"Every law on the statute books of the states against men keeping and bearing arms is a violation of the fundamental law of the land"

Amendment to United States Constitution.

   "Act II. 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."

   The militia of 1790, when the above was adopted, was very different from that of to-day. Every man, or most of them, owned a gun or pistol, and on muster day drilled with his fellows to repel a foe. It was only because of this individual, house-kept armament that America gained her freedom from King George III. No law infringing the bearing of arms, in view or out of view, would have been tolerated until the monopoly created by the late war had rendered many poor and desperate, that it was considered unsafe to trust them with arms. The people were first ground into poverty and then every possible restriction was adopted to prevent them from having anything to defend themselves against a foe meaner and greater, than King George III. Every law on the statute books of the states against men keeping and bearing arms is a violation of the fundamental law of the land and the very danger that Madison saw when he proposed that safeguard. Tyrants always found some excuse or means of disarming their subjects before they proceeded to plunder them. It was a great error in King George III that he did put put a tax on people owning guns and the American revolution would never have been heard of. All tyrants hesitate before they attack an armed people. The great safety of the Swiss republic is that all its citizens have a full equipment of the best guns in their homes. They are furnished by the state and each man is given the custody of his equipment. Every man is therefore on an equal footing to defend himself--and let a majority rule. There is nothing like the crime there as here in the United States, and no danger of a bad use of the gun is feared. But so careful are the tyrants of this monopoly-ridden nation of the people that they do not even allow the militia to take their guns home! Read the amendment, look at the conditions around you, and the great armament that will serve--who?--and make your own prognostications, Coming Nation, April 13

- The Advocate, Topeka, Kansas, April 17, 1895. Vol. VII., No. 16. Pg. 12.