Some time ago, I signed up for the firearms self-defense insurance from US Concealed Carry. Most likely, I’ll never have to even draw my weapon, just as most likely, my house will never catch on fire. But like a home fire, the financial consequences if I should have to fire my gun in self-defense or defense of others can be significant. So I choose to insure against both possibilities. Of the relevant insurance programs available at the time, I liked theirs best. And I like their approach. If you hit the link above, you’ll find a comparison chart of all the available programs along with links to all their competitors; that bespeaks of confidence in one’s product.

All that’s prefatory to explaining that they shared in an email the below Jefferson picture and quote, which they suggested that we share with others on this Independence Day. I thought I’d expand on that idea by adding some other appropriate quotes that I’ve collected over the years.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
— Frédéric Bastiat

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature … laws not preventive but fearful of crimes.
— Cesare Beccaria

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
— George Washington

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
— Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi, An Autobiography, page 446

You can have peace or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.
— Robert A. Heinlein

If, before undertaking some action, you must obtain the permission of society — you are not free, whether such permission is granted to you or not. Only a slave acts on permission. A permission is not a right.
— Ayn Rand

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
— C. S. Lewis

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.
— Col. Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
— Daniel Webster

To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.
— George Mason

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government — and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.
— Edward Abbey