Posted on 06/24/2012 5:58:10 PM PDT by Libloather
Arms bill supporters fight claims US citizens will be robbed of guns
By Julan Pecquet - 06/24/12 05:27 PM ET
Advocates of a pending arms trade treaty are billing it as a way to strengthen U.S. import/export laws as they seek to counter claims that it will rob citizens of their guns.
The United Nations is slated to craft a long-delayed international treaty next month, with the Obama administration's blessing. Groups that support the treaty's stated goal of crafting “common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons” are organizing a slew of events starting next week to build support with the U.S. public and a skeptical Senate, which would have to approve it for the United States to join.
Far from impeding on U.S. sovereignty, argue groups such as Oxfam, Amnesty International and the Arms Control Association, the treaty instead targets those countries with weak or non-existent regulations. The lack of international minimum standards, they say, allowed a notorious gun smuggler like Viktor Bout to circumvent U.S.-backed sanctions and sell weapons to rogue regimes for years before he was captured in Thailand and sentenced to 25 years in prison in New York earlier this year.
“What happens is arms dealers … can hang out and do their operations in countries with weak laws and continue to trade with sanctioned countries or terrorists with impunity,” said Scott Stedjan, a senior policy adviser to Oxfam America.
“The U.S. standard would be so much higher that it would have no impact on U.S. laws. That's where I disagree with people who claim it would violate the 2nd amendment,” he said.
Some lawmakers aren't buying it.
“I believe there is a threat to include civilian firearms within its scope,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) said in a speech at the conservative Heritage Foundation this past week. “And the arms trade treaty, if that's true, could restrict the lawful private ownership of firearms in the United States.”
Moran and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have been leading the effort in the Senate to ensure that the treaty doesn't infringe on the right to bear arms. The two have spearheaded letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signed by 45 Republicans and 13 Democrats, opposing restrictions on civilian firearm ownership.
In his speech, according to a Heritage summary, Moran said the treaty would only be acceptable if it:
• explicitly recognizes the legitimacy of hunting, sport shooting, and other lawful activities related to the private ownership of firearms and related materials; • explicitly excludes small arms, light weapons and related materials that are legal for private ownership; • doesn't contain any open-ended obligations that could imply any need to impose domestic controls on any of these items; and • explicitly states that any assertion of the right of sovereign states to individual or collective self-defense does not prejudice the inherent right of personal self-defense.
The National Rifle Association shares those concerns, and has lobbied senators to reject any treaty that includes restrictions on civilian arms.
Treaty advocates in the United States insist that's not the treaty's goal, even if many foreign countries disapprove of the U.S. attitude toward gun ownership. They say the treaty is vital to national security in a world where only 52 countries have laws regulating arms brokers – and fewer than half of those have criminal or monetary penalties for illegal brokering.
“Thousands of civilians around the globe are slaughtered each year by weapons that are sold, transferred by governments or diverted to unscrupulous regimes, criminals, illegal militias, and terrorist groups,” more than 50 U.S.-based organizations wrote to President Obama last month.
“The lack of high common international standards in the global arms trade also raises the risks faced by United States military and civilian personnel working around the globe. It is in U.S. security interests to help reduce the human suffering and instability caused by the lack of an effective international legal regulatory framework on conventional arms transfers,” they said.
In a related effort, Amnesty International next week will launch a month-long campaign by issuing a “bananafesto” in New York's Times Square drawing attention to the fact that bananas are subject to stricter global trade rules than conventional weapons.
Thin edge of the wedge.
If it wouldn’t impact the U.S., why do they so desperately need us to sign on? If other countries have weak laws, get them to change their laws. Leave us alone.
“The United Nations, with the Obama administration’s blessing”
All you need to know.
No, No Way, and Hell NO!
We need the names of each and every politician supporting this un-American “treaty”. I don’t trust the UN nor the vast majority of politicians. The jackwagons in the Senate who think this is a wonderful idea need to review what recently happened to RINO Richard Lugar for his support of such anti-American atrocities as the LOST treaty, another UN attenpt to attack American sovereignty.
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
Fast forward to today. We have morphed into that which we were told we opposed. So, were we lied to then or are we being lied to now? What did we oppose in the cold war? Someone remind me, or better yet, someone remind our new ruling class.....................
That was exactly my thought...if we already have tougher standards in place then just have those other countries change their laws.
Would Romney do this?
We'd have better luck juggling flaming chain saws.
They keep harping about other countries not having gun control laws, so they need international gun control laws, yet say these won’t impact American law.
This is not just one bad argument, but two. If other countries do not have gun control laws, that is within their own national prerogative, not the international communities. If these nations leaders can’t or won’t try to change their own laws, why are they seeking a backdoor to their own nation’s lawmaking process?
And exactly how is the US, that also does not have a gun control regime, different from those other nations that do not have one? If it applies to them, it would appear to apply to us.
Those tyrannies, dictatorships, and bureaucratarian elitist regimes that do have gun control have long proven that it is not just a bad idea, but an *awful* idea. And everyone else adopting the bad idea will never make it a good idea.
As for the UN, BTW, get the USA out of the UN. Let the third-world dictators keep their evil laws in their own tourism regimes.
Sell the UN building to the NRA and GOA for office space.
THen rename the ground-floor entrance area—
(wait for it)
—the Gun Lobby,
US out of the UN, UN off US soil!
I doubt that a majority of the Senate would sign it, as political demographics currently stand. Even most Democrat voters are now in favor of the Second Amendment.
IMO, favorable, pro-Second-Amendment political conditions will continue, as long as imports and sales of cheap, semi-automatic rifles favored mostly (not all) by slum dwellers and other lefties continue. Not knocking AK variants here, but defending imports (including cheap ammunition) is something to think about for political public affairs.
If vendors tighten-up, price up or are outlawed on those kinds of imports and sales, then watch out. More Democrat and many Republican voters will turn back to favor anti-Second-Amendment laws sooner. Remember the year that the AWB was passed and who was in political offices.
Fast forward to today. We have morphed into that which we were told we opposed. So, were we lied to then or are we being lied to now? What did we oppose in the cold war? Someone remind me, or better yet, someone remind our new ruling class.....................
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