The Constitution gives you the right, as a white man, to have a rifle in your home. The Constitution gives you the right to protect yourself. Why is it ‘ominous’ when black people even talk of having rifles? Why don’t we have the right to self-defense? Is it because maybe you know we’re going to have to defend ourselves against you?

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.

You can make laws against weapons but they will be observed only by those who don't intend to use them anyway. The lawless can always smuggle or steal or even make a gun. By refusing to wear a gun you allow the criminal to operate with impunity.

There are men running governments who shouldn't be allowed to play with matches.

When guns are outlawed, only the Government will have guns. The Government - and a few outlaws. If that happens, you can count me among the outlaws.

The way to stop discrimination on race is to stop discriminating on race

Racists often take their cues on how to act from the way the government behaves. If the government is actively campaigning against racism, they hide their feelings and do nothing. If the government is indifferent to racism by not prosecuting it, then they feel it’s okay to come out of hiding and attack.

Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; every citizen must be put in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one.

Yet the average white person also has a responsibility. He has to resist the impulse to seize upon the rioter as the exclusive villain. He has to rise up with indignation against his own municipal, state and national governments to demand that the necessary reforms be instituted which alone will protect him. If he reserves his resentment only for the Negro, he will be the victim by allowing those who have the greatest culpability to evade responsibility. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer. Constructive social change will bring certain tranquillity; evasions will merely encourage turmoil. Negroes hold only one key to the double lock of peaceful change. The other is in the hands of the white community.

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

If we continue on this path, there is no doubt where it will end. If the government has the responsibility of protecting us from dangerous substances, the logic surely calls for prohibiting alcohol and tobacco. If it is appropriate for the government to protect us from using dangerous bicycles and cap guns, the logic calls for prohibiting still more dangerous activities such as hang-gliding, motorcycling, and skiing. Even the people who administer the regulatory agencies are appalled at this prospect and withdraw from it. As for the rest of us, the reaction of the public to the more extreme attempts to control our behavior — to the requirement of an interlock system on automobiles or the proposed ban of saccharin — is ample evidence that we want no part of it. Insofar as the government has information not generally available about the merits or demerits of the items we ingest or the activities we engage in, let it give us the information. But let it leave us free to choose what chances we want to take with our own lives.

Rights aren't really rights if someone can take them away.

There’s a saying that when guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns.

Our country must abandon all the habits of racism because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.