Good Gun Quotes

MODERN LEADERS’ THOUGHTS ON GUN CONTROL:

Mohandas K. Gandhi: “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle classes render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.” Mohandas K. Gandhi, Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, Chapter XXVII, Recruiting Campaign, Page 403, Dover paperback edition, 1983.

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)

Admiral Yamamoto: “You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.” Advising Japan’s military leaders of the futility of an invasion of the mainland United States because of the widespread availability of guns. It has been theorized that this was a major contributing factor in Japan’s decision not to land on North America early in the war when they had vastly superior military strength. This delay gave our industrial infrastructure time to gear up for the conflict and was decisive in our later victory.

Benito Mussolini: “The measures adopted to restore public order are: First of all, the elimination of the so-called subversive elements. … They were elements of disorder and subversion. On the morrow of each conflict I gave the categorical order to confiscate the largest possible number of weapons of every sort and kind. This confiscation, which continues with the utmost energy, has given satisfactory results.” (address to the Italian Senate, 1931)

Charles Shumer: (US Congress, 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 possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.” Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, Second Edition (1973), Pg. 425-426. Translated by Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens.

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center: “A gun-control movement worthy of the name would insist that President Clinton move beyond his proposals for controls . . . and immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act . . . [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.” “Dispense With the Half Steps and Ban Killing Machines,” Houston Chronicle, Nov. 5, 1999

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, If I could have banned them all – ‘Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns’ – I would have!” (Statement on TV program 60 Minutes, Feb 5 1995)

Deborah Prothrow-Stith: “My view of guns is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned.” (Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Dean of Harvard School of Public Health)

Jill Fieldstein, CBS producer, Street Stories: Women and Guns: “As a card-carrying member of the liberal media, producing this piece was an eye opening experience. I have to admit that I saw guns as inherently evil, violence begets violence, and so on. I have learned, however, that in trained hands, just the presence of a gun can be a real “man stopper.” I am sorry that women have had to resort to this, but wishing it wasn’t so won’t make it any safer out there. 29 April 1993.

And from one of your favorite gun-grabbing gods, Dr. Arthur Kellerman, stated: “If you’ve got to resist, you’re chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.” (Health Magazine, March/April 1994)

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch: “In my studies as an attorney and as a United States Senator, I have constantly been amazed by the indifference or even hostility shown the Second Amendment by courts, legislatures, and commentators. James Madison would be startled to hear that his recognition of a right to keep and bear arms, which passed the House by a voice vote without objection and hardly a debate, has since been construed in but a single, and most ambiguous Supreme Court decision, whereas his proposals for freedom of religion, which he made reluctantly out of fear that they would be rejected or narrowed beyond use, and those for freedom of assembly, which passed only after a lengthy and bitter debate, are the subject of scores of detailed and favorable decisions. Thomas Jefferson, who kept a veritable armory of pistols, rifles and shotguns at Monticello, and advised his nephew to forsake other sports in favor of hunting, would be astounded to hear supposed civil libertarians claim firearm ownership should be restricted. Samuel Adams, a handgun owner who pressed for an amendment stating that the “Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms,” would be shocked to hear that his native state today imposes a year’s sentence, without probation or parole, for carrying a firearm without a police permit.”

Senator Orrin Hatch: “If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying–that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976–establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime.” Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., The Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Committee Print I-IX, 1-23 (1982).

Sen. Hubert Humphrey: “Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” Sen. Hubert Humphrey, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns Magazine, Page 4, Feb. 1960.

John F. Kennedy: “Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”

George Orwell: “That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

The Dalai Lama: “If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.” (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times)

Laurence H. Tribe of the Harvard Law School: “The federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification.” (2000 edition of American Constitutional Law)

Attorney General John Ashcroft: “Just as the First and Fourth Amendment secure individual rights of speech and security respectively, the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. This view of the text comports with the all but unanimous understanding of the Founding Fathers.”

John F. Kennedy: “By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,’ ‘the security of the nation,’ and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,’ our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy… The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.” John F. Kennedy, Junior Senator of MA in a 1959 letter to E.B. Mann [From the 1974 Gun Digest, article titled Gun Laws]

Sanford Levinson on The Second Amendment as an Individual Right: “The structure of the Second Amendment within the Bill of Rights proves that the right to bear arms is an individual right, rather than a collective one. The collective rights’ idea that the Second Amendment can only be viewed in terms of state or federal power “ignores the implication that might be drawn from the Second, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments: the citizenry itself can be viewed as an important third component of republican governance as far as it stands ready to defend republican liberty against the depredations of the other two structures, however futile that might appear as a practical matter.” Sanford Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment, 99 YALE L.J. 637, 651 (1989).

Israeli Police Inspector General Shlomo Aharonisky: “There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.”

President Theodore Roosevelt: “The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world… The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!” – President Theodore Roosevelt’s last message to Congress.

Louisiana Governor Mike Foster: “Most people don’t ever want to use a gun to protect themselves — that’s the last thing they want to do — but if you know how and you have a situation with some fruitcake running around, like they’ve got right now, it sure can save you a lot of grief.”

Ted Nugent: “To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.”

James Earl Jones: “The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will lose.”

U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop: “The ruling class doesn’t care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake.” – former U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wy.)

David Prosser, Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: “If the constitutional right to keep and bear arms is to mean anything, it must, as a general matter, permit a person to possess, carry and sometimes conceal arms to maintain the security of his private residence or privately operated business.”

Paul Hager: “One of the arguments that had been made against gun control was that an armed citizenry was the final bulwark against tyranny. My response had been that untrained, lightly-armed non-soldiers couldn’t prevail against a modern army. I had concluded that the qualitative difference in firepower was such that all of the previous rules of guerilla war no longer applied. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan demonstrated that wasn’t true. Repelling an armed invasion is not something that American citizens are likely to face, but the possibility of a despotic government coming to power is not wholly unthinkable. One of the sequellae of Vietnam was the rise of the Khmer Rouge and slaughter of perhaps a million Cambodian citizens. Those citizens, like the Jews in Germany or the Armenians in Turkey, were unarmed and thus utterly and completely defenseless against police and paramilitary. An armed minority was able to kill and terrorize unarmed victims with total impunity.” – Paul Hagar, “Why I Carry”

Daniel Schmutter: “The tragic history of civilian disarmament cries a warning against any systematic attempts to render innocent citizens ill-equipped to defend themselves from tyrant terrorists, despots or oppressive majorities,” Daniel Schmutter, lawyer for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

Jeff Cooper: “Hoplophobia is a mental disturbance characterized by irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them.” Jeff Cooper, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth

Larry Elder: “A woman who demands further gun control legislation is like a chicken who roots for Colonel Sanders.”

Click Here for Some Bogus Gun Control Quotes

Click Here for Some Quotes on Gun Confiscation from Politicians

WHAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS THOUGHT ABOUT “GUN CONTROL”

Benjamin Franklin: Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Nov 11 1755, from the Pennsylvania Assembly’s reply to the Governor of Pennsylvania.)

Thomas Jefferson: “The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes….Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. Thomas Jefferson’s “Commonplace Book,” 1774-1776, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in Chapter 40 of “On Crimes and Punishment”, 1764.

Thomas Jefferson: “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

Thomas Jefferson: “The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”

John Adams: “Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.” (A defense of the Constitution of the US)

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)

Noah Webster: “The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops” (Noah Webster, 1787)

George Washington: “A free people ought to be armed.” (Jan 14 1790, Boston Independent Chronicle.)

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 leaders are afraid to trust them with arms.” (Federalist Paper #46)

William Pitt: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” (Nov. 18, 1783)

Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights: “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”

Patrick Henry: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”

St. George Tucker: “This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty… The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

Thomas Paine: “…arms…discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. …Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them.”

Bogus Quotes Attributed to the Founders

Quotes on Liberty and Freedom from America’s Revolutionaries

WHAT THE FOUNDING FATHERS MEANT BY THE “MILITIA”

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)

James Madison: “A WELL REGULATED militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.” (1st Annals of Congress, at 434, June 8th 1789, emphasis added.

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 17th century folks used the term “STANDING Army” to describe a professional army. THEREFORE, “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)

Patrick Henry: “The people have a right to keep and bear arms.” (Elliott, Debates at 185)

Alexander Hamilton: “…that standing army can never be formidable (threatening) to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in the use of arms.” (Federalist Paper #29)

“Little more can be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped.” (Id) {responding to the claim that the militia itself could threaten liberty}” There is something so far-fetched, and so extravagant in the idea of danger of liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or raillery (mockery). (Id)

Joseph Story: “The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.” (Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 3 vols. Boston, 1833.)

President James Madison: “…to support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people as equally incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system;… to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics–that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe;…” President James Madison, First Inaugural address, Saturday, March 4, 1809.

Tenche Coxe: “Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

William Rawle: “In the second article, it is declared, that a well regulated militia is necessary to a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war, in the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable; yet while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own country. The duty of the state government is, to adopt such regulation as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest.” William Rawle, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America” (1829)

CONTEMPORARY THINKERS COMMENT ON “MILITIA”

Professor Akhil Reed Amar: “The ultimate right to keep and bear arms belongs to the ‘the people,’ not the ‘states.’ As the language of the Tenth Amendment shows, these two of course are not identical and when the Constitution means ‘states,’ it says so. Thus… ‘the people’ at the core of the Second Amendment are the same ‘the people’ at the heart of the Preamble and the First Amendment, namely Citizens…Nowadays, it is quite common to speak loosely of the National Guard as ‘the state militia,’ but…in 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, ‘the militia’ referred to all Citizens capable of bearing arms. The militia is identical to ‘the people’ in the core sense described above.”

Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm: “The Second Amendment was meant to accomplish two distinct goals…First, it was meant to guarantee the individual’s right to have arms for self-defense and self-preservation. These privately owned arms were meant to serve a larger purpose as well…and it is the coupling of these two objectives that has caused the most confusion. The customary American militia necessitated an armed public…the militia (being)…the body of the people. The argument that today’s National Guardsmen, members of a select militia, would constitute the only persons entitled to keep and bear arms has no historical foundation.”

Alan Dershowitz: “Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it’s not an individual right or that it’s too much of a public safety hazard, don’t see the danger in the big picture. They’re courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don’t like.”

FOUNDING FATHERS INTENT BEHIND THE CONSTITUTION:

Samual Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” (Convention of the Commonwealth of Mass., 86-87, date still being sought)

Noah Webster: “Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority…the Constitution was made to guard against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” (Source still being sought)

Thomas Jefferson: “On every occasion…[of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.” (June 12 1823, Letter to William Johnson)

Joseph Story: “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” (Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. 3 vols. Boston, 1833.)

RELIGION, WEAPONS AND SELF DEFENSE:

“Now there was no metal smith found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, “Lest the Hebrews make for themselves swords or spears”…But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, each man to sharpen his plow blade, his coulter, his ax and his maddock. So it came to pass on the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul or Jonathan; but with Saul and Jonathan there was found [other lethal weapons] 1 Samuel 13:19-22)

“Jesus said, ‘But now whoever has a purse or a bag, must take it and whoever does not have a sword must sell his cloak and buy one.'” (Luke 22:36)

“If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed.” (Exodus 22:2) (Note, the test later indicates that this right to kill does not apply to a daytime break in. So in daylight, self defense must be shone.)

“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his house, his possessions are safe.” (Luke 11:21) (Note, the text later states that a stronger or better armed criminal could overpower a weaker or poorly armed victim, so get a 1911 .45 ACP!)

“A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men? Can he be a patriot who, by an openly vicious conduct, is undermining the very bonds of Society?….The Scriptures tell us “righteousness exalteth a Nation.” Abigail Adams

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military

“The thing that separates the American Christian from every other person on earth is the fact that he would rather die on his feet, than live on his knees!” George Washington

“God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.” Daniel Webster, Jun. 17, 1825 – from a speech at the foundation of the Bunker Hill monument commemorating the soldiers of the American Revolution.

“Though defensive violence will always be ‘a sad necessity’ in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.” St. Augustine A.D. 354-430

“Without doubt one is allowed to resist against the unjust aggressor to one’s life, one’s goods or one’s physical integrity; sometimes, even ’til the aggressor’s death… In fact, this act is aimed at preserving one’s life or one’s goods and to make the aggressor powerless. Thus, it is a good act, which is the right of the victim.” [There are three conditions under which legitimate self-defense must lie:] “That he who is the target of the force is an aggressor and an unjust aggressor… That the object of the defence is an important good, such as the life, physical integrity or worthy goods… [and] That defensive violence is proportionate to aggression.” [Under these conditions,] “One is also allowed [not required] to kill other people’s unjust aggressor.” Thomas Aquinas, Dizionario ecclesiastico (“Ecclesiastic dictionary”, UTET, 1959)