The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government

A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

On every question of Construction (of the Constitution) lets us carry our-selves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.