Sandy Froman's Tribute To Charlton Heston

"The numbers bore that out. With Charlton Heston leading the charge, NRA membership soared from 2.5 million when Mr. Heston took office in 1998 to well over four million members by the 2000 presidential election. In all, he served an unprecedented five years as president of the NRA, bringing exceptional public esteem to the organization.

During that time, he was a tireless campaigner for pro-Second Amendment candidates and policies. He made the case like no one ever had that the right of law-abiding, peaceable Americans to keep and bear arms is part of our Founding Fathers’ constitutional blueprint, designed to keep our land free and prosperous forever. It recognizes the sanctity of every person’s life and the right to defend themselves and those they love. It acknowledges that some things are worth fighting and even dying for. Most remarkably, the Second Amendment reflects a belief not commonly held by governments today that ordinary Americans can be trusted to do the right thing.

The title of Heston’s book “In the Arena” is, I believe, a reference to a 1910 quotation of Theodore Roosevelt: "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Read her full essay here.