Charlton Heston Seeks Election to NRA Board

SEATTLE — The National Rifle Assn. will become politically isolated and irrelevant if leaders of the nation’s oldest and largest gun-rights group are ousted, actor Charlton Heston said Friday.

Heston said he was running for a seat on the NRA board to support “the good guys,” embattled Executive Vice President Wayne R. LaPierre Jr. and his backers.

“There are forces within the NRA that threaten to reduce it to kind of a sideshow on the radical fringe of the American scene,” Heston told reporters.

“I hear from gun owners, more and more, that they can’t relate to the NRA. I hear from my friends on the Hill in Washington, in both houses of Congress, that the NRA is going to be overrun by people incompetent in the political process. I hear from my hunting and shooting friends that the NRA is approaching irrelevance,” he said.

Heston never mentioned La-Pierre’s rival, first vice president Neal Knox, nor said whether he would remain in the organization if LaPierre is ousted. Heston is one of 158 candidates seeking the one open seat on the board.