Charlton Heston

[trish]

Well I don’t know if I’d use the word “cool” to describe guns. Certainly I wouldn’t use it to describe all guns indiscriminately. I don’t have a wide experience with firearms, but I have first hand experience with my grandfather’s Remington 30 ought 6. I haven’t sourced this story, but I was told that before him, this very weapon was used by an American soldier in the Spanish-American War. True or not, since then this rifle has been used to hunt deer in the Alleghenies. As I remember it (it’s been awhile since I handled it) it holds five rounds in the clip and one in the chamber. One operates the bolt action by hand. The action removes the spent shell from the chamber and cocks the rifle on the back stroke, and slides a new round into the chamber on the forward stroke. In this sense only one round can be fired at a time. One trigger pull, one bullet fired. Then you have to pull the bolt back and drive it forward and locked before firing again. Being a mathematician and a physicist I confess to a certain admiration of this well-crafted machine. I see no reason why trained and licensed citizens shouldn’t have the right to own a few rifles for hunting, sport or just the love of ownership. Still, even this awkward old rifle was used as a weapon and may have taken human lives. Gun-ownership is not only a right granted by the second amendment (in the U.S.) it also involves serious responsibility. I’m in favor of licensing, registration and reasonable restrictions on the types of firearms citizens can own. I’m in favor of laws that hold gun-owners responsible for their weapons. They should never be allowed, for example, to fall into the hands of unsupervised children. They should have trigger guards and they should never be stored loaded.

It amuses me that the perennial objection to gun-registration is, “when the commies take over they’re gonna know who owns guns.” I doubt very much we have to worry about such a scenario, but if I wanted to know who in the U.S. owns a gun, I would start by downloading the membership list of the NRA.

It just seems to me spokespersons like C. Heston come off way too paranoid. The paranoia of the NRA does little to make me feel confident that I can trust these people with guns…guns of all things…in the hands of paranoids! If the NRA would drop the scare tactics and start talking about reasonable ways for a society to live with and own guns, they would do their cause some good. As it is, the NRA divides and undermines its own objective: to safe-guard the second amendment.

[LoneWolf]

Charlton Heston a fascist? Please.

[LoneWolf]

wikipedia.org

Heston campaigned for Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in 1956 and John F. Kennedy in 1960.[16] Reportedly when an Oklahoma movie theater premiering his movie El Cid was segregated, he joined a picket line outside in 1961.[17] Heston makes no reference to this in his autobiography, but describes traveling to Oklahoma City to picket segregated restaurants, much to the chagrin of Allied Artists, the producers of El Cid.[18] During the civil rights march held in Washington, D.C. in 1963, he accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. In later speeches, Heston said he helped the civil rights cause, "long before Hollywood found it fashionable."[19]

[trish]

See, exactly as I said: Sane people are against gun-ownership. They just don't want insane paranoid lonewolves to have them.

TAKE GUNS OUT OF THE HANDS OF THE PARANOID INSANE!

[LoneWolf]

Sane people are against gun-ownership.

Sometimes it's hard to argue with gun control people and their compelling, mature, well-thought arguments.

[trish]

okay, here's my stance on gun-control quoted directly from above:

Well I don’t know if I’d use the word “cool” to describe guns. Certainly I wouldn’t use it to describe all guns indiscriminately. I don’t have a wide experience with firearms, but I have first hand experience with my grandfather’s Remington 30 ought 6. I haven’t sourced this story, but I was told that before him, this very weapon was used by an American soldier in the Spanish-American War. True or not, since then this rifle has been used to hunt deer in the Alleghenies. As I remember it (it’s been awhile since I handled it) it holds five rounds in the clip and one in the chamber. One operates the bolt action by hand. The action removes the spent shell from the chamber and cocks the rifle on the back stroke, and slides a new round into the chamber on the forward stroke. In this sense only one round can be fired at a time. One trigger pull, one bullet fired. Then you have to pull the bolt back and drive it forward and locked before firing again. Being a mathematician and a physicist I confess to a certain admiration of this well-crafted machine. I see no reason why trained and licensed citizens shouldn’t have the right to own a few rifles for hunting, sport or just the love of ownership. Still, even this awkward old rifle was used as a weapon and may have taken human lives. Gun-ownership is not only a right granted by the second amendment (in the U.S.) it also involves serious responsibility. I’m in favor of licensing, registration and reasonable restrictions on the types of firearms citizens can own. I’m in favor of laws that hold gun-owners responsible for their weapons. They should never be allowed, for example, to fall into the hands of unsupervised children. They should have trigger guards and they should never be stored loaded.

It amuses me that the perennial objection to gun-registration is, “when the commies take over they’re gonna know who owns guns.” I doubt very much we have to worry about such a scenario, but if I wanted to know who in the U.S. owns a gun, I would start by downloading the membership list of the NRA.

It just seems to me spokespersons like C. Heston come off way too paranoid. The paranoia of the NRA does little to make me feel confident that I can trust these people with guns…guns of all things…in the hands of paranoids! If the NRA would drop the scare tactics and start talking about reasonable ways for a society to live with and own guns, they would do their cause some good. As it is, the NRA divides and undermines its own objective: to safe-guard the second amendment.

at a loss to counter it, you chose to mock it in pictographic form as follows:

Which is the mature one again?