'Cold, dead hands': A promise, not a slogan

October 19, 3:45 PMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

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      Oleg Volk photo

When Charlton Heston held up a replica Revolutionary War musket, and said "From my cold, dead hands," at the NRA Convention in 2000, he was not the first to use those words in that context, but his use is certainly the most famous.  It was a powerful speech that Heston gave, delivered with both the solemnity and the fire one would expect from one of the few actors capable of pulling off the role of Moses.

I have little doubt that Heston meant every word of it.  By then, he had been a staunch defender of civil rights for at least 40 years, having marched with Martin Luther King in 1963, and participated in demonstrations for desegregation earlier than that.  No civil right is more vital than the right to self-defense, or the means of resisting tyranny, and Heston left little room for doubt about the depth of his commitment to those rights.

Much has changed since that speech, including the now much more politically correct NRA.  Can anyone imagine the top of the NRA hierarchy now promising to fight to the death against any attempt to disarm the citizenry?  How could they?  With a mantra of "enforce the laws on the books" what happens when a law calling for confiscation of some type of firearm goes "on the books"?  No--today's NRA is much too concerned with appearing "reasonable" to say anything so confrontational (although they're not averse to making a buck from it).

One of the problems with what I refer to as the "Neville Chamberlain school of Gun Rights Advocacy" is that to the forcible disarmament advocates, no opposition to any proposed gun law will ever be "reasonable."  While contemptuously dismissing talk of the slippery slope as "gun nut paranoia," the principle remains the same as it was back when Nelson T. "Pete" Shields, president of Handgun Control, Inc. (the old name of the Brady Campaign) candidly acknowledged the path being sought:

I'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. Of course, it's true that politicians will then go home and say, 'This is a great law. The problem is solved.' And it's also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we'll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal [more here].

Every concession, every attempt to appear "reasonable" is just a beachhead for the next infringement on that which shall not be infringed, and a step closer to the day when we must make the choice between turning our guns in, and making a desperate stand with them.

In the end, after all, "From my cold, dead hands" is a promise to fight to the last breath, the last heart beat, the last round of ammunition (actually, beyond that--even an empty rifle has some utility as a club) against any attempt to usurp the Second Amendment.  If saying so makes me sound like a "homegrown terrorist," so be it.  There are worse things to sound like.