Fall 1999 Human Rights Magazine

By Charlton Heston

As Americans, we have rights no one can take away—because no one gave them to us. They were ours from birth. We each have a birth certificate, but it didn’t give us life. It just put on paper what we already know: that we are alive.

Likewise, the Constitution doesn’t give us rights. It just puts on paper what we already know: that we are free to say and write and think and work and worship as we choose. And we are free to own a firearm.

The Bill of Rights is simply a set of freedoms the framers specifically set aside as off limits to government meddling; rights that we the people reserve to ourselves as individuals, unequivocally and absolutely. They don’t recognize color, class, creed, or wealth. And they don’t just protect leaders or lawyers—but all of us, equally.

The beauty of the Constitution is the way it accounts for human nature. We aren’t always a docile, benevolent, egalitarian species. We can be egotistical, vengeful, power mad, and sometimes even murderous. The Bill of Rights recognizes this and raises the ramparts needed to protect the individual.

In that regard, the Second Amendment is, in order of importance, first. Among our many freedoms—freedom of speech, of the press, of religion, of assembly, and the right to a redress of grievances—the Second Amendment is first among equals. There is no such thing as a free nation where police and the military are allowed the force of arms but individual citizens are not. Every genocide we’ve seen this century began with the denial of the right to bear arms. That doesn’t mean gun bans lead to genocide. They just make genocide easier—and tyranny an inevitability. Tyranny doesn’t necessarily have to come from government; it can come through the bedroom window or hang like a sullen shadow over the lives of those forced to live in fear.

Aristotle knew it 2,300 years ago, when he considered popular arms ownership the single most reliable indicator of whether a society was genuinely free. So did the Roman orator Cicero, who wrote, "There exists a law, not written down anywhere but inborn in our hearts; a law that comes to use from nature itself . . . that, if our lives are endangered, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right."

John Adams wrote, "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion . . . in private self defense." George Mason wrote, "To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." Thomas Jefferson wrote, "No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." From the beginning, the essence and intent of the Second Amendment was that it be a right of individual citizens—a view that even long-time gun control advocate and constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe now endorses.

The Second Amendment guarantees us the absolute ability to defend ourselves from anyone who would take away our liberties or our lives, whether it be King George’s Redcoats or today’s criminal predators. It alone offers the capacity to live without fear. It is the one natural right that allows "rights" to exist at all.

History proves it. Common sense dictates it. And in the headlines and nightly news, that fundamental human freedom continually re-asserts itself as self-evident—from its denial to ethnic Albanians in Serbia, to its everyday exercise by citizens here at home, where the right to bear arms stops criminal attacks 2.5 million times every year.

Charlton Heston is an actor, author, and lifelong activist who has championed many causes throughout his career, ranging from civil rights to a strong national defense. He currently serves as president of the National Rifle Association.