The Most Brilliant Woman in the World
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| Charlton Heston: A quiet authority born of experience. |
Charlton Heston, actor, died in 2008 at the age of 84. He saw the world's governments up close and personal as he traveled it for his job. He lived through the rise of Nazis, Socialism, and Fascism around the world and saw the deliberate tactics of inhuman dictators. He saw a rise of those things in the U.S. as attempts were made to destroy constitutional freedoms.
Because Mr. Heston remembered the history he lived through, he had no truck with these people who — through force of law, lies, bribery, and intimidation — dumped onto the U.S. citizenry an order of belief and action they did not like, did not want, and did not vote for.
Given all that, this is what Mr. Heston had to say to the National Press Club after he accepted the leadership position in the NRA:
“I say that the Second Amendment is, in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America’s First Freedom, the one right that protects all 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.
“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. Ah, the joys of gun control!
“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.”
