The right of self-defense 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 when the right of the
people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever,
prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
Henry St. George Tucker (in Blackstone's Commentar
