Pages

Monday, October 19, 2009

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

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. [More]
That's today's St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. NRA apologists may find it insufficiently "pragmatic." Boo-bleepin'-hoo.

5 comments:

  1. I hear many left-leaning socialists make jokes and intellectual put downs of the
    "from my dead hands" statement.

    It is not a joke, it is not a threat, it is a fact.

    What they fail to consider is they
    may be among the casualties if
    push comes to shove.

    It won't be so funny then. I hope
    and pray that it never comes down to open warfare, but the type of man they are pushing will not go down alone. (and there are millions of us) Beware the fury of a patient man.
    Paul in Texas

    ReplyDelete
  2. May I offer my opinion? All this talk of "cold dead hands" and "come and get it" is nothing more that adolescent testosterone-driven nonsense. It's self-aggrandizing boasting, school-yard style. Grow up and talk about the issues without all this macho crap. That's my advice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Paul in TX--thanks.

    Mikeb, nice of you to offer your "advice," but I have plenty of toilet paper on hand, so I really have no use for it.

    Molon labe, if you prefer.

    ReplyDelete
  4. MikeB,
    If all the anti's out there weren't so eager to continue to attempt to take the guns away from the lawful gun-owning community, there wouldn't be so much testosterone. All that chemistry in the body is the fight-or-flight response to an external threat. And you're a big part of that threat.

    So if/when y'all back off, we'll calm down. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

    B Woodman
    III-per

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mikeb,
    The pro-gun side basically wants to live and let live. The anti-gun side wants to control others.

    This is not about testosterone, it is about informing the anti-gun side as to the consequences of their actions.

    ReplyDelete