A LETTER FROM THE GHOST OF CHARLTON HESTON or "Moses Supposes, Posthumously"

Dear friends on the mortal plane,

Hello! It’s your old pal Chuck Heston, here. Just wanted to drop you a line and see how things are going down there.

My Earthly headshot...
what a handsome devil.

Let me answer your first question straight away: yes, heaven is awesome. We just got Ben-Hur on blu-ray and the whole place is abuzz about the realism of Hugh Griffith’s blackface, not to mention the clarity and definition of Haya Harareet’s willowy bosom. Afterlife is good.

However, word has reached my ears that there’s a groundswell of support for more restrictive gun control laws in America (I say that in a figurative sense, since in my current form – an ethereal blend of mist and light – I have no physical features). As a pre-eminent firearms activist, I feel like it’s my duty to remind you of the sanity and logic behind the right to carry a gun. That’s why I served as president of the NRA, and that’s why I made the well-known educational films Rifles: Why Ya Gotta Be So Loud? and Rifles 2: Fuck You, Deer.

First of all, we all know and accept that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But we’ve heard that old refrain time and time again, so perhaps it’s lost some of its efficacy. Let me put it to you another way: ovens don’t bake pies, people bake pies. I mean, have you ever heard of an oven baking a pie without a person? That would be pretty ridiculous, wouldn’t it? I'd laugh, were I not an ethereal blend of mist and light incapable of producing sound.

Taking it a step further, just like there are plenty of ways for people to kill people without a gun, there are plenty of ways for people to bake pies without an oven. You could make a fire, like our pie-baking forbearers of old. You could put it under the hood of your car – I think it gets pretty hot under there. Maybe you could leave it on a sunny sidewalk for a while. Frankly, the only reason to use an oven to bake a pie is because it’s by far the fastest and most effective way to do it. But if we didn’t have ovens, I bet at least a few people would still make pies.

My afterlife headshot...
what a handsome angel.

Secondly, the right to bear arms is in the Constitution, people. Ever heard of it? It’s only the defining document of contemporary society. And it was written by the FOUNDING FATHERS, an infallible group of syphilitic nymphomaniacs and fraudulent proto-Madoffs. Let me tell you, I’ve met a couple of them up here and these guys are wise. Yes, okay, perhaps declaring in writing that a black person is worth 3/5ths of a white person was ill-advised. And, indeed, maybe those with willowy bosoms shouldn’t have been denied the right to vote for 150 years. Hindsight is 20/20. Regardless, the nebulous language of the second amendment protects our right to carry any type of firearm at any time. Alexander Hamilton would have fought to the death to protect his right to carry a gun, were he not killed with a gun by another founding father.

Finally, making guns more difficult to buy would create a dangerous black market for them. Look at prohibition, a poorly executed law from ninety years ago regulating a non-dangerous substance – the perfect allegory for firearms in 2012. In the twenties, gangsters and ne’er-do-wells of all shapes and kinds warred over the illegal manufacture and distribution of alcohol, leading to a sharp spike in gun violence (or rather, people violence). If you want a more contemporary example, how about gay marriage? While it doesn’t get much coverage in the liberal media, the illegality of same-sex marriage has created a widespread underground civil union ring in which dozens of Al Gaypones and Bugs HoMorans viciously attempt to destroy each other, all while gnawing at the architecture of our country like a bunch of flamboyantly coiffed termites.

I presume if you’ve read this far, you’re sufficiently reminded of the sound reason behind firearms. While of course I’m deeply sorrowful about any needless loss of life, I’m glad we were able to have this little discourse and shed some light on such an important political issue.

After all, guns don’t make laws, people make laws.

Yours,

C.H.