Judge Alex Kozinski dissenting in Silverira v. Lockyear, 9th Circuit 2003:
"My excellent colleagues have forgotten those bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late.
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbably those contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
"My excellent colleagues have forgotten those bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late.
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbably those contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."