by Angel Shamaya

April 27, 2002

KeepAndBearArms.com -- CNN's Friday edition of Newsnight with Aaron Brown offered coverage of yesterday's mass school shooting in Germany. In the hourlong segment, NRA president Charlton Heston was given airtime, as was the Mount Holyoke College chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters. Excerpts below may be of interest to you; a full transcript can be viewed here: http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0204/26/asb.00.html.

Most surprising of all was the fact that CNN broadcast so much overall positive commentary about guns. Heston and the SAS group each made some very important points for our side. And they each also made some errors, too.

Second Amendment Sisters Segment

The Mount Holyoke College flareup began a few months ago when SAS launched a chapter in the liberal all-women college. They've done lots of good PR work and have definitely raised awareness about the right to keep and bear arms. For this they should be commended and praised.

And many good messages did indeed get out in this interview, as you'll see if you stop to read the transcript. Unfortunately, a ball was dropped, as well:

Second Amendment Sister: "No, I wouldn't want to carry on this campus anyways. I don't think college campuses are really the appropriate place."

Such a statement should never be able to pass the lips of a spokesperson representing the right to keep and bear arms on national and even international television. And it's safe to say SAS National Leader Maria Heil would never have made such an error, too. With so many SAS chapters, getting people up to speed nationwide on the fundamentals of the right to keep and bear arms is no small chore. Hopefully, in reviewing this interview, SAS leadership will help assure that their liberal all-women college group doesn't go on television again until they know better.

Any place anyone chooses to keep and bear firearms in a peaceable manner is the appropriate place. (And to be clear: carrying for self-defense is a peaceable activity, as is firing on a violent attacker if such a situation is warranted.)

Maybe the fact that "none of her [SAS group] members own their own guns" has something to do with the lack of understanding -- it's a newbie issue. It's nice seeing more women get trained to shoot. Very nice, indeed. Let's just be more careful about the people we put in front of newsfolk, yes?

As the reporter, another member and Holyoke chapter leader Christy Cawood were on their way to an indoor shooting range, Christy said, "This is us exercising our rights." Well, sorta. Your right to shoot at paper is certainly covered by the Second Amendment -- but it's your right to shoot a would-be rapist through his black heart, on campus, that is under attack.

Charlton Heston Segment

AARON BROWN: What is it that gets your members riled these days, if there's no big issue out there?

CHARLTON HESTON: Well, to enlarge the membership, which is one, has been one of our goals for a long time. Any company or movie studio or anything like that, you want to get more people involved.

Though I'm hesitant to go to great lengths to point out every message contained in the above, a couple of things jumped right out at me.

1)  Why is the NRA being compared, by its president, to a company or movie studio -- why not to the patriots that founded this nation by giving their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to put an end to tyranny?

2)  Why is the first thing that should rile NRA members, to Heston, enlarging the membership -- why does that come to mind above putting an end to the widespread, ruthless and systematic oppression of lawful, decent, longsuffering gunowners?

Mr. Brown also said:  "Is it in a time when there is not a great controversy over guns, and when the political front is relatively quiet, does membership fall off and fundraising fall off?"

To which Heston replied:  "Well, I think we've had an unusual increase in membership because of the last election, which was a huge win. And the president, the then president, was certain that he could bring down the NRA, which of course it worked just the other way. Naturally, all the members are very happy about this."

If Mr. Heston was better trained, he'd have seized the inaccuracy in Brown's presupposition -- that we are "in a time when there is not a great controversy over guns" -- and would have corrected his interviewer. Something along the lines of the statement below would have been more appropriate, in my opinion:

Well our membership keeps growing, because your assumption is incorrect, sir. There is indeed a great controversy over guns, and it's intensifying. In fact, in my own home state of California, the anti-rights people just tried to ban a gun that has only ever been used in one crime on American soil even though it's been around for several decades: the .50 caliber rifle. Our members know that, and they, along with members of the much larger gun community -- the 85 Million non-NRA-member gunowners -- stopped that nonsense in its tracks.

To his credit, Mr. Heston did a great service by addressing a woman's right to carry a concealed firearm in her purse. And that's a very good thing.

I just wish someone would give him a weeklong intensive in gun rights, liberty, and generating conversations about pivotal issues on the fly. Or that he'd be replaced by a commoner who is much more in tune with the issues than he will ever be.