[justme4now]

Noah Webster said it best ...

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe."

"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, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787)

[gundog]

And a couple from James Madison.

“A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.”

“Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”