Quotes About Amendment

When they took the Fourth Amendment, I was silent because I don't deal drugs. When they took the Sixth Amendment, I kept quiet because I know I'm innocent. When they took the Second Amendment, I said nothing because I don't own a gun. Now they've come for the First Amendment, and I can't say anything at all.

By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia,' 'the security of the nation,' and the right of each citizen 'to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy... The Second Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.

The First Amendment is really at the very core of political speech, and political speech is at the core of the First Amendment. So, we want to be very careful to make sure that candidates for office are free to express their views so that people will make an informed choice. We don't want them holding back, and sort of concealing their views and then disclosing them afterwards.

I think that for most of our history, there was a nuanced reading of the Second Amendment until the decision by the late Justice [Antoine] Scalia and there was no argument until then that localities and states and the federal government had a right, as we do with every amendment, to impose reasonable regulation.

If you're not going to offend somebody you don't need the First Amendment.

Despite two decisions, in 2008 and 2010, by the U.S. Supreme Court unequivocally affirming that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms against infringement by the government, state legislatures continue to do just that - enact laws that significantly infringe this fundamental human right.

I'm a constitutionalist. You know, does faith matter to me? Sure. But the beauty of the Constitution, the beauty of the First Amendment, it protects everyone's faith.

The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.

We don't need a constitutional amendment for kids to pray.

The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts.

A funny thing happened to the First Amendment on its way to the public forum. According to the Supreme Court, money is now speech and corporations are now people. But when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with the political consequences of this, they’re treated as public nuisances and evicted.

I wish the constitution, which is offered, had been made more perfect; but I sincerely believe it is the best that could be obtained at this time. And, as a constitutional door is opened for amendment hereafter, the adoption of it, under the present circumstances of the Union, is in my opinion desirable.

We have a First Amendment for good reasons. We need a free press because without an educated electorate we cannot have a functioning democracy.

I do think if we take the power out of Washington and bring it back to the people, if we defend the Bill of Rights, free speech, religious liberty, the Second Amendment, privacy, if we repeal Obamacare, abolish the IRS, if we get Washington out of the way of job creators, I think we can transform this country.

Is Donald Trump a serious candidate? The reason I ask this is, if you're going to close the Internet, realize, America, what that entails. That entails getting rid of the First amendment, ok? It's no small feat.

Commanding goodness and forbiding to do evil (are) for the amendment and correction of society and the common folks.

I love the First Amendment. Nobody loves it better than me. Nobody. I mean, who uses it more than I do?

It is the fundamental right of every American, as guaranteed by the first amendment of the Constitution, to worship as he or she pleases... This legislation sets forth the policy of the United States to protect and preserve the inherent right of American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiian people to believe, express, and exercise their traditional religions

Under the privilege of the First Amendment many, many ridiculous things are said.

I try to practice my religion in a very devout way and follow the teachings of my church in my own personal life, but I don't believe in America, a first amendment nation, where we don't raise any religion over the other, and we allow people to worship they please, that the doctrines of any religion should be mandated for everyone.

When I think about what we need to do, we have 33,000 people a year who die from guns. I think we need comprehensive background checks, need to close the online loophole, close the gun show loophole. There's other matters that I think are sensible that are the kind of reforms that would make a difference that are not in any way conflicting with the Second Amendment.

The First Amendment exists to protect our religious liberty--to ensure that all Americans are able to seek out worship God with all our hearts, free from government coercion; it does not mandate scouring the public square to forcibly remove all acknowledgement s of the Almighty

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

Senator majority leader, Mitch McConnell, slammed [Donald] Trump`s comments about burning the American flag which is protected under the first amendment should lead to jail time.

And, finally, as a Republican, I believe it is important to keep our word and keep our covenant, and that is exactly what we should do with the Wright amendment today.

Violating the 4th Amendment guarantees against illegal searches and seizures is not the way to solve crime problems.

While that amendment failed, human cloning continues to advance and the breakthrough in this unethical and morally questionable science is around the corner.

If newsmen do not tell the truth as they see it because it might make waves, or if their bosses decide something should or should not be broadcast because of Washington or Main Street consequences, we have dishonored ourselves and we have lost the First Amendment by default.

When the 14th Amendment, equal protection clause was enacted, the galleries in the Senate were segregated. Now we have integration.

False religions like Islam who teach that you must worship this way, are completely opposite with what our First Amendment stands for.

I oppose a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

Charles Graner is certainly guilty of terrible misjudgment. There's always a double standard. Everyone was happy to go to Graner's trial and write stories about how bad he is. And he is. But every time he tried to get an officer to testify, the officer either would invoke the Fifth Amendment or the judge would refuse to allow him to testify. We really didn't air out the issues.

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

I would vote to increase the debt limit if there was a corresponding level of cuts. And if there was some serious talk about a balanced budget amendment, which we as governors always had to deal with.

Pulling a crystalline, cogent rule out of the murk of the court's First Amendment, public forum, and Establishment Clause doctrine is an act of creation too complicated for mere mortals.

There is nothing as dangerous as an unembodied principle: no matter what blood flows, the principle comes first. The First Amendment absolutists operate precisely on unembodied principle.

If you hit minorities they're gonna blame conservatives, Second Amendment, guns, and the terrorists won't get their due credit. So from now on acts of terror, only hit white people, because hate crimes against them are permitted, and the media will play it up.

The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.

I intend to dedicate my remaining time as president of the NRA to ensure that the Second Amendment is safe from Al Gore and all those who threaten it.

If the Bill of Rights was intended to place strict limits on federal power and protect individual and locality from the national government the 14th Amendment effectively defeated that purpose by placing the power to enforce the Bill of Rights in federal hands, where it was never intended to be.

It would be refreshing to have a politician try to defend guns without any reference to the Second Amendment, but on the merits of guns.

The Constitution says nothing about anchor babies. The 14th Amendment says nothing about birthright citizenship.

Even if the flag burning amendment does become law, the larger problem will remain of how to respectfully dispose of older, tattered flags. Well, fortunately the U.S. official Flag Code has a suggestion about this. "The flag, when it is in such a condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem of display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning." Owwwwcchh. In response, the House Republicans are calling for tattered flags to be kept alive via a feeding tube.

The net effect of the distortion of the First Amendment is to require that wherever the state is, religion must be excluded.

For an American to be patriotic is to be loyal to the principles of our Constitution, and the First Amendment. The truth is that the policies of the government is sometimes in conflict with that. In our country, patriotism should not be defined as obedience to an authority.

The First Amendment...begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'.

Marriage is not defined in the federal Constitution at all; it's a matter for the states. And applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the equality of men and women and their relationship in marriage is totally different than redefining marriage. Here is the overreach of the judiciary. This, if allowed to stand without any congressional approval, without any kind of enabling legislation, is what Jefferson warned us about. That's judicial tyranny.

Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.