A column by Cary Clack: And the NRA did smite bill.

Finding themselves lost in the wilderness of extremism, the children of the National Rifle Association asked Moses last year to lead them to the promised land of the political mainstream. Having heard their cries, Charlton Heston agreed.

But for Heston and these children of an explosive god, extremism was their natural habitat, so rather than abandon their hallowed ground, they chose to dig in their .22-caliber heels.

From their bounty, manna in the form of campaign dollars rained down upon the House of Representatives so that their will would be done.

And last week it was, ingloriously so, as the House failed to pass a gun control bill. What had been a serious response to April's school shooting in Littleton, Colo., became, instead, a testament to the NRA's formidable lobbying power and disingenuousness.

The bullet to the heart of the bill was passage of an amendment that would, on the surface, please gun-control advocates, one that required that all firearm sales at gun shows be subject to criminal background checks. Under current law, unlicensed dealers are exempt.

But in removing this exemption, the amendment would, in fact, weaken existing law by reducing the time to make the background checks from three business days to 24 hours. The amendment was all but dictated by the NRA.

The result was a hodgepodge of a bill that was defeated by gun-control advocates who thought it too weak and pro-gun forces who deemed it too strong. In the end, it was another victory for the NRA and its idolatry of the Second Amendment as if it were a commandment handed down from Mount Sinai.

But what's truly disingenuous about the gun lobby is its selective reading of that amendment, which says, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The debate between the NRA and its opponents has always been whether the amendment refers to a standing army or to individual citizens. NRA members say it's the latter.

I'm willing to give them that. It's more than probable that the framers of the Constitution, having used arms to successfully revolt against a tyrannical foreign government, would want to safeguard the rights of citizens to own firearms.

Also, the NRA's argument about individual self-defense can't be ignored. In six years, I've had two cousins murdered. Frankly, if it would have saved their lives, I wish they had had guns (though a waiting period of any days would have been moot under the circumstances in which they died.)

But what the NRA conveniently ignores in the Second Amendment is that phrase, "well-regulated." To emphasize its intent, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist Paper 29, "If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security."

In other words, the federal government.

But the NRA, possessors of the quickest knee-jerks in the West, vilifies its opponents as it resists even the most common-sense regulations.

"Well-regulated" doesn't include the free flow of semi-automatic weapons.

"Well-regulated" doesn't include the import of foreign assault weapons.

"Well-regulated" doesn't include Teflon-coated cop-killer bullets.

"Well-regulated" doesn't mean insufficient time to conduct criminal background checks on prospective buyers.

"Well-regulated" doesn't mean opposing safety locks on guns.

To oppose the NRA in its extremity isn't tantamount to wanting to take away everyone's guns or to rain on hunters' parades. That's demagogic nonsense, something Heston is a master at. In the wake of the Colorado massacre, the man actually said that "we cannot let tragedy lay waste to the most rare and hard-won human right in history."

The right to own a gun is the most hard-won human right in history? How about the freedom of speech that allows Ben Hur to prattle such nonsense? How about the right to worship, so that we can thank God, Allah, and Jehovah that Heston didn't have editorial control over the Ten Commandments?

The NRA is right to insist law-abiding citizens have the right of gun ownership.

But it's wrong in insisting a nation that leads the world in gun-related deaths doesn't have the right, and the responsibility, to well-regulate those guns.