Quotes & Sayings About Firearms

No matter how one approaches the figures, one is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort and when anyone, convicted criminal or lunatic, could buy any type of firearm without restriction. Half a century of strict controls on pistols has ended, perversely, with a far greater use of this weapon in crime than ever before. — Colin Greenwood

The rifle and the pistol are still the equalizer when one man is more of a man than another, and if ... he is really smart ... he will get a permit to carry one and then drop around to Abercrombie and Fitch and buy himself a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, 'Woodsman model', with a five-inch barrel and a box of shells. I advise him to get lubricated hollow points to avoid jams and to ensure a nice expansion on the bullet. He might even get several boxes and practice a little ... — Ernest Hemingway,

That there are such devices as firearms, as easy to operate as cigarette lighters and as cheap as toasters, capable at anybody's whim of killing Father or Fats or Abraham Lincoln or John Lennon or Martin Luther King, Jr., or a woman pushing a baby carriage, should be proof enough for anybody that being alive is a crock of shit. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The key fallacy of so called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available. — Thomas Sowell

Waco was supposed to be a way for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the Clinton administration to prove the need for a ban on so-called assault weapons. — Steve Stockman

Every study on crime and or firearms proves time and time again, that 99.99999% of American gun owners do not commit crimes or use our firearms in any dangerous or improper way. — Ted Nugent

I felt like Dirty Harry, only, my weapon wasn't as big as his! I don't know what it is with guns, but once you've got your hand on one, you think you're one of the untouchables. — Stephen Richards

I always found strange comfort that the American propensity for mixing alcohol and firearms cut across racial, socioeconomic, and cultural divides, from rural redneck to ghetto gangbanger to skeet-shooting blue blood. — Brad Parks

The only thing Americans love more than Walmart and firearms (and buying firearms at Walmart) is accents. — Brian Moylan

[Eric]Goldman [a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law] says back in the 1990s, courts began to confront the question of whether software code is a form of speech. Goldman says the answer to that question came in a case called Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice. Student Daniel Bernstein who created an encryption software called Snuffle. He wanted to put it on the Internet. The government tried to prevent him, using a law meant to stop the export of firearms and munitions. Goldman says the student argued his code was a form of speech. — Laura Sydell

There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is, how do we arm the other 11? — Nicolas Cage

Firearms manufacturers usually find themselves playing defense. — Bob Barr

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated. — Charlton Heston

I lost interest in firearms because we had a dog that was scared to death of the sound of a rifle shot. — James Spader

The presence of a firearm makes us all safer. — Wayne LaPierre

I always shot scorpions with the .22 pistol. — Ernest Hemingway,

After the Civil War, when blacks fought along whites to secure freedom for all, southern states enacted Black Codes, laws that restricted the civil rights and liberties of blacks. Central to the enforcement of these laws were the stiff penalties for blacks possessing firearms. — Niger Innis

Assault weapons - just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms - are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons - anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun - can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons. — Josh Sugarmann

I wondered ... if there should be anything wrong with Sen. Joe McCarthy (Republican) of Wisconsin which a .577 solid would not cure. — Ernest Hemingway,

Immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act ... [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns. — Josh Sugarmann

No country that permits firearms to be widely and randomly distributed among its population - especially firearms that are capable of wounding and killing human beings - can expect to escape violence, and a great deal of violence. — Margaret Mead

Today, we will hear from federal law enforcement agencies, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, who will discuss the problem of ELF and ALF and law enforcement's reaction to their dangerous and destructive tactics. It is these tactics, particularly the widespread use of arson, which makes ELF and ALF the #1 domestic terror concern over the likes of white supremacists, militias, and anti-abortion groups. — James Inhofe

Logan glanced at the clock on the cooker: nearly five minutes fast. The room was bathed in the pale orange glow of the overcast sky, the back garden a jungle of silhouettes and shadows through the window. He filled the kettle, then poured half of it out, before sticking it on to boil. The growing rumble drowned out the babble on his Airwave handset as DI Bell got his firearms team into place. — Stuart MacBride

Gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree on expanding background checks, making gun trafficking a serious crime with stiff penalties, making it illegal for all stalkers and all domestic abusers to buy guns, and expanding mental health resources so the mentally ill find it easier to receive treatment than to buy firearms. — Gabrielle Giffords

Why do you have your gun out?" she whispers, following right behind me. "Always be prepared," I tell her as we step inside. I close the door behind me, locking the deadbolt and the top lock. "Boy Scout motto, isn't it?" "Yes, but when they go camping, they bring extra matches. Not firearms. — Karina Halle

The fingerprinting requirement affected only law-abiding citizens that want to buy firearms. It had no impact on Baltimore's criminal element at all. — Gregory Kane

At Waco, was there really an urgency to get those people out of the compound at that particular time? Was the press going to make it look heroic for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? At Ruby Ridge, there was one guy in a cabin at the top of the mountain. Was it necessary for federal agents to go up there and shoot a 14-year-old in the back and shoot a woman with a child in her arms? What kind of mentality does that? — Clint Eastwood

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace'. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we're in God's hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders. — J.R.R. Tolkien

My kids were completely out of control, while I was working fifteen hours a day plus weekends. I screamed a lot, something I'm not particularly proud of, but it was that or firearms. — Roseanne Barr

I always accepted the libertarian position of minimum regulation in the sale and use of firearms because I placed guns under the beneficial rubric of minimal restrictions on individuals. — Michael Shermer

Background checks, waiting periods, reports of transfers, and access to mental health records have not stopped the legal sale of firearms to legitimate buyers. — Colleen Hanabusa

This is a foul thing that shouldn't be allowed to exist. No firearms should exist. The fact that they are still made and that all sorts of people have them lying about in drawers or carry them around in the street just shows that the whole system is perverted and crazy. Some bastard makes a fat profit by making and selling arms, just the way other people make a fat profit on factories that make narcotics and deadly pills. Do you get it? — Maj Sjowall

Chris asks, "What are you going to stick to?"
"Mah guns, boy, mah guns," I tell him. "That's the Code of the West. — Robert M. Pirsig

I believe there's something in the Bible about 'Thou shalt not call anyone insane who owns and is competent with more firearms than you own sharp sticks.' — Andrew Plotkin

When the shooting starts would you rather be armed or legal? — Cormac McCarthy

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good. — George Washington

Gun control is not the answer to stop crimes committed with firearms, — Steve Largent

They have some pretty tough gun laws in Japan, as they do in any other civilized country in the world, and they're not killing each other off with firearms. You have very violent films in Europe, yet it's not causing the mayhem we see in our streets routinely here. — Michael D. Barnes

I believe in a civil society we should do as much as possible not to have firearms in any guise, but obviously they are a necessary function of policing. — David Collenette

Crime is a human behavior problem, not a mechanical problem. Furthermore, if firearms were not very useful for self-defense, then police wouldn't carry them. In a free country, if the government can go armed, so should the citizens, if they so choose. — Charley Reese

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things. — Michael Gambon

It is an astonishing thing how little the average man in Africa knows about the rifles he uses-it is but a very small exaggeration to say that all he really does know is that the bullet comes out of the end which has a hole in it! — John "Pondoro" Taylor

I'm not happy, frankly. Because I think in a civil society we don't need firearms. — David Collenette

The Democratic National Committee is virtually 100 percent anti-firearms ownership, and the Republican National Committee stands on the side of the freedom. — Wayne LaPierre

I was very fascinated by the time when firearms went from being fire sticks to being something people could use to hunt and to survive. — Joe Perry

Now standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a bullet weighing only 40 grains and with a striking energy of 51 foot pounds at 25 feet from the muzzle, I will guarantee to kill either Gene Tunney or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner. This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds. It was this type of pistol that Millen boys' colleague, Abe Faber, did all his killings with. Yet this same pistol bullet fired at point blank range will not dent a grizzly's skull, and to shoot a grizzly with a .22 caliber pistol would simply be one way of committing suicide — Ernest Hemingway,

Alcohol, firearms and a 4 wheel drive can go a long ways towards making a rain day into a fun rest day. — Frank Stock

We take a word, such as freedom, and dress it up to mean the ability to bear firearms, display flags, collect rainwater or grow clean food, but absolute freedom is not a relative construct. It is not there one minute or outlawed the next. It can never be seized or given. It is ever-lasting and omnipresent. — Anita B. Sulser PhD

First, the firearms industry has been around and has been respected for generations. They provide a valuable service and a highly desirable product to millions of sportsmen and supporters of those second amendment rights. — Cliff Stearns

Americans have the right under the Second Amendment to own firearms, and that is not going to change. — Wendy Davis

In more than half of American homes where there are both children and firearms, according to a 2000 study, the weapons are in an unlocked place, and in more than 40 percent of homes, guns without a trigger lock are in an unlocked place. Almost three-quarters of children under the age of ten who live in homes with guns say they know where the guns are. A 2005 study showed that more than 1.69 million children and youth under eighteen live in homes with weapons that are loaded and unlocked. According to a Department of Education study, 65% of school shootings between 1974 and 2000 were carried out with a gun from the attacker's home or the home of a relative. And the laws, it seems, are effective. One study indicated that in the twelve states where child-access prevention laws were on the books for at least one year, unintentional gun deaths fell by 23 percent. — Gary Younge

When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour. — George Washington

Without freedom there will be no firearms among the people; without firearms among the people there will not long be freedom. Certainly there are examples of countries where the people remain relatively free after the people have been disarmed, but there are no examples of a totalitarian state being created or existing where the people have personal arms. — Neal Knox

We should have a system of licensing and registration, we should treat firearms the same way that automobiles are treated so that people have to pass a safety test. — Michael D. Barnes

The pistol had been one hell of a find, because it hadn't quite been what she'd thought it was at first blush. Not simply the S&W Mk 39, but rather a modified version of the same, the Mk 22 Mod 0, also called the "hush puppy". It was Vietnam-era, not the most reliable gun in the world, but wonderfully silent, not only equipped with a silencer to eliminate the sound of gunfire, but also with a slide lock, to keep the actual mechanical operation of the gun quiet as well. She'd test-fired the gun at the market before purchasing, and been stunned that it still worked. The Uzbek vendor had offered to sell it to her cheap.
"It's too quiet," he'd explained. "No one wants it."
Chace shut her eyes, half smiling at the memory. — Greg Rucka

Learning to shoot firearms to me is a little like driving stick - it seems like a decent skill to have. — Sarah Wayne Callies

This can be a safety factor making it less likely that you'll fire the gun unintentionally but it also makes firing the weapon accurately a challenge. Many police departments use double action firearms so that officers won't accidentally shoot a suspect. They also have the resources to properly train officers in accurate double action shooting. — Steven Gregersen

So, will his new gun laws - aimed primarily at law-abiding firearms owners - reduce the crime rate even further? Rock is hesitant to give a conclusive answer: "I think it will help. (But) I don't want to overstate it. I don't want to give any guarantees." — Allan Rock

The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms. — Antonin Scalia

I've dealt with a lot of guns over my career, so I'm getting better and better with firearms. — Will Patton

nearly a hundred mongrel celebrants in the throng, the police relied on their firearms and plunged determinedly into the nauseous rout. — H.P. Lovecraft

Rather than an excess of firearms there's a shortage of faith and family that has a lot more to do with what happened out in Littleton. Let's face it, our public square is more hostile to religion than it is to Marilyn Manson. — Kate O'Beirne

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. — George Washington

Medical marijuana users are now lobbying for the right to carry firearms. Because no one is a better shot than a stoned old man with glaucoma. — Conan O'Brien

Nowhere else in the world do the laws on firearms become the playthings of politicians and lobbyists intent on manufacturing cultural conflict. Nowhere else do elected officials turn the matter of taking a gun to church into a searing ideological question. But then, guns are not a religion in most countries. — E. J. Dionne

Posters go up in the market, on tree trunks in the Place Chateaubriand. Voluntary surrender of firearms. Anyone who does not cooperate will be shot. — Anthony Doerr

He spent two decades wandering the wilderness, overmedicated, set upon by the tax man, divorce lawyers, everything but a rain of toads. There were more fights and pills and liquor and car crashes and women and discharge of firearms - accidental and on purpose - than a mortal man could be expected to survive, but he played. — Rick Bragg

Why tinker with the plain truth that we hurry the darker races to their graves in order to take their land & its riches? Wolves don't sit in their caves, concocting crapulous theories of race to justify devouring a flock of sheep! "Intellectual courage"? True "intellectual courage" is to dispense with these fig leaves & admit all peoples are predatory, but White predators, with our deadly duet of disease dust & firearms, are examplars of predacity par excellence, & what of it? — David Mitchell

Agents who have left the Secret Service to join other federal law enforcement agencies report that training in firearms and counterterrorism tactics in those agencies in many cases far exceeds the quality of what the Secret Service offered. — Ronald Kessler

SHANGHAI (AP) - A quarter of the police in Shanghai began carrying guns during routine patrols for the first time this week as part of a China-wide boost in police firepower following a deadly mass knifing blamed on Xinjiang separatists. Ordinary police in China generally don't carry firearms, and none of the officers patrolling the train station in the southwestern — Anonymous

I think that it's very, very hard for the NRA to continue to defend the position that people who are on the terrorist watch list should be allowed to buy firearms in this country. That's their position. I don't know how they stand by it. — Sheldon Whitehouse

[President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the President has entertained more felons than that at fundraising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake. — Charlton Heston

It's a cruel fact of war that it takes little more than applying pressure to one finger to end another person's life. More than that, it's a cruel fact of life that we are hardwired to follow the crowd in a moment of panic. — Trevor D. Richardson

I am Emir Dynamite!" he shouted, swaying on top of the tall camelback. "If within two days we don't get any decent food, I'll incite the tribes to revolt! I swear! I will appoint myself the Prophet's representative and declare holy war, jihad. On Denmark, for example. Why did the Danes torment their Prince Hamlet? Considering the current political situation, a casus beli like this would satisfy even the League of Nations. No, seriously, I'll buy a million worth of rifles from the British
they love to sell firearms to the tribes
and onward to Denmark. Germany will let us through
in lieu of war reparations. Imagine the tribes invading Copenhagen! I'll lead the charge on a white camel. — Ilya Ilf

The events of September 11 would have been impossible if there were no airport security system at all. If average Americans were allowed to carry their personal firearms on board our aircraft ... , the chances that several passengers on each flight would have been armed-and thus able to shoot the hijackers, preventing the Trade Center and Pentagon hits-would have been quite substantial. — Vin Suprynowicz

I don't care if they're licensed legal firearms, people who are not highly trained putting guns in their hands is a recipe for disaster. So I'll train our officers that there is a concealed carry law, but when somebody turns with a firearm in their hand the officer does not have an obligation to wait to get shot to return fire and we're going to have tragedies as a result of that. I'm telling you right up front. — Garry McCarthy

A system in which legal police shootings of unarmed civilians are a common occurrence is a system that has some serious flaws. In this case, the drawback is a straightforward consequence of America's approach to firearms. A well-armed citizenry required an even-better-armed constabulary. Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture. — Matthew Yglesias

Quite honestly, I live in California in the off season. Going off to Green Bay is just like two different walks of life - I hunt, fish, practice with firearms. Back in California, it's spend time at the beach, go to the movies. — Clay Matthews III

Can't I just shoot you in the ass with paintball pellets? Those fuckers hurt. I'm an expert marksman with firearms. I could turn your ass red, green, blue, whatever the fuck color you want. — Tymber Dalton

Muzzle control has to be a religion. You cannot point that weapon at one of your brothers-or yourself. Know where you barrel is at all times, and know the condition of your weapon-loaded or unloaded, bolt forward or to the rear, round in the chamber or not, safety on or off. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you're going to kill something. — Dick Couch

Firearms, if you think about it, are power tools. They drill holes in things and chew things up. That's their purpose. The purpose of the user is, quite simply, to puncture and destroy the right things and not the wrong things. — Massad Ayoob

I just want to repeat that there's nothing that we've proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm. — Barack Obama

Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal. — Janet Reno

All vets are mentally ill in some way and government should prevent them from owning firearms. — Dianne Feinstein

I am open and willing to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on a variety of appropriate measures we can take to prevent firearms from getting into the wrong hands and mitigate future tragedies. — Kurt Schrader

Daddy had a strict rule about firearms. Anything we killed we had to eat. No amount of barbecue sauce would make a hairy guy like you palatable. — Diane Kelly

The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man. — G.K. Chesterton

If you expect to survive, you must keep your wits about you. You must keep your firearms clean, your knives sharp, and - if you are lucky enough to have it - your magic ready, but no amount of Power or equipment or fancy kit will make up for a lack of brains and guts. When danger looms, don't hesitate, commit. — Larry Correia

To end the crisis [of gun violence], we have to regulate -or, in the case of handguns and assault weapons, completely ban -the product. We are far past the [point] where registration, licensing, safety training, background checks, or waiting periods will have much effect on firearms violence. — Josh Sugarmann

I collect firearms, and I've got a Winchester, an Indian rifle. It has tacks for every warrior that was shot, like notches on a pistol, and it's got feathers and beads hanging off it. It's like a work of art. — Joe Perry

And, I know the sense of helplessness that people feel. I know the urge to arm yourself because that's what I did. I was trained in firearms. I'd walk to the hospital when my husband was sick. I carried a concealed weapon. I made the determination that if somebody was going to try to take me out, I was going to take them with me. — Dianne Feinstein

THIS book is radioactive. And so are you. Unless you are dead, in which case we can tell how long ago you died by how much of your radioactivity is left. That's what radiocarbon dating is - the measurement of the reduction of radioactivity of old bones to deduce the time of death. Alcohol is radioactive too - at least the kind we drink. Rubbing alcohol usually isn't, unless it was made organically - that is, from wood. In fact, the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tests wine, gin, whiskey, and vodka for radioactivity. A fifth of whiskey must emit at least 400 beta rays every minute or the drink is considered unfit for human consumption. Biofuels are radioactive. Fossil fuels are not. Of those killed by the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the best estimate is that fewer than 2% died of radiation-induced cancer. These statements are all true. They are not even disputed, at least by experts. Yet they surprise most people. — Richard A. Muller

I truly believe that firearms in the hands of law abiding citizen's makes our families and our communities more safe, not less safe. — Mike Pence

Under divine blessing, we must rely on the bayonet when firearms cannot be furnished — Stonewall Jackson

Hot lead can be almost as effective coming from a linotype as from a firearm. — John O'Hara

This is about unenforceable registration of weapons that violates the rights of people to own firearms. — Ralph Klein

I can't believe you know so little about firearms."
"I can't believe you know so much," Devonmont countered. "Never seen a woman as keen on guns as you. It's rather chilling."
"Isn't it, though?" Jackson put in. "Better watch it, Devonmont. Her ladyship is liable to shoot first and ask questions later if she finds you doing anything she doesn't approve of."
"I may just take your caution to heart, Pinter." Devonmont winked at Celia. "Then again, some things are worth risking life and limb for."
Celia looked startled, then cast Jackson a smug smile. With a snort, he drank more ale. Devonmont was really starting to irk him. They all were.
"So, Lord Devonmont," Celia said, turning her back on Jackson, "would you like me to show you the difference between a percussion gun and a flintlock?"
"By all means," Devonmont replied. "Though I can't promise to remember any of it later, explain away. — Sabrina Jeffries

If I were to select a jack-booted group of fascists who are perhaps as large a danger to American society as I could pick today, I would pick BATF [the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]. — John Dingell

I think that we should take the tragedy that happened in Newtown and have a full comprehensive dialogue about all issues, whether it has to do with mental health, whether it has to do with the social decline of our young people and some of the things that they are exposed to, whether it has to do with the firearms and guns. — Ann Wagner

The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. — Toyotomi Hideyoshi