Perhaps a good day to give to he Brady Campaign.

One must be amazed by the hypocrisy of the GOP... they condemn "Hollywood" and yet embrace Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson, and Chuck Norris... three of Hollywood's biggest hate-filled bigots of the 21st century... Clearly, the GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln and hasn't been since 1964. Rather, it is the party of unapologetic bigotry.

In Greece, Charlton's second name is written "Easton" because "Heston" in Greek means "shit him".

I find it hard to gloat over a man's death. He wasn't exactly a Hitler, was he? He held strong views with which I disagreed. But he seemed an honorable person in many ways. I wished I liked his acting more.

Planet of the Apes!!!

Heston was afflicted with Alzheimers for many years. I often wondered if it afflicted his thinking about guns.

what a low class SOB you are..have no respect for the dead even tho you disagree with them??

"However, the legacy of his involvement in things political leaves a legacy of death and destruction on the battlefields of Iraq and in America's cities."

I never liked Heston, and I hate warmongers. But it is just plain false to say that the NRA is responsible for death and destruction in America's cities. No studies support that statement, and statistics refute it. The most gun deaths occur in cities with the toughest gun laws. And states and cities that decide to allow law-abiding citizens to carry guns experience either no increase in gun deaths or fewer gun deaths.

Huh... To me, his accomplishments as an actor are far more important than anything he did in politics.

And while I'll never be an NRA member, guns are just things and people have the right to own them if they want them (though I support reasonable regulation, of course).

I'm a Democrat who grew up in the southwest but now lives in New York City. To me, practical and logical regulation is local. Here in a major city with people all around me, owning a handgun doesn't make sense. But in the country, with a lot of space between me and others, it does.

The NRA is an extremist group, yes. But does anybody seriously support a total ban on gun ownership? Because that's just wrong.

"Yeah, Heston supported the NRA and gun ownership and whatnot (positions I disagree with), but he wasn't out there shooting people. All he had was an opinion."

Correct. And that is the opinion/position the original poster was criticizing.

What difference does his death have to do with it?

I was defending a PRINCIPLE - not a specific EXAMPLE of it. The principle is: One is always answerable for ones political positions - dead or alive.

Every time a Reagan icon dies, an angel gets its wings.

I don't think you can blame one Republican for all the stupid deeds of the others. See my handle? That's what I think about Republicans, but Heston was right about the 2nd Amendment. With the government we have in place now, I'm surprised that everyone doesn't own a gun. Thank God we still have the right to buy and own one.

The nut-jobs are the ones running the country and I don't think owning a gun makes me a nut-job. It think it makes me a smart cookie.

Signed: A shameless liberal.

By all accounts, Heston was a gentleman and a consummate professional. I always enjoyed his performances. He became more conservative with age, but the NY Times obit says:

He was an active supporter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., calling him “a 20th-century Moses for his people,” and participated in the historic march on Washington in 1963.

Dangit! Does html ever work at this site!

"Heston was right about the 2nd Amendment."

No, he was not. He simply repeated the NRA's anti-Constitutional LIE about the Second Amendment. This is the first draft of that which became the Second Amendment, as written by James Madison -- note the final clause of it, which has my emphasis (and which doesn't appear in the ratified Second because it was voted down):

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well regulated, well armed militia being the best defense of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person."

Now break it down:

"People" is plural, exactly as it also is in "We the people". "Militia" is plural, not "individual". "Person" is individual, and in that phrase it is tied directly to INVOLUNTARY MILITARY SERVICE.

Further:

1. The "Bill of Rights" was debated and framed in the first Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- under the newly-ratified Constitution.

2. Ratification of the "Bill of Rights" -- and thus of the Second Amendment -- was completed on December 15, 1791.

3. Subsequently, Congress -- populated by Founders and Framers -- enacted "The Militia Act" on May 8, 1792.

4. The Second Amendment notwithstanding, "The Militia Act" regulates the militia, which -- the militia -- is within the scope of the Second Amendment.

5. That means: if the Second Amendment "protected" an "individual right" -- which it does not do -- it would not protect that right from regulation, any more than it "protects" the militia from regulation.

The NRA's lie is not only a lie, and not only anti-Constitutional, it is a BS dead end swallowed by suckers who are ignorant of the history of their own country, ignorant of reason, and ignorant of the Constitution itself, beginning with the fact, in this context, that the Second Amendment is only one of three stipulations in the Constitution which directly concern "militia". Read Article I., Sec. 8., clauses 15 and 16 for yourself.

Think: No sane, non-suicidal society leaves dangerous substances and objects lying around unregulated.

As for the debates and framing of the "Bill of Rights" see:

Creating the Bill of Rights: The Documentary Record from the First Federal Congress (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1991), Ed. by Veit, et al.

The Bill of Rights and the States: The Colonial and Revolutionary Origins of American Liberties (Madison, WI: Madison House, 1994), Ed. by Patrick T. Conley and John P. Kaminski.

The Complete Bill of Rights: The Drafts, Debates, Sources, & Origins (NY: Oxford, 1997), Ed. by Neil H. Cogan.

In short: there is no "right of revolution," because the "Declaration" was not only not law, or plan of gov't, when written (and still isn't), and between it and the Constitution were the Articles of Confederation, but it is not to be conflated with the Constitution, which is the law of the land.

It's a simple choice: swallow unquestioned the NRA's anti-Americanism, or do your homework as required of a responsible citizen.