Founders RE the Second

Founding Fathers:
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“The right … of bearing arms… is declared to be inherent in the people.”
Fisher Ames, one of the framers of the 2nd Amendment in the first congress
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“The great object is that every man be armed … Everyone who is able may have a gun. But have we not learned by experience that, necessary as it is to have arms … it is still far from being the case?”
-Patrick Henry
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“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
-Thomas Jefferson
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“And what country can preserve its liberties if its rules are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
-Thomas Jefferson
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“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”
-Richard Henry Lee
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“The advantage of being armed is an advantage which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
-James Madison
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“A free people ought … to be armed.”
-George Washington
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"The founders meant the militia to be we, the people. Each of us individually is “the militia.”
“The militia are the people at large.”
-Tench Coxe Attny. Gen. of Penn. and Asst. Sec of Treasury under Washington
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“Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.”
-George Mason
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“The militia is composed of free citizens.”
-Samuel Adams
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“A militia… are in fact the people themselves.”
-Richard Henry Lee