Thomas Jefferson: "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins; they serve to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." (1764 Letter and speech from T. Jefferson quoting with approval an essay by Cesare Beccari)George Washington: "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the people's liberty teeth (and) keystone... the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable... more than 99% of them [guns] by their silence indicate that they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference [crime]. When firearms go, all goes, we need them every hour." (Address to 1st session of Congress)
Thomas Jefferson: "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (T. Jefferson papers, 334, C.J. Boyd, Ed. 1950)
James Madison: "Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of other countries, whose people are afraid to trust them with arms." (Federalist Paper #46)
George Mason: "To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them." (3 Elliot, Debates at 380)
Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe." (1787, Pamphlets on the Constitution of the US)
George Washington: "A free people ought to be armed." (Jan 14 1790, Boston Independent Chronicle.)
George Mason: "I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people." (Elliott, Debates, 425-426)
Richard Henry Lee: "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." (Additional letters from the Federal Farmer, at 169, 1788)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Back in the 18th century, a "regular" army meant an army that had standard military equipment. So a "well regulated" army was simply one that was "well equipped." It does NOT refer to a professional army. The term "STANDING Army" was used in the 1700's to describe a professional army. THUS WE SEE THAT "A well regulated militia" only means a well equipped militia. It does not imply the modern meaning of "regulated," which means controlled or administered by some superior entity. Federal control over the militia comes from other parts of the Constitution, but not from the second amendment (my personal opinion).
Modern Leaders Quotes On Arms
Adolf Hitler: "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead." (Chancelor's Speech, 1935)
Charles Shumer: (US Congressman, D-NY, has sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution) "All we ask for is registration, just like we do for cars." (Press conference, 1993, exact date being sought)
Adolf Hitler: "The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subject peoples to possess arms. So let's not have any talk about native militias." (Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-44, Farrar, Strauss and Young, 1953)
Mao Tse Tung: "All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party." (Problems of War and Strategy, Nov 6 1938, published in "Selected Works of Mao Zedong," 1965)
Diane Feinstein: (US Senator, D-CA) "If I could have banned them all- 'Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns' -I would have!" (Statement on TV program 69 Minutes, Feb 5 1995)
Mahatma Gandhi: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." ("Gandhi, an Autobiography," M.K. Gandhi, 446)
Sigmund Freud: "A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." ("General Introduction to Psychoanalysis," S. Freud)
Bill Clinton: (US President, has sworn an oath to defend the US Constitution, not to violate it, criticize it, and belittle it) "When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it." (April 19 1994, on MTV)