Problem is, a whole lot of those quotations are either mis-attributed, manufactured or just plain bogus. Take this one, for example, seen on t-shirts being sold last Sunday at a local gun show:
"'Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.' (Thomas Jefferson)"There's no evidence of Jefferson ever having said or written that. They're the words of John Basil Barnhill, spoken in 1914 during a series of debates on socialism. Here are two variations of another oft-quoted non-Jeffersonism:
Also bogus, those words first appeared in print -- get this -- in 2007, at the end of Matt Carson's On a Hill They Call Capital: A Revolution is Coming. I suppose that shouldn't surprise us, since Carson apparently misspelled "Capitol" in the title of his own book. (I also wouldn't be shocked if he'd consider me "elitist" or "intellectual" for pointing that out. Considering the source, I can live with the insult.)"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
"The people will not understand the importance of the Second Amendment until it is too late."
Jefferson isn't the only Founder in the game, of course. George Washington didn't sleep in as many places as is claimed, nor did he say anything remotely resembling this:
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty's teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related."And James Madison didn't say this:
"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be questioned."There truly is no end to what folks will invent to validate what they believe. Constitutionally, it's the flip-side of what a Texas dentist (and member of the state's school board) did recently, ignoring the words of Jefferson in order to support his view that the First Amendment doesn't establish separation between church and state.
You'll find no more committed defender of the Second Amendment than this blogger. I also know that American gun owners constantly battle the perception that we're backward belly-scratchers who couldn't use a dictionary even if we managed to hold it right-side-up.
Unfortunately, attributing a bunch of bogus quotations to the Founders -- who, by the way, gave us plenty of bona fide statements to use in support of Second Amendment rights -- only serves to reinforce our image as an armed horde of illiterate ignorants.
Passion is no excuse for dishonor. Think about it -- aside from what others may infer about our collective intelligence, what are we saying about our integrity?
Knowing that I'm throwing myself in front of a runaway train, I'm on my knees here, begging: Stop making shit up, People!
