Two of those three quotes support the statement by the implication of that there being no other way to defend your own rights (rights meaning liberties) than being as well armed as the one threatening to take them.
England recognized our independence in 1783. The Bill of Rights was only PROPOSED in 1789, and did not go into effect until December 15, 1791. Our war debt to France was paid (ahead of schedule) in 1795. The cost of a standing army wasn’t a consideration, primarily because nobody wanted one.
That is implied in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution (The Rights and Powers of Congress) which authorizes congress to fund a standing army for a period no longer than two years (Clause 12). A standing army without a formal declaration of war from congress is unconstitutional. Being a 16 year army veteran, knowing that kinda hurts…
Sincere ignorance, and honest stupidity (credit for that line must go to MLK), are not excuses for ignoring your country’s history, and asking why they did what they did. You should also read the Declaration of Independence, it expresses the mood of the country at that time as well. One of the grievances listed was about the English army…
Also it expressed the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Whoever She is).

Six to one, half a dozen to the other. The banksters did not set out to destroy the world economy, though – that was just an unfortunate side effect of unleashing instruments so complex that only the young quants who designed them understood, very imperfectly, how they worked. The subprime mortgages did not start in the banking sector, but with the mortgage brokers like Countrywide; it then became a game of musical chairs. The arms merchants, on the other hand, are out to create a world where mass shootings, and a highly paid lobbying arm, send the fearful to the gun store and boost the heck out of sales. See the difference?

I’m not trying to take away your rifle, but I do want you to go through a backround check before you can legally purchase another, and if you’re on the No Fly List or the Terrorism Watch List, you’re banned from gun or ammo purchases until you can get yourself removed from a list that identifies you as a potential threat. Nor do I want you to be able to purchase automatic weapons and 100 cartridge ammo clips, because those are strictly for things like this shooting. If you think they’d be of much use against the Army, they didn’t do much good for the citizens of Iraq or Afghanistan, did they? Any successful uprising in this country will have the military on it’s side. In the mean time, please feel free to shoot Jamie Dimon, LLoyd Blanfein, Tim Geithner, or even Angelo Mozillo, who the government did try – a jury reluctantly aquitted him because the prosecution was unable to prove that his actions were knowing and deliberate. Until one of you armed patriots stands up and uses a ‘second amendment remedy’ to execute one of these traitors, your desire to engage in fantasies where you and your drum style ammo clip cut down the private security contingent protecting one of these Masters of the Universe will remain nothing more than a public health threat. Those Wall Street big wigs don’t waste a second’s thought on you, but those unarmed drum circles in Zucotti Park scare the shit out of them.

Do you think people who have tuberculosis but refuse to take the medication that cures it should be allowed the freedom to walk amongst us, coughing, sneezing and spreading it as they go, or do you think that their freedom stops at your personal air space? The law protects you from the tuberculosis spreader; it should also protect me from crazed young men who decide they want to kill as many strangers as they can in a blaze of glory. We can’t completely stop these things, but we can take simple steps to limit the lethality. Holmes would have been able to purchase a rifle and ammo, but if he had to reload after six shots, theatergoers would have had a shot at stopping him. The VA Tech shooter should never have been allowed to purchase a weapon, and was on a list that should have prevented it. He slipped through because we don’t take these limits seriously and don’t strive to ensure that all legal purveyors are plugged into the lists. In the age of computers, that’s a planned fail.

Your notion that the armed citizens of this nation are all that stand between us further depradations by financial elites is a fantasy. The gun brandishers show up at Tea Party gatherings, pissed off at the subprime borrowers and those poor enough to qualify for food stamps, not the folks on Wall Street. Rick Santelli’s rant was against them, not the people who made out like bandits, and it’s only gotten worse since the Koch brothers took over the organization. There are no guns at Occupy Wall Street, but that’s where the change will come from; the banksters don’t fear the Tea Party, but Occupy makes their blood run cold. They’ve changed the conversation. Sandy Weil, one of the prime architects of financial deregulation, has come out and said he was wrong, that the controls he fought to remove should be reinstated and that the behemoths he fought to create should be dismanteled. Now that’s the kind of change I can believe in.

You want to eliminate the unholy nexus of power between the top 1% and Washington? So do I. But that’s a change that can only come about by agitating for campaign finance reform, and that won’t happen at the end of a gun barrel. That will only happen if enough of us take to the streets and demand it. Attend rallies and bring your rifle – we’d truly love to have you join us. Call every single representative you have at every level of government and demand change. Sign every petition out there, educate everyone you know. That’s the only way to fix the mess we find ourselves in today.