Quotes & Sayings About Weapons Control

Our love affair with guns has nothing to do with tyranny, or militias, or self-preservation. Just ask any NRA member the following: If Jesus Christ himself were to come down off the cross and grant you one wish, would you opt for a world without guns
or the one we live in now? If every gun owner truly feared for their life and liberty, the answer would be obvious. But it's not about life and liberty. It's all about the sheer hard-on of owning a gun. — Quentin R. Bufogle

If Hamas continues to threaten the security of the state of Israel, I believe Israel has the ability and the capacity to control the borders and cut off the weapons supply. — Mosab Hassan Yousef

Any politico who's afraid of his constituents being armed, should be. Leaders of the anti-gun movement (for the most part, politicians who enthusiastically advocate confiscatory taxation and government control of everything) realize that a populace is much easier to herd, loot and dispose of if it has been stripped of its weapons. The naked fraud and transparent fascism of victim disarmament must be eradicated through the repeal of all gun laws at every level of government. — L. Neil Smith

To understand Homo sapiens' primary wish list, go back to mythology. We endowed the gods with the abilities we wished we had ourselves: immortality and eternal youth, flight, resplendent beauty, total power, climate control, ultimate weapons, delicious banquets minus the cooking and washing up - and artificial creatures at our beck and call. — Margaret Atwood

In Iraq, [American administration] said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction endangering mankind. With this pretext, the U.S. intervened militarily, and all they did is take control over oil fields, and oil wells. — Evo Morales

Words are my weapons. They might kill or cure the readers, that's out of my control. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

One crucial fact must be kept in mind: none of the roughly seventy thousand nuclear weapons built by the United States since 1945 has ever detonated inadvertently or without proper authorization. The technological and administrative controls on those weapons have worked, however imperfectly at times - and countless people, military and civilian, deserve credit for that remarkable achievement. Had a single weapon been stolen or detonated, America's command-and-control system would still have attained a success rate of 99.99857 percent. But nuclear weapons are the most dangerous technology ever invented. Anything less than 100 percent control of them, anything less than perfect safety and security, would be unacceptable. And if this book has any message to preach, it is that human beings are imperfect. — Eric Schlosser

Why can't a democrat get fired up about protecting the environment and enacting gun control legislation just as right wing republicans get fired up about making sure that children have access to assault weapons and banning 'the catcher in the rye' and 'harry potter'? — Moby

I am a lawyer, and for me it is very sad to say that there is now law here. There are weapons rather than law. What did Mao say? Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. It's very true. The situation is decadent. A lot of Serbs think this is leading us nowhere but they feel powerless. How many disagree? I don't know. Perhaps thirty percent disagree, but most of them are frightened and quiet. Perhaps sixty percent agree or are confused enough to go along. They are led by the ten percent who have the guns and who have control of the television towers. That's all they need.'

p. 107 — Peter Maass

The paradox is now fully established that the utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact. — Alfred North Whitehead

Semi-automatic weapons are not just about gun control, they're about national security. You know that these weapons can shoot down airplanes, they can blow up railroads. This is really a whole national security issue. — Jesse Jackson

The violence of the Left is symbolic, the injuries are not intended. The violence of the Right is real - directed at people, designed to cause injuries. Vietnam, nuclear weapons, police out of control are intentional forms of violence. The violence from the Right is aimed directly at people and the violence from the Left is aimed at institutions and symbols. — George Carlin

A smile can express more than a thousand feelings, but to me The Unknown, its the deadliest weapon i was created with and have control over — Ryan Leonard

Evelyn tried to control people by controlling weapons, but Jeanine was more ambitious - she knew that when you control information, or manipulate it, you don't need force to keep people under your thumb. They stay there willingly. That is what the Bureau - and the entire government, probably - is doing: conditioning people to be happy under its thumb. — Anonymous

Our lives consist of a series of internal battles, deep within us, where weapons don't exist and technology is unable to create devices that better the best of yesterday. Our knowledge is our only defense; caution, our only friend. — A.J. Darkholme

Handguns were in-room weapons. Under expert control in high-pressure situations the average range for a successful engagement was about eleven feet. — Lee Child

The gun control mentality is ruthlessly absurd. It suggests that you pass a law which will bind law-abiding citizens - they won't have access to weapons. Now, we know that criminals, by definition, are people who don't obey laws. Therefore, you can pass all the laws that you want, they will still have access to these weapons, just as they have access to illegal drugs and other things right now. That means you end up with a situation in which the law-abiding folks can't defend themselves, and the crooks have all the guns. — Alan Keyes

When has a civilian ever stopped a mass shooting with an AR-15? An AR-15 is a perfect weapon for mass murderers
not so much for self-defense. Would you bring an AR-15 along on a date? To your place of work? To the movies? If not, how can owning an AR-15 save your life in the event of a mass shooting? Why does the NRA keep telling us we need semi-automatic rifles for self-defense? Whose side are they really on? — Quentin R. Bufogle

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened. — Noam Chomsky

When President Obama first unveiled his gun control proposals recommending a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and better background checks, there seemed to be momentum behind the effort. But then the proposals ran into a wall. — Robert Dallek

The Church is the only entity equipped to penetrate to the spiritual roots of our moral illnesses. We are to call out the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the economy, enlisting the weapons of love, joy, patience, goodness, kindness and self-control, which are the foundation of true freedom. Many Christian teachers rightly point out that our society's willingness to take on the slavery of debt in exchange for stuff is an expression of the deep emptiness that people are seeking to fill within themselves. One of the most powerful aspects of the Gospel is that this emptiness can only be filled by the loving reconnection with the Father that Jesus offers. For this reason, it is less critical that we condemn the world's decadence than that we make an appeal to human desire and how it is genuinely fulfilled. — Stephen K. De Silva

Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army and calls it a war. — Noam Chomsky

They had not, under the heavens and on earth, one single weapon. They don't control the land they live on, the schools which train them, the heat and food their bodies need to live through the winter's cold, the media which gives them language, the military weapons for which they give most of their money. There is no more time in this city. Reasonable people don't let themselves dream because no dream can be true. They have a cry that bought them back to first causes: But we who have no mothers, no fathers, no homes or love. Where are we going to run? — Kathy Acker

I worry most about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in such a way that they could be acquired by non-governmental organizations, like terrorist groups, especially the radical groups. When a nation state has a nuclear weapon, it's a little bit easier to control the use of it, but for non-governmental groups it's much more difficult. — James L. Jones

We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place ... — Muhammad Ali

The Council Wars era from 1983 to 1986 and the brief months from 1986 to 1987 when Mayor Washington gained control over the council were among the most dramatic periods in Chicago's history. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, women, and homosexuals gained real power at City Hall for the first time. Opposition to Reaganomics and support for the city as a nuclear weapons-free zone were led by the mayor and his department heads, not just opposition groups. The growth machine of the old Chicago regime, which favored urban growth focused on major public works projects and development in the downtown Loop area, was replaced by a balanced program of neighborhood, as well as downtown, economic development.33 — Dick Simpson

But the pistol, this Walther ... it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes? — Stephen King

We are not taught to fear our politicians, who can debase our currency, throw us in prison and send us to war - but rather we are taught to fear each other. We are taught to imagine that the real predators in this world are not those who control prison cells, national debts and nuclear weapons, but rather our fellow citizens, who in the absence of brutal control would surely tear us apart! — Stefan Molyneux

Terrorists like bin Laden are serious about mass murder - and all of us must take their declared intentions seriously. They seek to impose a heartless system of totalitarian control throughout the Middle East, and arm themselves with weapons of mass murder ... Their aim is to seize power in Iraq, and use it as a safe haven to launch attacks against America and the world. — George W. Bush

The New START accord cuts the strategic nuclear arsenals on each side to 1,550 warheads. Can any of its critics make a case that our security would be imperiled if, the very next day, Obama and Medvedev made moves to take the levels down to 1,000 - then to 500?
If so, come show us the math. If not, it may be time to stop making arms control so politically complicated - time to stop letting arms control get in the way of disarmament. — Fred Kaplan

Words are Hamlet's constant companions, his weapons, and his defenses ...
And yet, words also serve as Hamlet's prison. He analyzes and examines every nuance of his situation until he has exhausted every angle. They cause him to be indecisive. He dallies in his own wit, intoxicated by the mix of words he can concoct; he frustrates his own burning desire to be more like his father, the Hyperion. When he says that Claudius is " ... no more like my father than I to Hercules" he recognizes his enslavement to words, his inability to thrust home his sword of truth. No mythic character is Hamlet. He is stuck, unable to avenge his father's death because words control him. — Carla Lynn Stockton

My shipmates and I only grasped our roles on the very superficial level we were taught. We were fighting the bad guys. They were the bad guys because we were told that they were the bad guys. We had to control, infiltrate, and shove our authority around the world because we were its greatest nation. We had the shiniest ships, the biggest guns, the deadliest weapons, and the cockiest egos. And if we thought otherwise, we were vicious traitors. The military condemns rebels, thinkers, and doubt. The military loves obedience, loyalty, and oblivion. Its core values are, after all, "Honor, Courage, and Commitment. — Maggie Young

I come from a state that has virtually no gun control. And yet, at political peril, I voted for an instant background check, which I want to see strengthened and expanded. I voted to ban certain types of assault weapons which are designed only to kill people. — Bernie Sanders

The essential facts are known. We know of the weapons in Saddam's possession: chemical, biological, and nuclear in time. We know of his unequaled willingness to use them. We know his history. His invasions of his neighbors. His dreams of achieving hegemonic control over the Arab world. His record of anti-American rage. His willingness to terrorize, to slaughter, to suppress his own people and others. We need not stretch to imagine nightmare scenarios in which Saddam makes common cause with the terrorists who want to kill us Americans and destroy our way of life. — Joe Lieberman

The policies the US government is following are dangerous for its citizens. It's true that you can bomb or buy out anybody that you want to, but you can't control the rage that's building in the world. You just can't. And that rage will express itself in some way or the other. Condemning violence when a section of your economy is based on selling weapons and making bombs and piling up chemical and biological weapons? When the soul of your culture worships violence? On what grounds are you going to condemn terrorism, unless you change your attitude toward violence? — Arundhati Roy

That the Bomb altered our subsequent history down to its deepest constitutional roots. It redefined the presidency, as in all respects America's "Commander in Chief" (a term that took on a new and unconstitutional meaning in this period). It fostered an anxiety of continuing crisis, so that society was pervasively militarized. It redefined the government as a National Security State, with an apparatus of secrecy and executive control. It redefined Congress, as an executor of the executive. And it redefined the Supreme Court, as a follower of the follower of the executive. Only one part of the government had the supreme power, the Bomb, and all else must defer to it, for the good of the nation, for the good of the world, for the custody of the future, in a world of perpetual emergency superseding ordinary constitutional restrictions. — Garry Wills

The Denarians want to disrupt civilization, and with the Archive under their control, they could do it. Maybe they'd use biological or chemical weapons instead. Maybe they'd crash the world economy. Maybe they'd turn every program on television into one of those reality shows." "That's mostly done already, Harry. — Jim Butcher

Most blitz leaders have felt that by sacrificing a degree of intelligence or logistics support they gained a greater advantage in the areas of surprise or massing of effort at a critical point. No commander attacks unless he feels that he can win, though on occasion defeat locally may help to gain victory elsewhere. But the decision to attack means that the factors have all been weighed and that superiority lies in better morale, better control for the massing of effort or for quicker reaction, or better weapons. Control is often a more than adequate substitute for supply. There may be risk, but there is no rashness, where advantages outweigh disadvantages. — Wesley W. Yale

Kuwait needs tougher guarding. Guarding that's not limited to weapons, soldiers and border control, but extends to every Kuwaiti soul with awareness, vigilance and anticipation — Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah

[Liberals] think they can pass a law eliminating guns and nuclear weapons, but teenagers having sex is completely beyond our control. — Ann Coulter

It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they're used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behavior. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness. — Arundhati Roy

I guess I'm hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control, especially if I sense the dullness inside me get too heavy and thick, warning me that something is again approaching, creeping slowly towards my room, no figment of my imagination either but as tangible as you and I, never ceasing to scratch, waiting, perhaps for a word or an order or some other kind of sign to at last initiate this violent and by now inevitable confrontation - always as full of wrath as I am full of fear. — Mark Z. Danielewski

One hopes that they'll never be able to use mind control weapons, because we're all done for if that happens. I don't want military people, or political people, to have that type of power over those of us who just get by from day to day. — Joe Haldeman

Israel will not tolerate a situation in which Iran has effective control of non-conventional weapons that can be used directly against the state of Israel. — Ehud Olmert

Today, people are talking about many things: the danger of war and frequent clashes, water and air pollution, hunger, the increasing erosion of moral values, and so on. As a result, many other concerns have come to the fore: peace, contentment, ecology, justice, tolerance, and dialogue. Unfortunately, despite certain promising precautions, those who should be tackling these problems tend to do so by seeking further ways to conquer and control nature and produce more lethal weapons. — Fethullah Gulen

Since Europe is dependent on imports of energy and most of its raw materials, it can be subdued, if not quite conquered, without all those nuclear weapons the Soviets have aimed at it simply through the shipping routes and raw materials they control. — Barbara Amiel

My central arms control objective has been to reduce substantially and ultimately to eliminate nuclear weapons and rid the world of the nuclear threat. The prevention of the spread of nuclear explosives is to additional countries is an indispensable part of our efforts to meet this objective. I intend to continue my pursuit of this goal with untiring determination and a profound sense of personal commitment. — Ronald Reagan

Bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us ... No longer is the quest for disarmament a sign of weakness, (nor) the destruction of arms a dream - it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race. — John F. Kennedy

You can have all the gun control laws in the country, but if you don't enforce them, people are going to find a way to protect themselves. We need to recognize that bad people are doing bad things with these weapons. It's not the law-abiding citizens, it's not the person who uses it as a hobby. — Michael Steele

Provoking separatist hatreds is an aggressive weed. We all have dirty hands and a broken heart. Put down your flag before you put down your weapons. If you must raise a flag, be sure it says, "We is better than you or I." We will not persecute, nor tolerate persecution. We will not dominate, nor tolerate subjugation. — Mikhayla Gracey

You don't need a weapon to protect yourself. — Bill Maher

The fights I fought ... cost a lot
the fight for the assault-weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress. The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the House. — William J. Clinton

The freedom to bear arms may be righteously rejected to encourage the preservation of all corporeal forms of life. — Kevin Alan Lee

Forget 'pray the gay away.' I you're more turned on by an AR-15 than a pair of tits, time for some serious therapy. Time for all you gun-humpers to come out of the closet. Is this really about the 2nd Amendment and self-defense
or just a pathetic fetish for guys with tiny pee-pees? — Quentin R. Bufogle

If in the 1930s nuclear weapons had been invented and the Allies had been faced by Nazi SS20s and Backfire Bombers, would it then have been morally right to have handed Hitler control of one of the most terrible weapons man has ever made? Would not that have been the one way to ensure that the thousand year Reich became exactly that? Would not unilateralism have given to Hitler the world domination he sought? — Margaret Thatcher

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

I think we ultimately ought to look to put all uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing, if any is done, under multinational control. Those are the two technologies by which nuclear energy can be translated into nuclear weapons programmes. — John Holdren

Don't need to remind any of you what Tarkin did at the end of the war when there weren't Jedi around to keep a lid on the violence and retribution. We wouldn't be aboard this ship otherwise. The Emperor is going to win-now the populations of the galaxy until the only ones left are the ones he can control. And he and Vader and Tarkin are going to accomplish that with an army of steadfast recruits who might as well be clones for the little independent thinking they do, weapons that haven't been seen in more than a thousand years, and fear. — James Luceno

On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. Most helmsmen would've been satisfied with a pilot's wheel of a tiller. Leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD. — Rick Riordan

Imagine if organized religion organized billions of people and trillions of dollars to tackle the challenges that our economic and political systems are afraid or unwilling to tackle - a planet ravaged by unsustainable human behavior and an out-of-control consumptive economy, the growing gap between the rich minority and the poor majority, and the proliferation of weapons of all kinds - including weapons of mass destruction. "Wow," people frequently say when I propose these possibilities. "If they did that, I might become religious again." Some quickly add, "But I won't hold my breath. It'll never happen. — Brian D. McLaren

One: An end to cross-ownership in businesses. For example: weapons manufacturers cannot own TV stations, mining corporations cannot run newspapers, business houses cannot fund universities, drug companies cannot control public health funds. Two: Natural resources and essential infrastructure - water supply, electricity, health, and education - cannot be privatized. Three: Everybody must have the right to shelter, education, and health care. Four: The children of the rich cannot inherit their parents' wealth. — Arundhati Roy

I wonder what I can do about war. Is it the destiny of human kind to eventually wipe ourselves out with these weapons of mass destruction? Are we stupid to think that we can control them? — Malachy McCourt

He's never fired a gun in his life," Palamedes said. "He abhors weapons."
As Palamedes spoke,the group could see Shakespeare put the tonbogiri to his shoulder,then jerk three times.
Two of the attacking vimanas spun out of control,both of them crashing into two more. The flour flaming craft spiraled into the sea.
"But then he's always been full of surprises," Palamedes added. — Michael Scott

Remote control. Ingenious contradiction of terms. Fits like a handshake. Aims like a gun. — Roger Rosenblatt

The Agat Institute was a God- and state-forsaken outfit inhabited by dead souls and a few disoriented live ones like Yekaterina, who was put to work developing software for the weapons-control system of a nuclear submarine. — Masha Gessen

We could still have continued the arms race, but the arms race was pointless, and it was another reason we decided to start perestroika. It was senseless to continue to accumulate weapons. We had enough weapons to destroy life on Earth 1,000 times, and therefore it was very clear to us that the arms race could spiral out of control. A conflict could have started, as both the Americans and the Soviets realized, not out of a wrong political decision but because of a failure in the command-and-control systems. — Mikhail Gorbachev

Power and control are more dangerous than any weapons. — Aisha Mirza

When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theatre, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, "Why did this happen?," "How did this happen?," and "What can we do to prevent this from happening again?," and one of the areas they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casually available to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun owners have the chance to be human and say, "Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let's open up a conversation here." Instead, I'm surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation , citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like dicks. — Nick Offerman

For those of us who cry out for gun control, our fears cannot be eliminated as long as the country remains an armed camp in which the most troubled among us can find ways to appropriate one of the easily available weapons in all our communities. — Robert Dallek

USA belongs to a handful of men who also control the media. Look at General Electric. It produces nuclear weapons for the Pentagon and also owns the NBC News cable channel, which is a very sophisticated censure apparatus, intrinsic to the system. It's genius. It's like an electronic cage around the nation which blocks information from getting through. — Gore Vidal

Then the fight went out of control. It quivered their arms and legs and wrenched their faces into shapes of hatred, it urged them harder and deeper into each other's weakest points, showing them cunning ways around each other's strongholds and quick chances to switch tactics, feint, and strike again. In the space of a gasp for breath it sent their memories racing back over the years for old weapons to rip the scabs off old wounds; it went on and on. — Richard Yates

In many cases, Obama's exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups. — Ben Shapiro

Support for a first strike extended far beyond the upper ranks of the U.S. military. Bertrand Russell - the British philosopher and pacifist, imprisoned for his opposition to the First World War - urged the western democracies to attack the Soviet Union before it got an atomic bomb. Russell acknowledged that a nuclear strike on the Soviets would be horrible, but "anything is better than submission." Winston Churchill agreed, proposing that the Soviets be given an ultimatum: withdraw your troops from Germany, or see your cities destroyed. Even Hamilton Holt, lover of peace, crusader for world government, lifelong advocate of settling disputes through mediation and diplomacy and mutual understanding, no longer believed that sort of approach would work. Nuclear weapons had changed everything, and the Soviet Union couldn't be trusted. Any nation that rejected U.N. control of atomic energy, Holt said, "should be wiped off the face of the earth with atomic bombs. — Eric Schlosser