5-8-1840: "Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen have firelocks in their houses . . . and it has established by statute, and confirmed by habit, the principle that arms belong to freemen as a part of their political birthright..."

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Richmond Enquirer, “The law was intended to inculcate the principle not only that every man should have the right to bear arms, but that it was his duty to prepare to defend himself and his country from wrong and oppression. . . . Hundreds of thousands of our countrymen have firelocks in their houses . . . and it has established by statute, and confirmed by habit, the principle that arms belong to freemen as a part of their political birthright. . . . No future legislation will ever venture to take weapons of defence out of the hands of the people of this country.–The attempt would lead to instant revolt against the Government. The law was devised by Washington, and the sages of our Revolution, for the express purpose of guarding against insidious legislation, which might here, as it has done elsewhere, disarm the people under pretexts of game laws or other devices, and leave them unprotected…”, May 8, 1840