Via Dave Adams on Facebook, I found a Saturday Night Live video I’d never seen before that features Charlton Heston in response to the Brady Bill passage. You have to be able to laugh at yourself, and it allows him to make the point that criminals could still get guns even as the law-abiding had to wait.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/279031
That’s pretty funny.
Heh heh. He said “clip” instead of “mag.”
Very good though. Wish we still had him with us.
“Wish we still had him with us.”
Why?
From the Wikipedia article on him,
“Following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Heston and actors Gregory Peck, Kirk Douglas and James Stewart issued a statement calling for support of President Johnson’s Gun Control Act of 1968.”
Wait — don’t tell me; sometime after that he became “educated.”
If that SNL vid was from the time of passage of the Brady Bill, Heston was not a spokesman for the NRA at the time, as I recall. He was NRA president from 1998 – 2003.
Frankly I didn’t remember that SNL bit, but if I had, you’d have had a hard time convincing me that his few seconds at the beginning — amounting to what, a couple percent of the routine? — was so much intended to deliver the “criminals will get guns anyway” message, as the rest of the message was intended to ridicule gun owners. Let’s just say if it was, it was sufficiently subtle to go right over my head. Laughing at oneself (?) has its limits.
Considering his advocacy for banning assault weapons, I never saw the guy as that much of a friend. To me he seemed like another example of gun owners being told someone with the right credentials — and connections — is their friend, and then bending over backwards to convince themselves that he is, all evidence save elementary rhetoric to the contrary.
I thought a lot about that phenomenon during the recent presidential campaigns.
Anticipating the question, I refreshed myself on Heston’s comments about assault weapons:
In a 1997 radio interview then-NRA Charlton Heston gave with San Francisco’s KGO-AM, he said, “AK-47’s are inappropriate for private ownership, of course;” “The possession — private possession of AK-47’s is entirely inappropriate,” and, “Well, for any certain time, AK-47s are entirely inappropriate for private ownership, and the — the problem, of course, is not guns held by private citizens, but guns held by criminals.”
After the fact he released a statement “clarifying” that he was referring strictly to Soviet-made “fully automatic” AK-47s, and thought the distinction between fully automatic and semi-automatic AK-47s was “common knowledge.”
Not a good save, IMO.
Man, did you see the size of that laser on the 1911? That laser was bigger than the pistol I carry.
Was an homage to the original Terminator movie…
Actually, most of that scene was taken from the pawn shop scene.
“Any one of these is ideal for home defense.”
I’ve never seen it.
Also neat to see the defeatest tone of the whole thing. This was back in the day where gun owners were losing the battle.
Also the laughs for “Perfect for home defense”. How many think a .45 with a laser sight is too LITTLE gun for home defense.
How far we’ve come!
“Be Kind, Reload”
That was funny. Also noticed some booger-hook/ bangswitch errors.