If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.
-His Holiness, the XIV Dalai Lama (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times), speaking at the Educating Heart Summit in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate
.....Certainly, the intrinsic value of life and the duty to love oneself no less than others are the basis of a true right to self-defense ... legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State. Unfortunately, it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life. In this case, the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose actions brought it about, even though he may not be morally responsible because of a lack of the use of reason.
-Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter from 1995, EVANGELIUM VITAE
Though defensive violence will always be a "sad necessity" in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men.
-St. Augustine (354-430 AD)
Democracy is not a state in which people act like sheep. Under democracy, individual liberty of opinion and action is jealously guarded.
-Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fischer
I used to issue leaflets asking people to enlist as recruits. One of the arguments I had used was distasteful to the Commissioner: '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. If we want the Arms Act to be repealed, if we want to learn the use of arms, here is a golden opportunity. If the middle class render voluntary help to Government in the hour of its trial, distrust will disappear, and the ban on possessing arms will be withdrawn.' The Commissioner referred to this and said that he appreciated my presence in the conference in spite of the differences between us. And I had to justify my standpoint as courteously as I could.
-Mohandas Karamchand Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (1869-1948), The Story of my Experiments with Truth - An Autobiography (1927)
I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.
-Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fischer,
When there is absolutely no choice but between violence and cowardice, I would choose violence
-Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fischer
Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative. It undoes the teaching of self help that they have been learning for a generation. It makes them spoon fed. This is a tragedy next only, if indeed not equal to the fratricide, on a vast scale and the insane exchange of population resulting in unnecessary deaths, starvation, wand want of proper residence and clothing, more poignant for the coming of inclement weather.
-Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, Louis Fischer
If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.
-The Talmud
Death for the wicked, conclude our Sages, is a benefit for them and for the world while death for the righteous is bad for them and bad for the world.
-The Talmud, Sanhedrin 72a
When a strong man, armed, keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace.
-Luke 11:21
Then said He unto them, but now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.... And they said, Lord, here are two swords. And he said unto them, it is enough.
-Luke 22:36
If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.
-Exodus 22:2-3
Except those who believe and do good and remember Allah much, and defend themselves after they are oppressed; and they who act unjustly shall know to what final place of turning they shall turn back.
-The Koran, The Poets: 26.227
And whoever defends himself after his being oppressed, these it is against whom there is no way to blame. The way to blame is only against those who oppress men and revolt in the earth unjustly; these shall have a painful punishment.
-The Koran, The Counsel: 42.36 - 42.42
