U.N. poised for a gun grab
Devils_Advocate
U.N. poised for a gun grab
Posted: December 26, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
� 2009
If you think the Obama administration doesn't need help in dreaming up
new schemes to reinterpret the Constitution and add new restrictions on
our freedom, think again.
Arms-control bureaucrats at the United Nations and dozens of allied NGOs
(that's non-governmental organizations in non-bureaucratic lingo) have
been busy for two decades talking and negotiating among themselves to
produce an international treaty regulating the sale of small arms. A
U.N. resolution adopted in October calls upon member nations to
negotiate the matter and finish writing a treaty by 2012. The United
States voted for the resolution, which was adopted almost unanimously.
President Bush, for all his mistakes and miscalculations, never allowed
his U.N. representatives to participate in such negotiations. But Obama
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reversed course and agreed to
join the negotiations.
Secretary of State Clinton announced in October that the U.S. would join
the negotiations "if they are based on consensus," implying that the
U.S. could exercise a veto if negotiations went off course. That implies
that the U.S. would reject any treaty that violates our Second Amendment
rights to keep and bear arms. The problem is she can't make that promise
or guarantee that outcome.
The truth is it is very dangerous for the U.S. to go down this road no
matter how many assurances are given by Obama and his minions. Once
committed to the "process of negotiations," it is hard to reject a
product based on "international consensus."
There are good reasons why the U.S. ought to stay out of such
negotiations, and many good reasons to be wary of any international
treaty on the subject.
To put this whole matter in perspective, ask yourself how well existing
arms-control agreements are working and how well international agencies
are enforcing those agreements.
There is an existing conventional arms-control treaty among nations in
Latin America. How well is that working? Does it prevent the Mexican
drug cartels from buying advanced weapons on the black market in Asia
and Europe? Hardly. Does it prevent Hugo Chavez from buying arms from
Iran, North Korea and Russia and providing them to rebel groups in
Colombia and Central America? No.
Has the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency stopped Iran
from developing a nuclear-weapons program? Shouldn't we expect some
semblance of success from such existing agreements before launching new
ones?
What conventional arms treaties do is constrain the actions of law-
abiding nations and law-abiding citizens while allowing outlaw nations
and leftist guerrilla groups to build their arsenals.
If you think such international treaties apply only to sales and
exchanges among nations and not to individuals, you have not been paying
attention to the Obama administration's agenda and to what activist
judges have been doing in American courts.
What is especially galling is to hear gun-control advocates use the
Mexican drug cartel violence as an excuse to further restrict gun sales
among private citizens inside the United States. This is exactly what
the Obama Justice Department and its sister agencies have been doing
lately.
The federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been claiming
that 90 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the
United States, and have added new manpower to north-to-south border
inspections on the U.S.-Mexico border. Curtailing illegal arms smuggling
is a good idea, but to claim that the U.S. is the main supplier of the
Mexican cartels is deliberately misleading and dishonest.
That much-used 90 percent statistic is based on only the guns that are
turned over to the U.S. for tracing. The truth is over 80 percent of the
guns seized from the cartels and from crime scenes are not traceable to
the U.S. The Mexican government will not admit that huge quantities of
guns and vehicles and body armor used by the cartels come from � are you
ready? � the Mexican government itself.
This example of outright distortion and dishonesty by the Obama
administration is important because it reveals the hidden agenda. If the
U.S. Department of Justice will conspire with the Mexican government
against the interests of American gun owners, what can we expect when
federal agencies can cite "standards" and "obligations" under an
international treaty? The drug cartels are laughing, but American gun
owners are not.
It is reasonable to assume that any international treaty on "small-arms
trafficking" will be used by domestic gun-control advocates and liberal
judges to further restrict the ownership, use and exchange of firearms
by individual citizens.
This past month we saw a new demonstration of U.N. arrogance and
hypocrisy at the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change. The Third
World nations that now dominate the U.N. are eager to impose obligations
of hundreds of billions of dollars on the U.S. and Europe to pay for
their compliance with carbon-emissions targets.
But we need not speculate about future U.N. actions. We have the record
of its malfeasance in following existing mandates. Does anyone want to
trust the U.N.'s Human Rights Council to tell Americans how to shape
civil-rights laws?
Public officials and political leaders in the U.S. have an obligation to
oppose further erosion of American sovereignty in the face of U.N.
designs and ambitions.
chatnoir
wrote:
Dolt, the US is on the Security Council. They have Veto power over
anything the body of the UN passes!
x-town
So does China and Russia, you toad.
chatnoir
>
> - Show quoted text -
So?????? What does that have to do with the US being forced to give
up arms?