Prepare to have your blood pressure redlined

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Airwolf

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What I want' to say about this piece of filth "journalist" and his "writing" would get me banned for life from THR.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2003/04/30/notes043003.DTL&nl=fix


Charlton Heston's Last Sneer

The NRA retires its crusty king, with the country more violent and gun happy than ever

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

He is 78 and fragile and suffering from symptoms of Alzheimer's and hasn't made a decent movie in decades, unless you count how he sadly made himself look quite the undereducated, largely unsympathetic, defensive fool in the Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine."

And now, Charlton Heston is stepping down as the High Lord Gunmaster Poobah (or whatever they called him) of the phallically righteous increasingly paranoid adorably manly National Rifle Association. They are sighing in tribute. They are hugging each other and giving reassuring pats though not in an icky scary gay way. They are raising their rifles in salute.

And they are actually erecting, in front of the NRA's national headquarters in Washington, D.C., a 10-foot bronze statue of Heston, in character from a manly 1968 western flick no one has really ever seen called "Will Penny," in full bogus mythological cowboy gear, holding a handgun. Isn't that great? Other nations erect statues of poets, artists, thinkers, revolutionaries. We erect statues of craggy actors holding a pistol. God bless America.

It's a thoroughly appropriate icon for the NRA, actually. A character that never really existed, a gun-totin' Wild West that never really happened, a studly kill-the-bad-guys posture that, well, the NRA pretty much invented and frantically clings to as its own raison d'etre. Actors are, by definition, all about illusion, the propogation of manufactured myth, of collective delusion, as opposed to genuine human ideas and perspective. Voilà -- the perfect icon for America's gun culture.

Heston's departure is a good time for reflection, truly. Arguably, the man has done more to promote the desperately macho causes of the NRA than any leader in the group's carefully racist, white-power history (as "Bowling..." so effortlessly describes).

Which is to say, because he is a reasonably articulate and well-known actor, he single-handedly did more to promote the NRA's trademark causes of fear and paranoia than any outspoken gun lover in 25 years. No wonder they are so proud.

Because this is the great myth of the NRA. This is the true foundation. Despite the careful PR, the NRA is not much about the promotion of safe firearm use. It is not about enforcing the rules and sportsmanship of hunting, or about appreciating firearm artistry or improving your clay-pigeon target-practice technique. Maybe a little.

One peek into America's 1st Freedom: The Official Journal of the NRA reveals that the group is, more than anything else, all about paranoid defensiveness and the simple promotion of the right-wing brand of dread.

You know the one. That fear of the great ugly Other coming from somewhere "out there" -- someplace probably Muslim, or pagan, or inner city, or foreign or San Franciscan -- to steal your children and eat all your apple pie and take away your precious guns. Always, always to take away your guns. This is the Biggest Fear of All.

Like pyromaniac children hording precious matches, the loss of unfettered gun-ownership rights ranks right up there with castration and the outlawing of beer in Worst Possible Evils for the NRA. The magazine is packed with lib-hating articles, attacking everyone from the progressive U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to the entire country of Canada and its national gun registry.

Every single alarmist article delineates how "those damn anti-gun liberals" are skewing the statistics, lying and manipulating, trying to chip away at your God-given right to keep 157 sawed-off shotguns and a few submachine guns in your garage, for, you know, "hunting."

That this stance, this viewpoint, is sad and shortsighted and misguided is only half the problem.

Let's make one thing clear: Guns will never be wholly banned in America, not in this lifetime, anyway. It simply will not happen. There are an estimated 200 million firearms in circulation in the nation. They are far too ingrained in the culture, in the national mind-set, in the laws of the land. And most Democrats, and even most progressive liberals, wouldn't care to ban them entirely in the first place. They simply want to make our ridiculously easy access to deadly weaponry a little less, you know, easy.

But any proposed restrictions on gun ownership -- strict licensing, a national gun registry, mandatory gun-safety locks and so on -- represent, of course, a horrifically slippery slope for the NRA. They are a dangerous precedent that would lead to one thing and one thing only: someone taking away their guns -- that thing that will, let us repeat, never happen.

The NRA is, of course, wildly easy to hate. Easy to see the group as a cliched cadre of twitching socially inept boy-men with a seriously compensatory need to display their gun barrels. Problem is, such hyperzealous groups only feed on such sentiment -- it simply adds fuel to the cause.

And, moreover, the stereotype is largely wrong, and unfair. The NRA has some very smart, very passionate people who truly value their rights and their country. It's true. Let's admit it.

The tragedy, then, is how deeply this powerful group of rabidly passionate uber-Americans has bought into the lie, the myth, of what America really stands for, and has become a part of the tyranny of fear, a mouthpiece for that very divisiveness and paranoia and antagonism that keeps America volatile and childish and so bitterly derided the world over.

Do you see? It's not the love of guns, it's the love of the bogus illusion of what guns actually do -- that is, how they allegedly serve to protect that vicious, isolationist Us-versus-Them mentality so beloved by BushCo and the warmongers and Fox News.

It is a vision of America as this faux-virtuous, good-guy, white-hatted, monosyllabic brute, the well-armed hero enforcer of all that is righteous and pure and bullet ridden -- you know, just like the bogus and hollow Wild West of Heston's "Will Penny."

Heston's most famous contribution to the NRA cause? That thing for which he will be most remembered? His trademark catchphrase. Raising a rifle in the air at the end of his speech at every NRA rally, Heston would get that sly gun-nut gleam in his eye and exclaim (to wild applause), "From my cold, dead hands!"

Sadly, and with absolutely no progress made toward the true reduction of rampant gun violence and the tyranny of right-wing fear in this nation, it looks like the rapidly aging Heston will soon get his wish.
 
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Parasitical morons like this leftie can spout drivel like this because the "gun nuts" of the Founding Generation had as many guns as they wanted, and the courage to use those guns against a tyrannical government.

This jerk would turn our RKBA into a high-cost, arbitrarily (though increasing unavailable) privilege, within the control of the very people (potentially tyrannical government officials) from whom the 2nd Amendment aims to protect this nation and our liberties (including the freedom to spout inane drivel). Real bright, this one.
 
Another planet...

This article assumes so many things that are completely alien to most NRA members and pro-freedom folks that it may as well be written in another language.

To paraphrase, the NRA is paranoid because we oppose "reasonable restrictions" on the ease with which we can exercise a Constitutional right.

Let's see the author's reaction to a law that would require him to prove he's not a criminal each time he writes an article.

The author says that the NRA is paranoid because it encourages people to defend themselves against wrongful attack by "the other".

I wish the author luck when a group of gay-bashers comes a'callin' and he tries to defend himself using kind words and rational discourse.

Next, the author acts surprised that a lobbying group tries to scare its members into givng it money because the next big ban is right around the corner.

He should read some AARP or AAA solicitations.

Finally, the author ends by appealing to the unspoken assumption that America and Americans are never "the good guys" and are always on the wrong side of history.

He should try talking to some concentration camp survivors.
 
He's a leftist writing for a leftist audience. Waddaya expect. The papers? They're good for lining the kitty litter box and the garage floor. Won't buy a subscription myself.
 
I'll bet if I jammed my thumb up to the knuckle in this guy's eye he'd wish he had a pistol!!! I hate idiots like this! Well I can't talk about it right now I'm late for my Anger Management meeting!!! :fire: :cuss: :banghead:
 
Hmmm

I just wonder if the likes of Runt, Tamara and Pax consider themselves 'Phallically Righteous'?

Boy oh boy...the things some people get paid to do.
:barf:
 
The "incorrect facts" start right at the headline.

The country is NOT more violent and gun-happy than ever.

Gun violence in the USA has been steadily declining for many years. See most any report on crime statistics.

It has been declining faster, I believe, in "Shall Issue" states.

Gun violence has risen significantly in the UK and Australia since they banned guns. Guess the old saying is true. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

OTOH, there are probably a few of us at THR who are more "gun-happy" than ever. ;)
 
I don't know if I'm getting more tolerant or just thicker-skinned. This trash doesn't bother me at all -- let the moron rant.
 
NRA

Ask Al Gore what he thinks of the power of the NRA
I bet he think's about it all the time. To bad Al.:neener:
 
Feeling Despair

I wonder how I could talk with this person and make them understand that I am not paranoid. I have tons of evidence that anytime a people are disarmed, either physically or philosophically, there can be only one result, Tradgedy.

I am not sure that this person has the same basic understanding of reality that I do. Any Ideas on creating a dialogue?
 
What a dumb a$$.

I'm from SF and here is my response to his article. Please feel free to send responses to him also.

'Read your article on Charlton Heston and the NRA. Almost vomited on the keyboard from the absolute disgust. Obviously you have never held or fired a gun. The whole article reaks of biased and unsubstaniated brabble. *** Uninformed and full of your own self importance. Before you write an article as such maybe you should get your head out of your *** and try to research your subject matter first. Have you ever wondered how is it that California and New York have the toughest gun laws (not to mention the most gun laws) on the books, yet would you feel safe walking the streets at night in downtown Los Angeles or NY City?

Something for you to think about *******!!!!!!!!!!!"


End Letter


Here is his e-mail address
[email protected]

NOTE: Edited by moderator to remove profanity
 
Last edited by a moderator:
"western flick no one has really ever seen called "Will Penny," "

I liked "Will Penny". Only interesting reference in the whole article.
 
Gay Shooters

Don't assume that gay men are all morons. I know a couple of guys whose opinions on concealed carry changed after the story of Mathew Shepard came out.
 
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