One of Hollywood’s greatest epic movie actors is dead. He acted for more than 60 years and appeared in over 100 movies. He won the Academy awards, received the Kennedy Center honors and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

It could not get any better. He was truly accomplished.

Little kids all over the world still get introduced to the bible story when they watch him play Moses in the movie The Ten Commandments. I know I did. To a large extent, in the minds of kids, he epitomized Moses. For many kids, his portrayal of Moses is often what endures even at adulthood. Moses must be a muscled white man, physically imposing and spiritually liberating.

In all its ramifications, Charlton Heston was the man who parted the Red Sea. He led the Israelites out of Egypt. But most importantly, he got the Ten Commandments from God. If there could be a greater hero, such hero has not been conceived.

In 1963, while most of Hollywood was silent, Charlton Heston joined the march on Washington in support of the rights of Black people in America. He was there when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a Dream” speech. He spoke against racism. He described Dr. King as “the Moses of his people.”

Charlton Heston was truly accomplished. Perhaps more accomplished than he ever knew.

That was why it surprised many of his admirers that a man who once supported gun control act after the assassination of President J.F. Kennedy chose to squander such goodwill in his advocacy for the National Rifle Association (NRA). From 1998 when he was elected president of NRA, he became an ardent spokesman in defense of the constitutional right to bear arms- a right that the Supreme Court will this year decide if it meant an individual right or the right of a well trained militia.

In his advocacy, Heston made it appear as if the government was about to swoop in and collect everyone’s gun. He spoke as if the right to bear arms meant the right to own your own nuclear weapon. Though he is gone, this debate will continue.

Heston’s opposition to gun control of any kind runs counter to the picture of the unarmed Moses who survived the attack of the Egyptians to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. In a remarkable speech to the NRA convention in 2000, Heston told a cheering crowd, “I’ll give you my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands.” Waving a hand-made Brooks flintlock rifle over his head, he repeated again and again, “From my cold, dead hands!”

At the later part of his life, it seemed Heston developed an ego problem. “I have played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses,” he said. “If that doesn’t create an ego problem, nothing does.”

Though Heston noted that, “Political correctness is tyranny with manners,” I stand with African culture that frowns at speaking evil of dead men. For that reason alone, I restrain myself from saying, now is the time to get the gun from his cold dead hands.

Adieu, Mr. Heston. You can keep the gun.