Charlton Heston's "pro-freedom" and "pro-gun" speech, to students at
Oxford University, in November 2000, was published on page 16 of
the January 2001 edition of THE AMERICAN RIFLEMAN (c) 2001.
Not having found these "excerpts", or any other part of this important
speech anywhere else on the Internet, I have re-typed the article and
provided it here for "anyone" interested in the promotion or
preservation of "true" Freedom and Liberty.
**********
THE PRESIDENT's COLUMN, by Charlton Heston
" 'The anti-gun lobby has long looked to England as a model of
"common-sense gun control." Last November, Oxford University invited
me to address the issue in a speech to it's students. In the following
excerpts of that speech, I called on Britons to face the failure of
their anti-gun laws and to consider the value of the right to self-defense
- a fundamental natural right that's long been denied to the English.'
'Since you banned all lawfully owned hand guns in 1997, and then rounded
them up and sent them off to the smelters, gun crime has gone "up".
'Now, why do you think that is? Because you need more "new" laws? Or
because you need to "enforce" the laws you have?
'Do you need to make it illegal, say, to gun down a 'Crimewatch TV'
reporter as she stands on her doorstep-as happened last year? Or do
you need to arrest and prosecute the thugs who roam the streets on
Manchester wearing bulletproof body armor and packing MAC-10's?
'The answer ought to be obvious. Yet, now, politicians and interest
groups are pushing all kinds of new anti-gun laws. And the press is
putting it's predictable spin on the issue, Where's the public outcry
for "zero tolerence" and "100 percent prosecution" of criminals who use
guns?
'Eighty years ago, England effectively had no anti-gun laws at all, and
gun crime was statistically insignificant. Since then, as one anti-gun law
after another has sailed through Parlainment, gun crime has steadily
grown worse. In 1971, former police superintendant Colin Greemwood
said; "One is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of
firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any
sort."
'Your gun laws are your own business, not mine. But I ask you to think
about your business with an open mind.' 'You must accept that yours is
a society where the State is sovereign and where the individual citizen's
status hasn't advanced significantly since the days of the serfs. You
must accept your Prime Ministers, who call elections whenever and as
often as they want to. You must accept "stealth taxes" and the coercion
and arrogance of un-checked power. You must live with the idea that you
live at the convenience of the Crown. But you don't have to conclude that
such a society, which denies the God-given right to self-preservation,
is morally superior.
'This great land may be the birthplace of the Magna Carta and the freedoms
it recognizes. But of all the English-speaking nations in the world, only
one nation - the United States - had the guts and good sense to say not
just "NO", but "HELL NO" to the idea that rights are doled out by the
government to the people, not the other way round. Thank God we did.
'Two weeks ago [from November 2000 ], a police officer in the West Side
of London, an authorized firearms inspector, said he didn't think England's
handgun ban had any effect at all. He said he didn't think it was meant
to, calling it "pure politics". When we asked to quote him on that, he
backed off and said he could lose his job for speaking his mind.
'On this issue, England must no longer labor under some dictatorship of
decorum. Call it genteel, call it civilized, call it what you will. When
it imperils both hearth and home, it's nothing but cowardice, a subtle
form of surrender, both to the "criminals" and to the "cops".[emphasis added]
'Who among you will come farward to say that gun laws aren't working?
Who will stand up and demand that if "Tony Blair" can have his "body
guards" and the "police" are allowed "to defend themselves" - "then so,
too, should the people"? [ emphasis added ]
'I urge you to shake off the ancient yoke of vassals and serfs and try
a little American rebellion on for size. Write the essay or give the
lecture or permit the discussion that provokes an honest assesment of
what human freedom should mean in 21st-century England.
'Turn the world upside down, as my ancestors did in 1776, when they said
that government gets it's permission from the people, not the other way
around. Then, accept the costs and thank God for the benefits of this
simple idea called freedom.' "
(
geocities.com/SouthBeach)