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Abstract
This article analyzes National Rifle Association past–president Charlton Heston’s 2000 speech to the British Columbia Wildlife Federation. Narrating a shared mythology, Heston mapped a bridge between the two groups by dovetailing three ideas: wilderness, freedom, and firearms – each of which ostensibly transcends national borders. By exploring how Heston engaged a foreign audience dedicated to wildlife conservation, the paper examines the capacity of sacred rhetoric to generate shared ideological ground and thereby both expand, and demarcate, a community’s contours.
Acknowledgments
Sincere thanks to John Berteaux, Jennifer Fletcher, Nelson Graff, and Bridie McGreavy for their suggestions on earlier versions of the manuscript.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
2. For an overview of Canadian firearms control laws, see: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/pol-leg/hist/con-eng.htm.
6. An interesting possible correlation is the decreasing number of Americans who purchase a hunting license. This number has decreased from 40 million per year in 1970, to 11.5 million per year today (See para. 26: https://www.outsideonline.com/2328866/its-time-hunters-leave-nra).
7. For information on the Canadian equivalent to the NRA, see: https://nfa.ca/about/about-the-nfa/.
8. See: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/country-pays/united_states-etats_unis/relations.aspx?lang=eng; For a U.S. Department of State overview of U.S. relations with Canada, see: https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-canada/.
9. For a fuller discussion, see: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadian-american-relations.
10. For a discussion of The Seven Years’ War (1756–63), fought in Europe, India and North America, see: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-the-plains-of-abraham; The Métis Riel Rebellions of 1869 and 1885 were small by international standards. See: Riel, Louis (1844 - 85). 1996. Encyclopedia of North American Indians; Riel, Louis. 2009. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.
14. For a discussion of the recent debate over gun legislation in Canada, see: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gun-lobby-canada-fifth-estate-assault-rifle-ban-1.5290679.
15. For a complete list, see: https://ccla.org/focus-areas/.
16. It is worth noting that the U.S.-based American Civil Liberties Union asserts that “Everyone has basic rights under the U.S. Constitution,” yet none of the organization’s specified eighteen “Issues” relates to gun rights: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/.
17. See: https://home.nra.org/about-the-nra/.
19. See: McGee’s (Citation1980) discussion of the “ideograph,” and Charland’s (Citation1987) discussion of “constitutive rhetoric.”
20. See: Taylor (Citation2002, p. 106).
21. Anderson (Citation2006, p. 7).
22. See also: Burke (Citation1945).
23. See also: Campbell (Citation2008); Campbell and Moyers (Citation1991); Segal (Citation1998).
24. Burkholder also emphasized the limits of myth’s power to unite discrete groups (p. 305).
25. For a discussion of condensation symbols, see: Kaufer and Carley (Citation1993) and Graber (Citation1976).
26. Heston demonstrates some slippage regarding the origin of the right to bear arms. For although he refers to a “constitutionally protected right” and “our most cherished document, [the] Constitution’s Bill of Rights,” he also states: “You may not be absolutely free when you own a firearm. But I guarantee you will never be free when you can’t. That’s not written, that’s God-given.” This last sentence explicitly shifts from the register of law, to that of sacred principle.
27. The phrase “all men are created equal” seems to harmonize with Heston’s recurrent correlation of the NRA with Dr. King and the civil rights movement. However, as suggested below, Heston’s repeated celebration of U.S. and Canadian citizens of “sturdy pioneer stock, cut from the same frontier cloth” possibly suggests some limitations to the NRA’s cultural community. See: https://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/race-and-criminal-justice/does-second-amendment-protect-only-white-gun-owners.
28. For a discussion of the term’s colonial implications, see: https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/09/28/Relations-Indigenous-Peoples-Europeans/.
29. See: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/freedom-expression/canada.php; For the complete Charter, see: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/how-rights-protected/guide-canadian-charter-rights-freedoms.html.
31. See: https://rsf.org/en/ranking.
32. See: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/globally-broad-support-for-representative-and-direct-democracy/; See also: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-particularly-trustful-of-their-democracy-poll-finds/article35495822/.
34. See also: Dickinson, Ott, and Aoki (Citation2005); Slotkin (Citation1998).
36. There is a dissonance between Heston’s claim that the US/Canada border is “more myth than fact,” and the NRA’s more recent support for political candidates who emphasize border security. In 2010, the NRA Institute the Legislative Action signaled the organization’s entrance into immigration politics (see paras. 50-51: https://www.nraila.org/articles/20100628/terror-on-the-border-1), and in 2016 the NRA was a major supporter of presidential candidate Trump (see: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/28/donald-trump-nra).
37. It is ironic that, 131 years earlier, Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald opposed new gun legislation by highlighting the threat posed by Americans (as opposed to the federal government) and arguing that “citizens needed arms to protect themselves from American criminals who crossed into Canada” (Brown, Citation2012, p. 69).
38. See: Marietta (Citation2012, p. 95).
39. According to the Pew Research Center, in February 2000, approximately 40% of U.S. adults trusted the federal government “always or most of the time.” As of March 2019 (the most recent data available), that number is 17%: https://www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/; According to the CanTrust Index, as of 2019, 36% of Canadian adults trust varying levels of government: https://www.getproof.com/thinking/the-proof-cantrust-index/.
40. See Burke (Citation1945).
41. It is worth repeating that Heston marched on Washington in 1963 with Martin Luther King, and has often correlated gun and civil rights. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/celebrities-who-joined-the-march-on-washington/2013/08/19/ed761f1a-005a-11e3-9711-3708310f6f4d_gallery.html?utm_term=.6a49439e1b2a.
42. For instance, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/world/asia/india-muslims-citizenship.html; https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/2019/05/shinzo-abe-and-rise-japanese-nationalism; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36130006; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/opinion/brexit-scotland-northern-ireland.html; https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/why-does-nationalism-exude-a-seductive-appeal-1.3625641; https://www.npr.org/2019/05/18/724569244/germans-stand-out-in-support-of-european-union; https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/04/29/nationalism-surges-italy-must-reckon-with-its-fascist-past/?utm_term=.d1e610f5acaa.