Charles Krauthammer, the Assault Weapon Ban, and Shannon Watts

Gun Watch ^ | 10 September, 2014 | Dean Weingarten

[wastoute]

The founding fathers got the idea from Jesus (paraphrased by Ravi Zacharias) “All the Evil in the world comes from the heart of man.”

[ModelBreaker]

You wrote:

1) Bad guys shoot bad guys.
2) Bad guys shoot good guys.
3) Good guys shoot bad guys only when it’s necessary.
4) Good guys don’t shoot other good guys.

Bad guys don’t obey gun laws, only good guys do.
Therefore, gun laws will have no effect on 1), they will increase 2) and reduce 3). 4) is not a problem either way.

3) is the only category Liberals care about. That’s why they want gun control.

*****************
Nice list and analysis. But you left out the most important factor in ruling class thinking. Good guys might shoot members of the ruling class. That constrains the ruling class, even if a shot is never fired. Constraining the ruling class in any manner is unacceptable.

There’s a reason only nobles were allowed to have armor and swords and why peasants had to use pitchforks.

[Dogbert41]

In many states the 2nd no longer exists. Now that a majority of appellate judges are Democrat appointees, the judiciary will become an avenue for more restrictions, instead of rolling back gun laws that we've been experiencing since 94.

[Theodore R.]

Isn’t Eastwood pretty much a down the line liberal Republican otherwise?

[Theodore R.]

Pat Buchanan used the “pitchforks” analogy but the American people were not impressed.

[BitWielder1]

True.
The ruling class never sees themselves as bad.

[marktwain]

Clint has called himself a liberterian, at times.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I would hesitate to ascribe it to a single source, as these were to a great extent very learned men, well grounded in not just religion, but philosophy, politics, history science, warfare, the technology of the time, agriculture, etc.

Even their own attributions of the basis of their thoughts should be looked at in a guarded manner. But, if anything, the KJV Bible was an almost universal, concise, poetic reference appreciated by all, so made for good attribution of principles.

Rather ironically, an *absence* of influence is noteworthy, that of Shakespeare. Scholarly editions of his work, by Samuel Johnson in 1765 and Edmond Malone in 1790, came too late to have a linguistic impact on the founding fathers. But had the revolution come about 20-30 years later, almost 200 years after Shakespeare’s death, their writings would have likely been peppered with them.

However, it would be worth it to have a scholarly examination of the language of two contemporary authors of Shakespeare, who were far more popular in the formative years of the founding fathers, John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. The founding fathers were likely familiar with their writings.

Other writers of the time that clearly influenced them were Adam Smith, David Hume, John Locke, William Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, Charles Louis de Secondat-Baron Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, the Italian legal reformer Cesare Beccaria, Francis Hutcheson’s A System of Moral Philosophy (a big religious connection here), huge amounts of ‘classical’ Greek and Roman writings and histories, and many others, including each others writings.