Charlton Heston Guns for Barbra Streisand

NRA VP slams diva-filmmaker's antigun TV movie

By Daniel Frankel May 04, 1998 10:00 PMTags
National Rifle Association VP Charlton Heston did a little skeet shooting Monday, but instead of clay pigeons, the conservative activist blasted away at liberal actress-filmmaker Barbra Striesand.

Heston took aim at Sunday night's NBC broadcast of The Long Island Incident--a Streisand-produced drama about real-life gun-control lobbyist Carolyn McCarthy.

First, Heston and his gun-toting brethren placed full-page ads in several newspapers (The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Daily Variety, included) slamming Incident's antigun message under the massive headline, "A Terrible Price to Pay for Ratings."

Then the erstwhile Moses conducted a brief Beverly Hills press conference, voicing his organization's displeasure with the film--and challenging Babs to a gun-control debate.

"Mrs. [sic] Streisand is a very nice lady, a superb singer and a great actress," said Heston (described in NRA literature as "a former Democrat in the spirit of Ronald Reagan"). "But it's my understanding that she was intent on making the NRA the target of her film."

For those who missed it, The Long Island Incident tracks the transformation of McCarthy from housewife to pro-gun-control Congresswoman after her husband is killed and her son wounded during a 1993 shooting on a Long Island commuter train.

In the film, the NRA tries to stifle McCarthy from voicing her gun-control platform.

Heston and NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, also at the podium Monday, said the movie not only misrepresented the NRA's role but attempted to suppress the Second Amendment.

"Whether it's Barbra Streisand or NBC, there's an agenda to take away the Second Amendment," said LaPierre.

Heston took it a step further: "The Hollywood community--even before Bill Clinton was elected--has been quite left of center," he said. "But I would suspect that there are more closet conservatives in Hollywood than there are homosexuals."

As for Streisand, she didn't personally take the Planet of the Apes star up on the debate; instead she issued a statement that was read by one of her reps after Heston left the podium.

"First, let me say that Carolyn McCarthy and I and others who made this film are not against people owning guns for self-defense or hunting," Streisand's statement read. "But you don't need an AK-47 to kill game, and you don't need an Uzi to defend yourself. People who support gun control believe in the reasonable regulation of guns...Why do we have childproof medicine bottles, but we don't have childproof guns?"

Streisand also said that her film accurately depicts the NRA's opposition of McCarthy, adding, "This issue is beyond partisan politics. It's basic common sense."




Digital images provided by Sony Electronic Photography
Photograph by Trixie Textor