""In both New-England, and New-York, every man is permitted, and in some, if not all the States, is required to possess fire arms. To trust arms in the hands of the people at large has, in Europe, been believed, and so far as I am informed universally, to be an experiment, fraught only with danger. Here by a long trial it has been proved to be perfectly harmless: neither public nor private evils having ever flowed from this source, except in instances of too little moment to deserve any serious regard.""