Knocking Moses Off the Mountaintop

Everything new seems to start in L.A.

We supply the country on an almost daily basis with new foods, fads and fantasies. We spew out hairstyles and clothes styles the way fish lay eggs in strings of hundreds.

We make up new words, create new heroes, manufacturer new politicians, write new songs and think up new problems.

And today I’ve got another “new” for you. I think we may be on the cutting edge of a new people’s movement against guns. Thank Moses for that.

I wrote a column for Tuesday’s paper regretting that Charlton Heston was using what celebrity he still possesses to hire on as a huckster for the National Rifle Assn. He has, I said, taken seriously his onetime role as Moses to lead the people into a new age of cowboy sensibilities.

If there’s any doubt in your mind, the column was anti-gun.

Normally that kind of essay results in overwhelming condemnation from those who cuddle up to their .38s like babies to a loaded mother, seeking the warmth and comfort that cold steel provides.

But this time it was different. Of 112 e-mail messages 89 said, in effect, no more guns and only 23 followed Moses--”the trigger finger of God,” one called him--down Gunslinger Trail.

What’s going on here?

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What’s going on here, I think, is that we’re tired of all the killing.

That message was contained in almost every one of the letters I received through cyberspace, plus another dozen telephone calls.

They came from teachers, priests, a rabbi, a neurosurgeon, a pediatrician, a television producer, a juvenile crime expert, a librarian, war veterans, witnesses to gun murders and a lot of people who, even as you and I, fear for our children and their children and their children’s children.

“I worry, love and cry for my students,” one teacher wrote. “The world is a dangerous, slippery place for them, made more dangerous because of ubiquitous gun ownership.”

“My daughter works as an aide at the hospital in Springfield where they brought the first 13 victims of the [recent Oregon school] shootings,” a man wrote. “After a few hours of absolute chaos in the ER . . . she called her dad and wept.”

“Unfortunately,” another teacher wrote, “bulletproof vests will soon become standard issue for classrooms.”

“What kind of a society places the profit-value of weapons above the lives of children?” another asked.

“The NRA forgets that when the right to bear arms was included as part of our Bill of Rights they were talking about muskets.”

From the gun advocates:

“You foolishly blame guns for a society that is too tolerant of violence of all kinds.”

“Hey, Al, what about the inferior culture that is present in these violent scenarios?”

“You work for a lousy newspaper that is anti-everything.”

“Your column is so full of liberal bull and so ignorant it is no wonder you are only permitted a column twice a week.”

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Both sides used elements of the 2nd Amendment. The NRA people say it guarantees their right to own guns. The anti-firearms people see it only as support for a well-armed militia not as carte blanche “for every nut down the block to own an Uzi.”

Heston was both lauded and condemned. “We didn’t hire him as an actor, we voted him in as a leader.” “This spurious Moses will lead us all to hell.”

The media were both lauded and condemned. “Media never miss a chance to showcase violence, death and sorrow.” “You and other journalists who dare to see and say things the way they are are the front line of the battle.”

So much for balance. What came through loud and clear was a call for someone to do something about the proliferation of guns in this country.

One reader called for a grass-roots movement “organized by children who have seen classmates, parents, siblings, teachers, friends and relatives gunned down.”

I think that’s possible. The children of violence that compose this generation cry out to be heard, and if the cry condemns the psychology of guns that is epidemic in America, let’s listen.

The presence of Moses as the figurehead of the nation’s gun lobby may not have the effect the NRA anticipates. By using his image as an icon of arms, he is unwittingly solidifying those who are tired of the gunfire and the screams of the innocent.

Take heed, Moses. We’ve had enough.

Al Martinez’s column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. He can be reached online at al.martinez@latimes.com