You will never succeed in getting at the truth if you think you know, ahead of time, what the truth ought to be.

Marchette Chute

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South.  It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone. . . . I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62)
U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Journals (1906), entry for 4 Dec. 1860.

In business, your ego is the first hostage you need to shoot.

Chris Phillips
President
Chromium Communications
Sometime in 2000
[Comment by Joe: This was said regarding the need to remove your emotions from the making of good decisions. It applies to politics, science, and home life as much or more as business.]

There is something about invading a person’s cranial vault that takes the fight out of them.

Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
Oct 26, 1996

I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.  Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have used his physical force which could and wanted to use, and defend me, I told him it was his duty to defend me even by using violence.

Mohandas K. Gandhi
Young India
Aug. 11, 1920
quoted in Louis Fischer(editor) The Essential Gandhi
pp. 156-57

In observing our political scene, it is necessary to remember that in any democracy the absolute goal of the politician is power. Not money, power. This means that the only thing of any consequence to a politician is re-election. He will walk on eyeballs to be re-elected, and the only time that principle means anything to him is when it happens to coincide with what appears to him the best course towards his own re-election. Now the only way to get power is to take it from someone who already has it. Under our system, the theory is that the people at large are sovereign and have the power, but the only way the politician can achieve power is to take it from the people who already have it – or should have it. This makes for a permanent conflict in principle between the voter and his representative. This is not cheerful, but it is nonetheless a fact.

Of the three systems of government enunciated by Aristotle – monarchy (tyranny), aristocracy (oligarchy), and polity (democracy) – polity (democracy) is the best, not because of its inherent virtue, but because of its basic lack of efficiency. An inefficient government is best for the people, simply because it is inherently incapable of doing anything well, and the less it does the better.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries
Vol. 5, No. 2
February 1997

If Monica took up IPSC, would her instructor want her to do Bill Drills?

Jim Boemler
IPSC email list
April 8, 1999
[A Bill Drill is a shooting drill that has nothing to do with a former U.S. President by that name.]

At first glance, it may seem odd or even perverse to suggest that statutory controls on the private ownership of firearms are irrelevant to the problem of armed crime; yet that is precisely what the evidence shows.  Armed crime and violent crime generally are products of ethnic and social factors unrelated to the availability of a particular type of weapon.

The number of firearms required to satisfy the crime market is small, and these are supplied no matter what controls are instituted. Controls have had serious effects on legitimate users of firearms, but there is no case, either in the history of this country or in the experience of other countries in which controls can be shown to have restricted the flow of weapons to criminals, or in any way reduced crime.

While the number of legal firearms owners in Britain has been declining due to a hostile gun control bureaucracy, crimes involving firearms increased 196% between 1981-1992.

Chief Inspector Colin Greenwood of the West Yorkshire Constabulary
Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1992, p.34,65

I gotta start working on this empathy shit.

Ry Jones
April 5, 2001

We can continue to push legislation of dubious effectiveness. Or we can acknowledge that gun violence is a public-health crisis fueled by an inherently dangerous consumer product. To end the crisis, we have to regulate–or, in the case of handguns and assault weapons, completely ban–the product.

Josh Sugarmann
Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center
From the article “Reverse Fire”
January/February 1994 Issue of Mother Jones

America must face the fact that we have a love affair with guns that exacts a tremendous and unacceptable cost in human lives lost. Mass shootings like that at Red Lake High School are the future for America’s children until policymakers decide it’s time to enact real gun control. Other countries have found the solution to mass shootings, and it consists of severe restrictions on the availability of specific classes of firearms, such as handguns and assault weapons.

Kristen Rand
Legislative director for the Violence Policy Center
News release March 22, 2005

[Note: The guns used were stolen from the shooters grandfather–a police officer killed by the shooter.  The school guard, also killed, was unarmed.]

The entire discussion of “stopping power” is both stupid and irrelevant. Statistics cannot be applied to individuals. People that need to be shot need to be shot soon and often. They need to be shot until they run out of fluid, brains, or balls.

If during the time you were reading the latest “stopping power” article you were instead practicing to save your life you would be far, far ahead.

Greg Hamilton
Self-defense instructor
May 08, 1998

To know how to say what others only know how to think is what makes men poets or sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think makes men martyrs or reformers or both.

Elizabeth Charles

I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Walden, “The Village,” 1854.

They tell us, sir…that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come!!!

It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace; but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?

Forbid it, Almighty God — I know not what course others may take; but as for me — give me liberty or give me death!

Patrick Henry
Speech, March 23, 1775

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

Daniel Webster

A belief is not true because it is useful.

Henri Frederic Amiel