Laws that forbid the carrying of arms. . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. . . 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.

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Notes from Wikiquote

Has been falsely attributed to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson transcribed this passage (in the original Italian) in his Legal Commonplace Book, item 828.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cesare Beccaria (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.