EVERYONE ELSE

“Lest an indirect effort be made to interfere with the Republic, the Constitution goes on to forbid any law preventing the people from keeping and bearing arms. A law prohibiting the use of weapons would take away all possibility of resisting any injustice, and this method of depriving freemen of their rights was by no means without precedent in English history. Remembering this, our forefathers made it a part of our fundamental law that the militia should be organized and preserved, and that, to that end, anyone should be allowed to ‘keep and bear arms.’”

The Kansas Law Journal, 1885

“The constitutional militia is a thing into which a man grows by reaching his majority—he does not become a member by voluntary enlistment. The intention was that every able-bodied citizen should have a gun in his hands and know how to use it; then none need fear his neighbor nor a despot.”

Edward P. Loring, 1/28/1887

“Every man, woman and child has the right to carry all the arms of whatever description they choose. And this is constitutional law, not only of the state but of the United States. So that without a change of the constitution of the United States, this right can not be abridged.”

Loring was a city councilman and clerk of the police court in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Toledo Blade (Toledo, OH), 2/6/1888

“In a free country, with no standing army, where all the citizens have the right to keep and bear arms, it is a hard matter to keep down the lawless element in our cities, and the spread of socialistic and communistic theories will make it all the more difficult in the future.”

Constitutional Legislation in the United States, 1891

“The right to bear arms has always been the distinctive privilege of freemen…It was not necessary that the right to bear arms should be granted in the Constitution, for it had always existed.”

William Carey Jones, 1891

“195. Right of Personal Liberty—…The Constitution upholds the right of bearing arms, and the right of publicly assembling [etc.]”

Jones was dean of the graduate division of the University of California.

Abraham Hummel, 5/22/1891

“I have given a great deal of study to the provisions of the penal code and the municipal ordinances restricting the carrying of deadly weapons, and I have no hesitation in saying that in so far as they relate to the carrying of weapons used in civilised warfare they contravene the second amendment to the constitution of the United States…If a person who was subjected to such penalty should take the trouble to appeal, there is no doubt in my mind that the higher courts would declare such laws or ordinances unconstitutional.”

Hummel was “generally conceded to be the leading lawyer in ‘criminal practice,’ so called, at the New York bar. At all events, he is reputed to understand the criminal code as well as, if not better than any of his rivals.”

The Dallas Morning News, 1/24/1893

“The constitutional right of the citizen to keep and bear arms is one which the federal compact declared shall not be infringed.”

Unnamed New York City police captain, 2/4/1894

“The law against carrying concealed weapons is a city ordinance. It is very useful to the police, but I doubt whether it would stand if an appeal were taken to the higher courts. The Constitution guarantees to every citizen the right to bear arms.”

Weekly Law Bulletin and Ohio Law Journal, 9/23/1895

“An able and interesting paper on ‘The Present Scope of Constitutional Guarantees of Liberty and Private Property’…[read], in part, as follows: ‘In discussing the legal scope of the constitutional guarantees, attention may rather be paid to the more specific and, therefore, more valuable provisions…We find them in detail in constitutions, whether of the Union or of particular states: that every man…shall have the right to bear arms, [etc.]’”

The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), 11/26/1895

“The right of citizens to carry arms is declared in the second amendment of the Constitution…This right to bear arms is mentioned in connection with the public defense and the militia only. Nevertheless, the natural right of self-defense gives every man warrant to do what may be necessary for his own protection.”

William P. Fishback, 1896

“The right to bear arms—This right is guaranteed by federal and state constitutions to every citizen.”

Fishback was the law partner of future Pres. Benjamin Harrison and dean of the School of Law at the University of Indianapolis.

The American and English Encyclopaedia of Law, 1897

“Bear Arms.—This phrase, as used in the constitutional provision reserving to the people the right to keep and ‘bear’ arms, has been held to include the right to load, shoot, and use arms as such weapons are ordinarily used, and not to be confined to the simple right of carrying arms upon the person.”

New-York Tribune, 4/22/1897

“The possession of a pistol puts it in the power of the holder to commit murder. But the right of the citizen to bear arms is nevertheless constitutionally secured. The right of property, in almost all cases, includes within it power to make some wrongful use of that property to the public injury. But should there on that account be no ownership of property?”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 12/30/1897

“Deadly Weapons—Question of Permitting Trolley Conductors to Carry Them—The Right to Openly Bear Arms Is Guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.”

Los Angeles Herald, 11/23/1898

“Martial law has been declared at the scene of the coal riots in Illinois, and the commanding officer ‘is ordered to take possession of all arms in the hands of miners or citizens in the district.’ The constitutional declaration that the right of the citizen to ‘keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’ does not apply at Pana at the present time.”

Constitutional Law, Federal and State [etc.], 1899

“The right of the people to bear arms was a practical recognition of their right to demand with force that the government as constituted observe Constitutional restraints. The right is general and extends to all citizens, whether enrolled in the militia or not.”

Christopher G. Tiedeman, 1900

“Apart from a provision of the constitutions of the United States, and of the several States, which guarantees to every citizen the right to bear arms, there cannot be any serious constitutional objection raised to [concealed carry] regulation…The American constitutions guarantee to every citizen the right to possess and bear arms, in time of peace as well as in war; and no binding law can he passed by Congress or by a State legislature, prohibiting altogether the carrying of weapons of warfare.”

Tiedeman was the dean of the University at Buffalo School of Law.

Worthington Advance (Worthington, MN), 3/2/1900

“The constitution of the United States provides that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ Now if women are people, and if hat pins arms, or dangerous weapons, the right of the ladies to keep and wear them cannot be infringed, so long as they wear them in plain sight…The law has nothing to say about the size of gun a man may carry so long as he carries it in plain sight, and much less would it have anything to say about the size of the hat pin.”

Republican Herald, (Phoenix, AZ), 3/8/1900

“A legislator by the name of Phillips has achieved fame through the introduction of a bill in the New York assembly prohibiting the use of hat pins more than three inches in length…The women of New York have been almost overcome with indignation, but they have managed to announce that they fall back upon their constitutional rights. They point out the provision of the federal constitution which declares that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged.”

Yale Law Journal, 1900

“The Constitution leaves the people of the several States supreme especially in the field of personal liberty…The truth (historical and logical) is that the ten amendments adopted on the proposal of the first Congress…prohibit the federal government from infringing the right of the people of a State to keep and bear arms, and the rest, but place no prohibition on the State itself.”

Beecher’s Constitution and Civil Government of the United States, 1901

“The effect of [the Second Amendment] is to encourage every citizen to constantly be on familiar terms with the use of arms, by guaranteeing him the right to always keep them at hand, and to encourage him to join the militia organized by the several states in order that should there be any necessity for bearing arms against the common enemy, he would be in a position to do so the more efficiently.”

The Daily Item (New Orleans, LA), 7/30/1901

“Illinois laws make it a felony to import into that State ‘an armed body of workmen’…But what becomes of the constitutional right of every man to bear arms?”

Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA), 4/16/1903

“The right of the citizen to bear arms is guaranteed by the United States Constitution and it is preposterous to suppose that a thousand men by associating themselves together in the bearing of arms thereby subject themselves to the orders of the President of the United States, and become liable to compulsory military service. The centralizing processes of the Federal government haven’t gotten quite that far along the way yet.”

The Irish World and American Industrial Liberator (New York, NY), 11/12/1904

“If an Irish farmer were found in possession of a lock or trigger of a pistol he would be hustled off to the nearest jail and kept there, perhaps, until he gave ‘bail for his good behavior.’ Such an outrage on citizens’ rights would, of course, not be tolerated on the other side of the channel, where every man bears arms when he pleases, and where, moreover, there is a law empowering the enrollment and organization of volunteer corps in which the youth of the country are exercised and trained in the use of arms—rifles, bayonets, revolvers, etc.—which they may and do keep at their own homes or at their local armories, of which they themselves are the custodians and managers. There are no volunteer corps in Ireland. British law forbids that. The Constitution of the United States enjoins that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ If power were given to any State Governor to infringe that right at his own mere pleasure would not even the Anglomaniac Americans consider it a ‘definite grievance?’”

Morris County Chronicle (Morristown, NJ), 5/2/1905

“Two thousand rifles were ordered, together with ammunition belts, and distributed to the [strike breakers]. The move has been carefully considered and the legal aspect looked into. The officials of the Employers’ association say they are acting under the clause in the second amendment of the federal constitution, which says, ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ Under decisions of the United States supreme court it is declared every man has a right to protect his life or property with firearms, provided such arms are not concealed.”

The Denver Post, 4/1/1906

“In many of the foreign countries the ordinary man is not allowed to own firearms of any kind. [The second article of amendments] was put in the constitution of the United States so that every man could own and keep, without let or hindrance, firearms for hunting, to defend his life and liberty or to repel foreign invasion.”

The Evening Leader (Corning, NY), 2/4/1909

“The law requires that every bottle of poison shall be labelled distinctly…Usually skull and cross-bones are added to emphasize the deadliness of the danger. And it seems as if it is actually necessary to require all firearms to bear a large red metal tag, relatively as plain as labels on poison bottles and signs at railway crossings. The United States Constitution guarantees to the citizen the right to keep and bear arms. But it would not infringe that right to enforce the rule of the red metal tag.”

The Seattle Daily Times (Seattle, WA), 8/31/1909

“Civil Rights Guaranteed to Filipino…Trial By Jury and Keeping and Bearing Arms Are Only Ones Withheld—Otherwise Islanders Have Same Status as Citizens of States” “The Americans have endeavored to extend to the Filipinos the guarantee of life, liberty and property secured to Americans under the Federal Constitution. The only guaranties withheld were the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to trial by jury.”

The American Citizen in Pennsylvania: The Government of the State and of the Nation, 1910

“To deny the right of citizens to bear arms is a means employed by despotic rulers to enforce arbitrary government. Without the Second Amendment, some feared, ambitious men might, by the aid of the regular army, overthrow the liberties of the people. State laws forbid the carrying of concealed deadly weapons. Congress cannot pass laws forbidding the people to keep and bear arms. A well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, and the right to self-protection cannot be infringed. A government which trusts its citizens with freedom to keep and bear arms must preserve its character for justice, and it may be partly for this purpose that the right has been formally acknowledged in the Constitution.”

Americus Times-Recorder (Americus, GA), 3/04/1910

“Chicago is in a tumult over the proposition that woman be deprived of her chief, favorite, and sometimes only, weapon of defence and offence, the hat pin….It is probable that they will fall behind the bulwarks of the constitutional* privilege of every citizen to bear arms.”

*The reference is to the US Constitution, as Illinois’ constitutional provision wasn’t added until 1970.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/5/1910

“[Chicago women] have fallen back on the constitution* and the laws. They point to that clause which says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed and boldly announce that the hat-pin is their weapon of offense and defense.”

*The reference is to the US Constitution, as Illinois’ constitutional provision wasn’t added until 1970.

The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), 8/17/1910

“The attempted assassination of Mayor Gaynor, of New York, has started some talk about the regulation of the manufacture and sale of deadly weapons…The right of every citizen to bear arms and have them in his possession for the protection of his home and person is guaranteed by the organic law.”

“The organic law” refers to the US Constitution, as the New York constitution has no arms rights provision.

Forest and Stream Magazine, 10/7/1911

“When our forefathers established this nation they fully relied upon the martial spirit of our people to preserve the republic in the future, and they intended in every way to encourage and foster this martial spirit. The safety of the country lies in the fact that here every man seems fond of his rifle, his shotgun and his revolver…Compelling a citizen of the United States to take out a permit, and for which he is charged the extortionate price of $10 per annum; to keep and bear arms in his home or in his personal possession is palpably beyond the bounds of a mere act of regulation, and as such, it is a plain, palpable abridgment of his privileges and immunities and is unconstitutional.”

The Jeffersonian (Thomson, GA), 1/16/1913

“[New York’s pistol license law] is as clear a violation of the Supreme Law of New York and of the United States as it is possible to conceive…[Firearms restrictions in England] had galled our forefathers to such an extent that, when they came over here and established, as they thought, free institutions where every man would be the equal of every other, before the Law, they put it into the Supreme Law of the land, that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms, should never be abridged.”

H.L. Mencken, 10/5/1913

“The New Yorker may do many things on Sunday that are unlawful in Roanoke, Va., or even in Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, but he has lost his constitutional right to bear arms, and his right of free speech is amazingly circumscribed by the police.”

Mencken was a journalist and political satirist, widely considered the most influential American literary critic of the 1920s and a leading authority on the English language.

Times-Republican (Marshalltown, IA), 3/20/1915

“The constitution of the United States preserves the right of every man to bear arms and he may still defend his threshold from the foot of the invader unless the invading force carries a search warrant.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/11/1916

“The right of carrying arms is guaranteed to all citizens under the U.S. Constitution.”

The Denver Star, 4/21/1917

“If this certain Southern element can convince the country that the Negro is disloyal to the flag or even throw doubt upon his loyalty, they will be able to exclude him from universal training and the right as a citizen to bear arms.”

The Beaumont Journal (Beaumont, TX), 1/11/1920

“Dr. Crane mentioned firearms and warned the foreigners against them, saying it was a crime to have firearms in one’s home…Did he ever hear of the Bill of Rights? Doesn’t he know that the immortal document which forms the basic law of this republic guarantees to the people of the United States that the right ‘to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?’…But Doc Crane isn't the only smart man in America today who seems never to have read the constitution of the United States.”

Bankers Magazine, 1921

“Assaults upon life and property have become so bold and frequent that the individual citizen is again demanding the right to bear arms—a right which, by the way, the Constitution of the United States declares ‘shall not be infringed.’”

William Preble Jones, 2/22/1922

“As [the Second] amendment, being a part of the so-called ‘Bill of Rights,’ was de-signed as a restriction upon the authority of the government of the United States…the only way to limit the toting of revolvers would be through concerted action of the various states or the adoption of another unpopular amendment to the federal constitution and another infringement on ‘personal liberty.’”

Jones was active in Massachusetts politics.

Ocala Evening Star (Ocala, FL), 6/2/1922

“We not only doubt the wisdom of trying to deny a citizen the right to keep and bear arms, but its legality. The article in the constitution giving the people the right to keep and bear arms has never been repealed.”

John Erskine, “The Prohibition Tangle,” The North American Review, 1924

“Those rights of the individual which could be exercised best in common, like the right to protection, were to become the duties of Government, but Government could not take those rights away from the individual; the Constitution was amended, for example, to secure to the citizen the right to bear arms.”

Erskine was a Columbia University professor of literature and highly influential figure in American education. He was also the first president of the Juilliard School of Music and director of the Metropolitan Opera Association.

Forest and Stream, 1/1924

“The clause of the Constitution relating to the right to keep and bear arms has to do with every man’s right to protect his own home and be prepared to protect society as well…To put aside the means of protecting the home, and trust to the tender mercies of the bandit and the brute who knows that he himself is armed and that his victims are not, is to be in league with the crooks themselves.”

The Idaho Falls Post (Idaho Falls, ID)/Carlton Simon, MD, 8/2/1928

“[Dr.] Simon states a great truth when he says that human freedom can be limited and harassed to such an extent that the individual will seek unlawful means of expressing his personality. We have all seen this illustrated by laws proposed which would make it ‘unlawful’ to sell or own arms. This has a more particular bearing on American citizens than on any other people because the second amendment to the United States constitution gives all citizens the right to possess and bear arms…Crime prevention can be promoted only by reasonable laws, prompt law enforcement, education [etc.]”

San Angelo Morning Times (San Angelo, TX), 11/28/1928

“Many otherwise honest and honorable citizens would break [additional federal gun laws], considering such legislation an infringement of constitutional rights accorded by the second amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The Evening Tribune (San Diego, CA), 1/4/1932

“Americans have always stubbornly defended the private citizen’s right to bear arms.”

Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), 8/22/1932

“If [pistol] prohibition should be attempted large numbers who never go armed would object to it. We would hear much about the constitutional right of the citizen to keep and bear arms.”

The Hemet News (Hemet, CA), 7/21/1933

“While the constitution gives an American citizen the right to bear arms, this state and others limit that right to all except those who have pull enough to get a permit.”

Corpus Juris, 1934

“The right to keep and bear arms…is sometimes said, occasionally in the constitution itself, to be an inherent and inalienable right, existing independently of the various constitutional guarantees thereof...The right guaranteed is not to bear arms upon all occasions and in all places, but to use them in a way that is usual, or to keep them for…defense of himself, his property, and the state.”

State Times Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA), 9/7/1935

“The federal constitution guarantees to the citizens the right to bear arms, but it is thought that the state will contend that it has a right to know where all the firearms in the state are and the nature of the firearms possessed by each individual.”

Dr. Harley L. Lutz, 7/9/1936

“The constitution guarantees to every citizen the following: the privilege of habeas corpus…; the right to keep and bear arms; [etc.]”

Lutz was a professor of public finance at Princeton University.

The San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/1938

“The Constitution forbids Congress to encroach upon the citizen’s right to bear arms. The right of such restriction is left to the States.”

The News and Courier (Charleston, SC), 9/24/1939

“The constitution guarantees to the citizen the ‘right to bear arms,’ but how, in time of civil commotion or revolution, can one buy arms without gold?”

James Taylor Robertson, 11/1/1940

“There is widespread hysteria in sporting magazine circles regarding feared legislation to prohibit ownership of fire arms. One nationally known publication has been mailing form letters ‘against all the machinations of those who through ignorance, perversity, or downright fifth-columnist anti-Americanism, are always steadily at work to wholly disarm all our citizenry (and) spoil our hunting’…It appears, however, that those distributing the letter overlooked the little matter of the Constitution of the United States. This sturdy document specifically says in its second amendment: ‘A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’”

Robertson was a member of the executive committee of the Virginia Game and Game Fish Protective Association.

Biology and Human Affairs, 1941

“In order to make it unmistakably clear that the government has no authority to take away certain rights from the citizen, it was specifically stated in the Bill of Rights that Congress shall pass no laws interfering with various rights and liberties…The right to keep and bear arms and the right of trial by jury if a citizen is accused of a crime are not to be taken away from him.”

Howard Vincent O’Brien, 12/22/1941

“The most important item [in the Bill of Rights] is the one dealing with the citizen’s right to keep arms…The meaning of this, the second amendment to the Constitution, has been forgotten. It is long since the average citizen has kept a rifle in the house. The framers of the Constitution were alive to the importance of an armed citizenry, ready at any moment to repel invasion from abroad or to protect their liberty from encroachment at home.”

O’Brien was a novelist, journalist, and WWI veteran.

John Steinbeck, 1942

“We may be thankful that frightened civil authorities and specific Ladies Clubs have not managed to eradicate from the country the tradition of the possession and use of firearms, that profound and almost instinctive tradition of Americans…Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the country, and the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights—the right of all Americans to bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them.”

Steinbeck is the author of and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men; he was awarded the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and US Medal of Freedom.

San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA) 2/23/1942

“Modern mechanized warfare holds an inherent danger to democracy—over and beyond the ambitions of dictators. The bill of rights guarantees the right of the individual to bear arms —but what individual can bear a tank or dive bomber?”

Schenectady Gazette (Schenectady, NY), 11/15/1943

“‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’…but an Albany county judge and the appellate division of this state feel this section of the bill of rights is of little consequence...Issuing of pistol permits by county Judges is done under provisions of the Sullivan law, which was enacted in an attempt to prevent criminals from obtaining firearms. However, as Justice Hill pointed out in dissenting with his appellate division colleagues, ‘if the statute is extended beyond that scope and field, it is unconstitutional and infringes the right of the people to keep arms.’”

Winning speech of American Legion high school oratorical contest, 12/12/1947

“Included in the ten articles of our Bill of Rights are several which provide for the protection of your personal privacy…The right of the citizen to keep and bear arms. The right of you, the citizen, to privacy.”

Detroit Times (Detroit, MI), 8/20/1948

“The second and third amendments in the Bill of Rights are concerned with the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms and the protection of the property owner from seizure of his home for quartering troops.”

The Canton Repository (Canton, OH), 3/5/1949

“Here’s one red-blooded American who doesn’t know any more about guns than a pig knows about Christmas…But millions of Americans know about guns…They are jealous of the right to own and use guns because it is guaranteed to Americans in Article II of the Bill of Rights.”

Your Rugged Constitution, 1950

“[The Second Amendment] was added to keep the federal government from passing any rules that would interfere with the lawful possession and use of arms by the people. You deny: To the federal government the power to interfere with your ownership and use of weapons for lawful purposes. You get: Protection against abuse of power by a national army.”

Paul A. White, 11/12/1950

“There is the second amendment to the Constitution which says ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ Would a hunter’s examination be an infringement?”

White was field secretary of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Association.

John Alden Knight, 12/21/1952

“Our forefathers certainly knew the value of gun ownership. When they drew up our Constitution, they insured the right of every man to bear arms.”

Knight was a banker, writer, naturalist and filmmaker who developed solunar tables, which are still used by hunters and fishermen today.

Lewiston Morning Tribune (Lewiston, ID), 11/28/1953

“Some additional safeguard seems to be required to get at the basic causes of hunting accidents without interfering with the citizen’s right to bear arms as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

HE Ashby, 5/27/1954

“The Constitution also guarantees the individual’s right to bear arms, but in how many states can you tote a gun?”

Ashby served as vice-chairman of the of Charleston County, SC Department of Education.

H. Paul Draheim, 8/29/1954

“It is true that many an American today has no use for firearms… [The second] amendment to the Constitution may seem a little pointless to him. But, not only was this important at the one time but it might well be vitally important again. Not only should the states have the right to organize and maintain a militia…but the individual may conceivably find it necessary to protect himself and his home with firearms some day.”

Draheim was the village historian of Herkimer, NY.

Zajedničar (Allegheny, PA), 12/15/1954

“Do you, as an American citizen, know your rights in this Country? It was back on December 15, 1791, that ten (10) Articles were added to the Constitution guaranteeing the citizenry rights respecting religious freedom, keeping and bearing arms, [etc.]”

Zajedničar was the newspaper of the Croatian Fraternal Union of America.

KD Kerr, 1/30/1955

“It seems ironic that in our system of military justice, all special and general courts-martial are automatically reviewed to the highest level of military justice while it is possible for a civilian to be convicted and punished in some states for exercising such constitutional rights as keeping and bearing arms.”

Kerr was a veteran Marine Corps pilot.

Oregon Journal (Portland, Oregon), 10/9/1955

“If you went hunting today, you carried a rifle. You didn’t have to be a member of a military organization to do that. Again it is the Bill of Rights that insures this privilege, in the part of the second amendment.”

Chicago Sun-Times via Wichita Falls Record News, 7/2/1956

“The town of Benton, Ky… adopted an ordinance making it just plain criminal to shoot, fire or squirt a water pistol, and even more criminal to sell one…On the face of it, Benton is meddling around with sacred constitutional guarantees. Either a water pistol is an arm or it isn’t, and if it is, the younger generation of Benton is being clearly deprived of every citizen’s right to bear arms.”

The Evening Bulletin (Providence, RI), 1/19/1959

“Admittedly, it is difficult to write firearms control laws that will keep an even balance between constitutional right of all citizens to bear arms and the protection of the public from criminal misuse of guns.”

Greensboro Daily News (Greensboro, NC), 4/13/1959

“There is no legal way in the state to prevent anyone from carrying a pistol, so long as it’s not concealed. This is because the second article of the Bill of Rights says that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’”

San Francisco Chronicle, 6/19/1962

“The Nation’s Sportsmen, feeling that their use and possession of firearms are already too tightly constricted by State and Federal legislation, have mobilized against a bill now before Congress (H. R. 613), which would require registration of all pistols…We would base our disapproval of the proposed legislation on the legal grounds that it violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution—by plainly ‘infringing’ on the rights of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Harry R. Woodward, 5/20/1965

“This constitutional guarantee, provided in the Bill of Rights, was conceived by those who wrote and signed this document which is everything to all citizens of this country, to guarantee each person the right to bear arms in defense of his liberty and for peaceful pursuits.”

Woodward served as President of the International Association of Game, Fish and Conservation Commissioners, President of the National Association of State Outdoor Recreational Liaison Officers, President of Midwest Fish and Commissioners and President of the Western Association of State Game and Fish Commissioners.