I don’t think we need more gun control laws.

Do countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry-pick the data.

Man never legislates, but destinies and accidents, happening in all sorts of ways, legislate in all sorts of ways.

The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

On the whole, we think of our consumers – other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it’s better to have it clearer than confusing.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, ‚Well, what do you need?‘

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

We also cannot allow Wall Street banks to rewrite the Second Amendment just because they’re too big to fail.

Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.

As for gun control advocates, I have no hope whatever that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking – or lack of thinking.

I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun.

States should have the right to enact laws… particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.

We have soon to have everywhere smoke annihilators, dust absorbers, ozonizers, sterilizers of water, air, food and clothing, and accident preventers on streets, elevated roads and in subways. It will become next to impossible to contract disease germs or get hurt in the city, and country folk will got to town to rest and get well.

I worked with Congress on legislation, gave speeches to CEOs, military generals and Hollywood executives. But I also worked to ensure that my efforts would resonate with kids and families – and that meant doing things in a creative and unconventional way. So, yeah, I planted a garden and hula-hooped on the White House lawn with kids.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

I filed the MSRB Reform Act, along with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Doug Jones, because the board that oversees the muni-bond market is too secretive and too incestuous. Its membership shares the same DNA. That means the rulebook for municipal bonds is in the hands of a board that resembles a revolving door of longtime industry confederates.

Under the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, which might well have been called the ‚Dust and Ashes Act,‘ any citizen of the United States could take up one hundred and sixty acres of timber land and, by paying two dollars and a half an acre for it, obtain title.

Most Americans think there’s already universal background checks. They don’t understand why there wouldn’t be a background check to purchase a weapon.

Guns are bad, I tell you.

In religious and in secular affairs, the more fervent beliefs attract followers. If you are a moderate in any respect – if you’re a moderate on abortion, if you’re a moderate on gun control, or if you’re a moderate in your religious faith – it doesn’t evolve into a crusade where you’re either right or wrong, good or bad, with us or against us.

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee – working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families.

He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.

Beto’s copy of the Bill of Rights goes from one to three. Mine includes the Second Amendment. But there are a whole host of people here in Washington… they would be happy to confiscate America’s guns. And if you don’t believe that, then you probably also still believe in Bigfoot.

People should not be in a position where their children have access to weapons and ammunition.

Two million felons have tried to buy a gun and, because of the background check, have been denied.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, period.

I have a very strict gun control policy: if there’s a gun around, I want to be in control of it.

Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare.

I’m prepared to say that law enforcement should be allowed to seize the guns of those who are suspected to be involved in domestic terrorism.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

What I think we need to do is pass a bill that says number one, you own your data. Number two, you can license it to Facebook but the licensing has to be knowing, it has to be willful.

Our rights are not absolute. Our rights can be curtailed in the interest of public safety.

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

What we all want is public safety. We don’t want rhetoric that’s framed through ideology.

Understand, our police officers put their lives on the line for us every single day. They’ve got a tough job to do to maintain public safety and hold accountable those who break the law.

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

We don’t seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?

The NICS database has holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

The Second Amendment is just as important as all the other Amendments.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Algorithms diminish public safety in this country. They ask us to pretend that lengthy arrest records and violent crimes don’t matter. They ask police to scoop up the bad guys only for the courts to immediately release them. They turn us into a bad joke.

Some of my colleagues argue that by further curtailing our Second Amendment rights, they can enhance public safety. Fine, the burden of proof is on them.

A statesman who confines himself to popular legislation – or, for the matter of that, a playwright who confines himself to popular plays – is like a blind man’s dog who goes wherever the blind man pulls him, on the ground that both of them want to go to the same place.

Should there be cameras everywhere in outdoor streets? My personal view is having cameras in inner cities is a very good thing. In the case of London, petty crime has gone down. They catch terrorists because of it. And if something really bad happens, most of the time you can figure out who did it.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.