ABSTRACT
For this chapter, I selected the YouTube video of the American celebrity and gun rights advocate Mr. Charlton Heston’s 1998 National Rifle Association (NRA) speech that he delivered at a NRA Banquet in Philadelphia. This was Mr. Heston’s first speech as the NRA president. Since 1998, Mr. Heston had become the face of the NRA. Earlier in his life, Mr. Heston was engaged in the Civil Rights Movement, and for a short while, he endorsed the Democrats in the U.S. Congress and Senate. However, he switched his party allegiance and became a registered Republican in 1987 (Raymond, 2006, pp. 1-3). Following that, he campaigned for Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush (Raymond, 2006, p. 276). Mr. Heston, perhaps inadvertently, became the proverbial poster boy for the neoconservative/ neoliberal discourse that has affected U.S. domestic and foreign affairs. To understand and analyze Mr. Heston’s discourse, we now shift focus to the neoconservative/neoliberal ideology.
