"
Einstein's Monsters (1987)

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

At a Philadelphia fundraiser, as quoted in "Obama: ‘If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a Gun’" http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/06/14/obama-if-they-bring-a-knife-to-the-fight-we-bring-a-gun/, The Wall Street Journal (14 June 2008)
2008

Fight

“Americans don't go around carrying guns with the idea they're using them to influence other Americans. There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

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

Idea

“We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President at Memorial Service for Fallen Dallas Police Officers https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/12/remarks-president-memorial-service-fallen-dallas-police-officers (12 July 2016)
2016

Books , Communication

“The guy was dead as hell. He lay on the floor in his pajamas with his brains scattered all over the rug and my gun was in his hand. I kept rubbing my face to wipe out the fuzz that clouded my mind but the cops wouldn't let me. One would pull my hand away and shout a question at me that made my head ache even worse and another would slap me with a wet rag until I felt like I had been split wide open.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Vengeance is Mine! (1950)

Guy , Hell , Question , Dead

“Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

Anatomy of an Illness (1979)

“Look these bastards in the eyes, and if anyone attacks you, already decide who will be the one to disconnect the railing where you are, and beat the hell out of them, the no-good bastards! And if you don't have a gun, every one of them has one gun, two guns, maybe three guns. In self-defense, if they attack you, take their goddamn guns from them and use their guns on them! In self-defense. Giuliani is known for taking his police and sending them off in riots. If any one of these bastards riots here today, you take their nightstick the way they did brother Abner Louima and ram it up their behind and jam it down their damn throats!”

Khalid Abdul Muhammad (1948–2001) American activist

Million Youth March (5 September 1998), quoted in The Village Voice (13 October 1998) "The Hunt for Khallid Abdul Muhammad" by Peter Noel

Way , Hell

“To achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East takes guts, not guns.”

Queen Rania of Jordan (1970) Queen consort of Jordan

TIME interview (2007)

Peace

“Now, those who were killed and injured here were gunned down by a single killer with a powerful assault weapon. The motives of this killer may have been different than the mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown. But the instruments of death were so similar. And now another 49 innocent people are dead; another 53 are injured; some are still fighting for their lives; some will have wounds that will last a lifetime. We can’t anticipate or catch every single deranged person that may wish to do harm to his neighbors or his friends or his coworkers or strangers. But we can do something about the amount of damage that they do. Unfortunately, our politics have conspired to make it as easy as possible for a terrorist or just a disturbed individual like those in Aurora and Newtown to buy extraordinarily powerful weapons, and they can do so legally.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

In Orlando after the Orlando nightclub shooting ([President Obama: Orlando Families' Grief Is 'Beyond Description', Time, Maya, Rhodan, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, http://time.com/4372190/orlando-shooting-barack-obama-joe-biden-grief/]; [‘Our hearts are broken, too’: Obama visits survivors of Orlando rampage, Katie, Zezima, Ellen, Nakashima, Mark, Berman, June 16, 2016, September 2, 2018, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/16/obama-looks-toward-grieving-orlando-in-visit-as-political-showdowns-expand-after-massacre/]; [After meeting with Orlando victims, Obama renews call for gun control, Gregory, Korte, USA Today, June 16, 2016, September 6, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/06/16/obama-biden-visit-orlando-emotional-visit-after-shooting/85973066/]).
2016, After the Orlando nightclub shooting (June 2016)

Death , People , Motivation , Fight

“There is a constitutional right for people to own guns, but there's also a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Interview with Steve Harvey, quoted in "Clinton confuses Constitution with Declaration of Independence in gun pitch" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/25/clinton-confuses-constitution-with-declaration-independence-in-gun-pitch.html, FoxNews.com (25 February 2016)
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Life , People , Happiness

“We are the party of big guns, fast cars, and hot women. If you can't sell freedom to the American people then you're in the wrong line of work.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

citation needed

Women , People , Cars , Freedom

“We do know that once again innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"President Obama calls Charleston shooting 'senseless,' criticizes gun laws" http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/06/18/president-obama-calls-charleston-shooting-senseless-criticizes-gun-laws/ by Jose A. DelReal and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post (18 June 2015)
2015

People , Parting

“England's a violent place. Too violent for me. That's why I prefer it here (the USA). For a gun-toting nation, Americans are surprisingly passive. This place suits me and the wife.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)

“Abraham took an early start as a hunter, which was never much improved afterwards. A few days before the completion of his eighth year, in the absence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached the new log cabin, and Abraham with a rifle-gun standing inside, shot through a crack and killed one of them. He has never since pulled a trigger on any larger game.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

p, 125
1860s, A Short Autobiography (1860)

Game

“If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative. What could be simpler?”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Cold Turkey (2004)

Love

“I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be.
A little gambling is fun when you're with me (I love it).
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun.
And baby when it's love if it's not rough it isn't fun, fun.”

Lady Gaga (1986) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Poker Face, written by Lady Gaga and RedOne
Song lyrics, The Fame (2008)

Love , Baby

“[On why criminals rob nice-looking houses] You come up on a house where the grass is this tall, and there's a dog chained to the clothesline, and a motor swinging in the tree, buddy, that's a house where a gun lives! And you want to find out what kind it is, just crawl through the window after dark.”

Jeff Foxworthy (1958) American stand-up comedian

Totally Committed (1998)

Dogs , Tree , Grass , Housing

“You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.”

Charlton Heston (1923–2008) American actor

Speech to the National Press Club (14 September 1997)

Support , Freedom , Time

“Claggert: We must serve the law, sir, or give up the right and privilege of service. It is only within that law that we may use our discretions according to our rank.
Captain Vere: You're so intelligent and so lucid for the rank you hold, Master At Arms.
Claggert: I thank you, sir.
Captain Vere: Yes, that's no flattery, Mr. Claggart. It's a melancholy fact. It's sad to see such qualities of mind bent to such a sorry purpose. What's the reason for it?
Claggert: I am what I am, sir. And what the world has made me.
Captain Vere: The world? The world demands that behind every peacemaker there be the gun, the gallows, the jail. Do you think it will always be so?
Claggert: I have no reason not to, sir.
Captain Vere: You live without hope?
Claggert: I live.
Captain Vere: But remember, Mr. Claggart, that even the man who wields the whip cannot defy the code we must obey and not be broken by it. That will be all.”

Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist

Billy Budd (1962)

World , Sadness , Law , Hope

“Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Quoted in The Edinburgh Review: Or Critical Journal, Vol. 209 (1909), p. 387
1900s

Truth

“He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn't belong there. And for him to say, slaves have dignity. I mean, doesn't he know that slaves were in chains? That they were whipped on the back. If he saw the movie 12 Years as a Slave, you know, they were raped. And he says they had dignity as slaves or— My parents lost everything that they worked for, in the middle of their lives, in their thirties. His business, my father's business, our home, our freedom and we're supposed to call that dignified? Marched out of our homes at gun point. I mean, this man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment.”

George Takei (1937) American actor and author

He is a disgrace to America.
Fox 10 News (Phoenix) interview https://www.facebook.com/FOX10Phoenix/videos/868880156493866/,
regarding Clarence Thomas writing "Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them." in his Obergefell v. Hodges dissent,

Home , Business , Parent , Freedom

“Oh father high in heaven — smile down upon your son
Who's busy with his money games — his women and his gun.”

Ian Anderson (1947) Scottish musician, leader of Jethro Tull

"Hymn 43"
Aqualung (1971)

Women , Money , Smile , Game

“When it comes to strangers with guns,” I told her, “I think suspicion is more likely to keep you alive than trust.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Sower

Source: Parable of the Sower (1993), Chapter 11 (p. 122)

Thinking

“If it was up to me, if you uttered the word 'gun control,' we'd put you in jail.”

Ted Nugent (1948) American rock musician

Source: From a speech at the 2011 NRA Convention.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/01/us-nra-convention-idUSTRE7402SL20110501

“I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures. But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies - no matter how effective they are - cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do - and must do - is make it harder for them to kill.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Address to the Nation by the President on San Bernardino (December 2015)

Hate , Law , Intelligence , Motivation

“I like my guns. Yeah, because it just makes me more comfortable.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

53:36–53:39
"Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

“In this book I have tried to achieve one purpose: to explain how war is waged on the field from the field command post. For it is there, midway between the conference table and the foxhole, that strategy is translated into battlefield tactics; there the field commander must calculated the cost of rivers, roads and hills in terms of guns, tanks, tonnage- and most importantly in terms of the lives and limbs of his soldiers. How, then, did we reach our critical decisions? Why and how did we go where we did? These are the critical questions I have been asked most often. And these are the questions that gave me justification for writing this book.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. ix.

War , Books , Question , Decision

“None of us can or should expect a transformation in race relations overnight. Every time something like this happens, somebody says we have to have a conversation about race. We talk a lot about race. There’s no shortcut. And we don’t need more talk. None of us should believe that a handful of gun safety measures will prevent every tragedy. It will not. People of goodwill will continue to debate the merits of various policies, as our democracy requires -- this is a big, raucous place, America is. And there are good people on both sides of these debates. Whatever solutions we find will necessarily be incomplete. But it would be a betrayal of everything Reverend Pinckney stood for, I believe, if we allowed ourselves to slip into a comfortable silence again. Once the eulogies have been delivered, once the TV cameras move on, to go back to business as usual -- that’s what we so often do to avoid uncomfortable truths about the prejudice that still infects our society. To settle for symbolic gestures without following up with the hard work of more lasting change -- that’s how we lose our way again. It would be a refutation of the forgiveness expressed by those families if we merely slipped into old habits, whereby those who disagree with us are not merely wrong but bad; where we shout instead of listen; where we barricade ourselves behind preconceived notions or well-practiced cynicism.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Eulogy for the Honorable Reverend Clementa Pinckney (June 2015)

People , Truth , Family , Way

“The child tells what he got for Christmas, the mature man tells how he spent the day; the immature hunter tells how many birds he shot, the mature gunner tells of the experience. If I can impart a sense of gunning values through my writing, I urge the gunner at any age to lift himself above the childish state of mind, thinking only of himself and not what he is doing to the birds.”

George Bird Evans (1906–1998) American writer

An Affair with Grouse (1982)

Age , Bird , Thinking , Sense

“Pointless but intense excitement holds us in TV dramas. We hear threatening music. A killer with a gun steals into the bedroom of a sleeping woman. More subliminal sounds of danger, pointlessly ominous. The woman wakes and runs into the kitchen for a knife. The cops are on the case. We watch as the criminal is pursued through night streets; shots, a death; a body falls from a roof. Then time is up, another drama begins. Now we are in a church. No, we are in a lecture hall; no again — a drawer opens in a morgue. A woman is looking for her kidnapped child. Then that ends, and we are on the veld with zebras and giraffes. Then with Lenin at a mass meeting. And suddenly we flash away to a cooking school; we are shown how to stuff a turkey. Next the Berlin Wall comes down. Or flags are burning. Or a panel is worrying about the rug crisis. More and more public themes, with less and less personal consciousness. Clearly, personal consciousness is shrinking.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"The Distracted Public" (1990), pp. 159-160
It All Adds Up (1994)

Death , School , Music , Sleep

“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

According to the Jefferson Library, this is misattributed to Jefferson http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Those_who_hammer_their_guns_into_plows.
Misattributed

“When I came to Mogadishu…[t]here was one road built by the Italians. If you try to force me to stand down, I will leave the city as I found it. I came to power with a gun; only the gun can make me go.”

Siad Barre (1919–1995) Head of State of Somalia

As quoted by Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi (2001), Culture and customs of Somalia, p. 41

“There is no doubt we could soon wipe old Sherman off the face of the earth, John, if they'd give me enough men and you enough guns.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general

To Captain John Morton, 1864. As quoted in May I Quote You, General Forrest? by Randall Bedwell.
1860s

Men

“Hitler took the guns. Stalin took the guns. Mao took the guns. You know, 'political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' And then if another crazy person everybody knew was going to attack goes and kills some people and then I'm to blame and all gun owners are to blame? Well, if somebody runs somebody with a car are they all to blame? Or somebody with a baseball bat? This is common sense and you've got a young high school senior teenager cussing to get attention to pull a stunt but none of use are supposed to talk about it because if you respond to him calling you a piece of this or a piece of that or his cohorts calling Dana Loesch a murderer and people are chanting 'burn her', well then you're a bully. That's why CNN wants to use this to kill the First Amendment, not just the Second Amendment! You have YouTube banning videos with guns, with citizens having guns or showing guns, but Hollywood and the video game makers can show all the guns they want. This is an incredibly discriminatory system!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

"Antigun Activist David Hogg Attacks Infowars For Gay Frogs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN4pTxI12Hc&feature=youtu.be&t=19m59s, The Alex Jones Show, March 2018.

People , School , Cars , Game

“Nick Gillespie: So, um, how do you self-describe politically?
Krist Novoselic: I'm a, what, an anarcho-capitalist socialist…I don't know…I'm kinda a moderate, I think I'm moderate.
Nick Gillespie: So you're an anarcho-capitalist socialist moderate.
Krist Novoselic: I mean I'm a gun-owning pacifist, so there you go. I'm an anarcho-socialist—you know what I mean?
Nick Gillespie: Anarcho-socialist—
Krist Novoselic: —capitalist—
Nick Gillespie: —capitalist, gun-toting…
Krist Novoselic: Yeah, it's just like I, y'know, I just tryin'a, tryin'a make it work in this world and…basically I'm just a small-D democrat.”

Krist Novoselic (1965) Croatian-American rock musician

11:30–12:03
"Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on Punk, Politics, & Why He Dumped the Dems" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4TPRH2uK9w

World , Thinking

“Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA — ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

This quotation has not been confirmed to come from Himmler, its attribution to him on the Internet coming from some point before 2000, as in the Site of the Sentient quotelist http://web.archive.org/web/20000823073240/http://www.siteofthesentient.com/alltags.html
Disputed