Legendary film star and gun-rights advocate Charlton Heston died Saturday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 84. Let us remember the man through his words.
The Second Amendment:
AMERICA'S FIRST FREEDOM
Charlton Heston addressed a blistering attack on media bias during a speech to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. Following is the full text of Mr. Heston's address.
"Today I want to talk to you about guns: Why we have them, why the Bill of Rights guarantees that we can have them, and why my right to have a gun is more important than your right to rail against it in the press.
I believe every good journalist needs to know why the Second Amendment must be considered more essential than the First Amendment. This may be a bitter pill to swallow, but the right to keep and bear arms is not archaic. It's not an outdated, dusty idea some old dead white guys dreamed up in fear of the Redcoats. No, it is just as essential to liberty today as it was in 1776. These words may not play well at the Press Club, but it's still the gospel down at the comer bar and grill.
And your efforts to undermine the Second Amendment, to deride it and degrade it, to readily accept diluting it and eagerly promoted redefining it, threaten not only the physical well-being of millions of Americans but also the core concept of individual liberty our founding fathers struggled to perfect and protect.
So now you know what doubtless does not surprise you. I believe strongly in the right of every law-abiding citizen to keep and bear arms, for what I think are good reasons.
The original amendments we refer to as the Bill of Rights contain ten of what the constitutional framers termed unalienable rights. These rights are ranked in random order and are linked by their essential equality. The Bill of Rights came to us with blinders on. It doesn't recognize color, or class, or wealth. It protects not just the rights of actors, or editors, or reporters, but extends even to those we love to hate.
That's why the most heinous criminals have rights until they are convicted of a crime. The beauty of the Constitution can be found in the way it takes human nature into consideration. We are not a docile species capable of co-existing within a perfect society under everlasting benevolent rule.
We are what we are. Egotistical, corruptible, vengeful, sometimes even a bit power mad. The Bill of Rights recognizes this and builds the barricades that need to be in place to protect the individual.
You, of course, remain zealous in your belief that a free nation must have a free press and free speech to battle injustice, unmask corruption and provide a voice for those in need of a fair and impartial forum.
I agree wholeheartedly... a free press Is vital to a free society. But I wonder: How many of you will agree with me that the right to keep and bear arms is not just equally vital, but the most vital to protect all the other rights we enjoy?
I say the Second Amendment is. in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America's First Freedom, the one right that protects all of the others. Among freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, of redress of grievances, it is the first among equals. It alone offers the absolute capacity to live without fear. The right to keep and bear arms is the one right that allows "rights" to exist at all.
Either you believe that, or you don't, and you must decide.
Because there is no such thing as a free nation where police and military are allowed the force of arms but individual citizens are not. That's a "big brother knows best" theater of the absurd that has never boded well for the peasant class, the working class, or even for reporters.
Yes, our Constitution provides the doorway for your news and commentary to pass through free and unfettered. But that doorway to freedom is framed by the muskets that stood between a vision of liberty and absolute anarchy at a place called Concord Bridge. Our revolution began when the British sent Redcoats door to door to confiscate the peoples' guns. They didn't succeed: The muskets went out the back door with their owners.
Emerson said it best:
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.'
King George called us 'rabble in arms.' But with God's grace, George Washington and many brave men gave us our country. Soon after, God's grace and a few great men gave us our Constitution. It's been said that the creation of the United States is the greatest political act in history. I'll sign to that.
In the next two centuries, though, freedom did not flourish. The next revolution, the French, collapsed in the bloody terror, then Napoleon's tyranny. There's been no shortage of dictators since, in many countries. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Castro, Pol Pot. All these monsters began by confiscating private arms, then literally soaking the earth with the blood of tens and tens of millions of their people. And, the joys of gun control.
Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment.
Besides, how can we entrust to you the Second Amendment, when you are so stingy with your own First Amendment?
I say this because of the way, in recent days, you have treated your own - those journalists you consider the least among you. How quick you've been to finger the paparazzi with blame and to eye the tabloids with disdain. How eager you've been to draw a line where there is none, to demand some distinction within the First Amendment that sneers 'they are not one of us.' How readily you let your lesser brethren take the fall, as if their rights were not as worthy, and their purpose not as pure, and their freedom not as sacred as yours.
So now, as politicians consider new laws to shackle and gag paparazzi, who among you will speak up? Who here will stand and defend them? if you won't I will. Because you do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you - big enough to embrace all of you, plus all those you would exclude. That's how freedom works.
It also demands you do your homework. Again and again I hear gun owners say how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.
That's why you have very little credibility among 70 million gun owners and 20 million hunters and millions of veterans who learned the hard way which end the bullet comes out. And while you attacked the amendment that defends your homes and protects your spouses and children, you have denied those of us who defend all the Bill of Rights a fair hearing or the courtesy of an honest debate.
If the NRA attempts to challenge your assertions, we are ignored. And if we try to buy advertising time or space to answer your charges, more often than not we are denied. How's that for First Amendment freedom?
Clearly, too many have used freedom of the press as a weapon not only to strangle our free speech, but to erode and ultimately destroy the right to keep and bear arms as well. in doing so you promoted your profession to that of constitutional judge and jury, more powerful even than our Supreme Court, more prejudiced than the Inquisition's tribunals. It is a frightening misuse of constitutional privilege, and I pray that you will come to your senses and see that these abuses are curbed.
As a veteran of World War II, as a freedom marcher who stood with Dr. Martin Luther King long before it was fashionable, and a grandfather who wants the coming century to be free and full of promise for my grandchildren, I am... troubled.
The right to keep and bear arms is threatened by political theatrics, piecemeal lawmaking, talk show psychology, extreme bad taste in the entertainment industry, an ever-widening educational chasm in our schools and a conniving media, that all add up to cultural warfare against the idea that guns ever had, or should now have, an honorable and proud place in our society.
But all of our rights must be delivered into the 21st century as pure and complete as they came to us at the beginning of this century. Traditionally the passing of that torch is from a gnarled old hand down to an eager young one. So now, at 72, I offer my gnarled old hand.
I have accepted a call from the National Rifle Association of America to help protect the Second Amendment. I feel it is my duty to do that. My mission and vision can be summarized in three simple parts.
First, before we enter the next century, I expect to see a pro-Second Amendment president in the White House.
Secondly, I expect to build an NRA with the political muscle and clout to keep a pro-Second Amendment Congress in place.
Third, is a promise to the next generation of free Americans. I hope to help raise a hundred million dollars for NRA programs and education before the year 2000. At least half of that sum will go to teach American kids what the right to keep and bear arms really means to their culture and country.
We have raised a generation of young people who think that the Bill of Rights comes with their cable TV. Leave them to their channel surfing and they'll remain oblivious to history and heritage that truly matter.
Think about it - what else must young Americans think when the White House proclaims, as it did, that "a firearm in the hands of youth is a crime or an accident waiting to happen?" No - it is rime they learned that firearm ownership is constitutional, not criminal. in fact, few pursuits can teach a young person more about responsibility, safety, conservation, their history and their heritage, all at once.
It is time they found out that the politically correct doctrine of today has misled them. And that when they reach legal age, if they do not break our laws, they have a right to choose to own a gun - a handgun, a long gun, a small gun, a large gun, a black gun, a purple gun, an ugly gun - and to use that gun to defend themselves and their loved ones or to engage in any lawful purpose they desire without apology or explanation to anyone, ever.
This is their first freedom. If you say it's outdated, then you haven't read your own headlines. If you say guns create only carnage, I would answer that you know better. Declining morals, disintegrating families, vacillating political leadership, an eroding criminal justice system and social mores that blur right and wrong are more to blame- certainly more than any legally owned firearm.
I want to rescue the Second Amendment from an opportunistic president, and from a press that apparently can't comprehend that attacks on the Second Amendment set the stage for assaults on the First.
I want to save the Second Amendment from all these nit-picking little wars of attrition - fights over alleged Saturday night specials, plastic guns, cop killer bullets and so many other made-for-prime-time non-issues invented by some press agent over at gun control headquarters that you guys buy time and again.
I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails.
That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom.
Please, go forth and tell the truth. There can be no free speech, no freedom of the press, no freedom to protest, no freedom to worship your god, no freedom to speak your mind, no freedom from fear, no freedom for your children and for theirs, for anybody, anywhere, without the Second Amendment freedom to fight for it.
If you don't believe me, just turn on the news tonight. Civilization's veneer is wearing thinner all the time.
Charlton Heston's NRA Keynote Speech
May 1999
"I have been advised not to be here. I apologize for this disruption, but from our friends in the national press corps, we have received some very good late-breaking news. According to reports Yugoslavia has agreed to release our three American P.O.W.'s, perhaps, this note says, within 24 hours. That's the best news we could have.
I was advised not to be here, not to speak to you here, that's not the first time. In 1963, I marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, long before Hollywood found civil rights, um, fashionable. My associates advised me not to go. They said it would be unpopular, and may be dangerous. Thirty-six years later, my associates advised me not to come to Denver. They said it would be unpopular, and may be dangerous. Here I am. Let me tell you why...
I see our country teetering on the edge of an abyss. At its bottom brews the simmering bile of deep, dark hatred. Hatred that's dividing our country: politically, racially, economically, geographically, in every way- whether it's political vendettas, sports brawls, corporate takeovers, or high school gangs in cleats, the American competitive ethic has changed from 'let's beat the other guy, to let's destroy the other guy.' Too many, too many are too willing to stigmatize and demonize others for political advantage, for money or for ratings. The vilification is savage. This week, Representative John Conyers slandered three million Americans when he called the NRA 'merchants of death' on national television as our first lady nodded in agreement.
A hideous cartoon by Mike Peters ran nationally, it showed childrens' dead bodies sprawled out to spell N-R-A. The countless requests we've received this last week or so for media appearances are in fact, summons to public floggings, where those who hate firearms will, predictably don the white hat and give us the black one. This harvest of hatred is then sold as news. As entertainment. As government policy. Such hateful, divisive forces are leading us to one awful end--America's own form of Balkanization. A weakened country of rabid factions, each less free, united only by hatred of one another.
In the past ten days, we've seen the these brutal blows attempting to fracture America into two such camps. Now one camp would be the majority- people who believe our founders guaranteed our security with the right to defend ourselves, our families, and our country. The other camp would be a large minority of people who believe that we will buy security--if we would just surrender these freedoms. This debate would be accurately described as those who believe in the Second Amendment versus those who don't but instead it is spun as those who believe in murder versus those who don't.
A struggle between the reckless and the prudent, between the dim-witted and the progressive. Between inferior citizens who know, and elitists who know what's good for society. But we're not the rustic, reckless radicals they wish for. No, the NRA spans the broadest range of American demography imaginable. We defy stereotyping, except for love of country. Look in your mirror, your shopping mall, your church, your grocery store--that's us. Millions of ordinary people and extraordinary people. War heroes, sports idols, several U.S. Presidents, and, yes, movie stars.
But the screeching hyperbole leveled at gun owners has made these two camps so wary of each other, so hostile and confrontational and disrespectful on both sides they have forgotten that we are first Americans. I am asking all of us, on both sides, to take one step back from the edge, than another step and another... however many it takes to get back to the place where we are all Americans. Different...different, imperfect, diverse, but one nation, indivisible.
This cycle of tragedy-driven hatred must stop, because so much more connects us than that which divides us because tragedy has been, and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can't become an ax for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. when an isolated, terrible event occurs, our phones ring, demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain. They want us to play the heavy in their drama of packaged grief. To provide riveting programming to run between commercials for cars and cat food.
The dirty secret of this day and age is that political gain and media ratings all to often bloom on fresh graves. I remember a better day, where no one dared politicize or profiteer on trauma. We kept a respectful distance then, as NRA has tried to do now. Simply being silent is so often the right thing to do. But today, carnage comes with a catchy title, splashy graphics, regular promos and a reactionary passage of legislation. Reporters perch like vultures on the balconies of hotels for a hundred miles around. Cameras jockey for shocking angles as news anchors race to drench their microphones with the tears of victims.
Injury, shock, grief and despair shouldn't be brought to you by sponsors. That's pornography. It trivializes the tragedy it abuses. It abuses vulnerable people, and maybe worst of all, it makes the unspeakable seem commonplace. And we're often cast as the villain. That is not our role in American society, and we will not be forced to play it.
Our mission is to remain, as our Vice-President said, a steady beacon of strength and support for the Second Amendment even if it has no other friend on this planet. We cannot, we must not let tragedy lay waste to the most rare, and hard-won human right in history. A nation cannot gain safety by giving up freedom. This truth is older than our country. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin said that.
Now, if you like your freedoms of speech and of religion, freedom from search and seizure, freedom of the press, and of privacy, to assemble, and to redress grievances, then you'd better give them that eternal bodyguard called the Second Amendment.
The individual right to bear arms is freedom's insurance policy. Not just for your children, but for infinite generations to come. That is it's singular sacred duty, and why we preserve it so fiercely. Now, no, it's not a right without rational restrictions, and it's not for everyone. Only the law-abiding majority of society deserves the Second Amendment.
Abuse it once, and lose it forever. That's the law. But, curiously, the NRA is far more eager to prosecute gun abusers than are those who oppose gun ownership altogether. As if the tool could be more evil than the evil-doers. I don't understand that. The NRA also spends more and works harder than anybody in America to promote safe, responsible use of firearms. From 38,000 certified instructors, training millions of police, hunters, women and youths, to 500 law-enforcement agencies promoting our Eddie Eagle gun-safety program Wen told you about distributed to eleven million kids-eleven million and counting.
But our essential reason for being is this: as long as there is a Second Amendment, evil can never conquer us, tyranny in any form can never find footing within a society of law-abiding, armed, ethical people. The majesty of the Second Amendment that our founders so divinely captured and crafted into your birthright guarantees that no government despot, no renegade faction of armed forces, no roving gangs of criminals, no breakdown of law and order, no massive anarchy, no force of evil or crime or oppression from within or from without can ever rob you of the liberties that define your Americanism.
And, so, when they ask you well, indeed you would uh, bear arms against Government tyranny? The answer is no. That could never happen, precisely because we have the Second Amendment. Let me be absolutely clear. The Founding Fathers guaranteed this freedom, because they knew no tyranny can ever arise among a people endowed with the right to keep and bear arms. That's why you and your descendants need never fear fascism, state-run faith, refugee camps, brain-washing, ethnic cleansing, or especially submission to the wanton will of criminals.
The Second Amendment, there can be no more precious inheritance- that's what the NRA preserves.
Now, if you disagree, that's your right. I respect that. But, we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told: 'Do not come here, you are unwelcome in your own land.'
Let us go from this place, this huge room, renewed in spirit and dedicated against hatred. We have work to do, hearts to heal, evil to defeat, and a country to unite. We may have differences, yes, and we will again suffer tragedy almost beyond description. But when the sun sets on Denver tonight, and forevermore, let it always set on we the people, secure in our land of the free, and home of the brave.
I, for one, plan to do my part.
Labels: 2nd Amendment, Allen Benz, Bill of Rights, Charlton Heston, Eddie Eagle, First Amendment, Gun confiscation, Gun control, gun safety program, gun-ban lobbies, Guns, NRA, RKBA
