• The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

    Cesare Beccaria: The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are 
neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that 
those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity...will 
respect the less important and arbitrary ones... Such laws make things worse 
for the assaulted and better for the assailants, they serve rather to 
encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with 
greater confidence than an armed man.