The latest email blast from Gun Owners of America:
The pro-gun community breathed a collective sigh of relief after United Nations negotiators failed to produce a treaty regulating global arms trade on Friday. “There is no consensus and the meeting is over,” said a spokesman for the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, which sponsored the month-long conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). However, while the demise of the ATT is a positive outcome for U.S. gun owners, it would be a mistake to believe that it spells the end of the effort to regulate small arms worldwide . . .
In fact, to global gun ban supporters like Amnesty International and Oxfam America, the ATT was a success whether or not a treaty was produced.
Sure, they would rather have had the treaty pass, and they complained loudly when it was scuttled. But the fact remains that the ATT represented the most serious discussion of global gun control in history and it ensures that small arms (read: your gun collection) will be part of future negotiations.
And there will be another anti-gun treaty in the near future.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the unraveling of the ATT merely a “setback,” and insiders at the UN say they expect a vote at the next session of the General Assembly later this year to restart treaty talks.
The Obama administration continues to back a treaty and has already signaled its support for an additional round of negotiations after the next presidential election.
“While we sought to conclude the month’s negotiations with a treaty, more time is a reasonable request for such a complex and critical issue,” a State Department spokesman said.
The ATT was a convenient catch-all mechanism for the many streams of arms control measures that have been flowing from UN headquarters for years. Just because the ATT was blocked does not mean that all the streams will stop flowing.
Despite what happened — or didn’t happen — this year with the ATT, the drive to ratify a treaty regulating small arms is alive and well.
GOA Members Play Big Role in Stopping Anti-gun Treaty
While the ATT sought to regulate trade on conventional weapons such as battle tanks and battleships, it was the small arms provisions that stirred the most opposition in the U.S.
Earlier this year, GOA began working with Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) in an effort to get Senators on the record opposing the treaty.
The Moran letter warned that in requiring nations to take “appropriate measures” in furtherance of the goals of the ATT, the vaguely worded treaty “will be used to push the U.S. in the direction of measures that would infringe on both Second Amendment freedoms and the U.S.’s sovereignty more broadly.”
The fact Sen. Moran and millions of gun owners in America rallied fifty other Senators to go on the record against the treaty was a huge obstacle for the Obama administration. It put the anti-gun side well short of the 67 votes needed in the Senate to ratify a treaty, and would have left the President “owning” an unpopular, anti-gun treaty in an election year.
Backdoor Gun Control Attempt
The President knows that he cannot get his anti-Second Amendment agenda passed through the full Congress, so he simply attempts to bypass that body whenever possible through Executive Orders, presidential directives, and international treaties.
GOA has helped to lay the groundwork to stop the UN small arms treaty. Since it first came up more than ten years ago, we have led the charge to make gun owners aware of its dangerous implications.
For now, thanks to the efforts of so many politically active supporters, we have bought some time before the next arms treaty. And that day will come. The gun grabbers know they’re running a marathon, not a sprint. They are patient and will work out a more narrowly crafted treaty that still slices away at our liberty.
But GOA, the no-compromise gun lobby, will not budge when it comes to protecting the Second Amendment from enemies at home or abroad.
Action: Contact your Senators and thank those who signed on to the Moran letter, and express disappointment in those who would sacrifice your liberty and U.S. sovereignty to the UN. When you click here, the appropriate message will be sent to your Senators depending on their position.
This tested the waters and got pretty far along. The Administration was predicable luke warm towards signing it in an election year, if Big O gets back in look for him to support a “new”version of this.
While I also was very worried about the impact on my ability to keep & bear, the more I think about it the more concerned I am about the National sovereignty issue. If this treaty were in effect would the French been unable to help us in the revolution? Would we have been able to send rifles to the Brits in WWII? Will we be able to assist our allies in the future? The more I think about it the more I believe even the larger military weapons should not be regulated. In much the same way only we law-abiding citizens obey the gun control laws, only nations with some level of moral compass will follow the rules of the treaty. If we sign such a treaty will we be hamstringing ourselves in future conflicts with rogue nations?
But…but…but…but…what about the children!?!?
I knew it! I knew that, somehow, this win was really a loss! I’ll bet this is why I need to give more money to GOA, like RIGHT NOW!!!!@!111!!!!
it’s a never ending struggle that my great grandkids will still be fighting. gun grabbers are without honor or morals. defeat them and they’ll keep coming back. freedom is always under threat. we need to be overzealous in our defense of it.
On a side note, the passage of the ATT will ensure Tyranny for ever.
Let’s put aside our 2A thoughts for the moment although this is the driving factor for us to not support the ATT.
Now let’s look at history and a current situation. The United States government has along with other states funded insurgent groups around the world in order to facilitate regime change. Sometimes this works like Libya and sometimes this doesn’t. It is a controversial practice to be sure, but if ATT were to pass, it would become a much riskier proposition to help fund groups trying to overthrow a tyrannical government, like the insurgency in Syria as an example.
Yes funding and training the Taliban to kick out the Russians probably wasn’t the best thought out process, and certainly the F&F scandal, which I can only imagine was being used to reduce the number of cartels in Mexico to one was pretty much an abomination. We need to consider that intelligence services across the globe take part in these actions, it isn’t just us.
Simply put if ATT were to pass there would be no way to assist resistance to tyranny through unconventional channels. this would mean the folks in Syria would be helpless while Russia, and Iran fund their military. Rebellions would become much more difficult to facilitate.
Mexico would want this in place in an attempt to control the arms flooding to their cartels from external sources. Instead of declaring and all out war on the cartels they are trying to circumvent their own responsibilities to protect their citizens by placing the blame anywhere except where it rightfully belongs, which is on themselves.
I know there are lots of thoughts on if we should or should not help outside of our own boarders. All I know is if we were ever placed in such a situation I would sure hope we could gain assistance from groups outside our own boarders. I am not calling for armed rebellion by the way.. just sayin..
This then brings us back to our own situation where 2A is so important. It not only allows us as citizens to ensure our own protection, but in doing so allows us protections from tyranny or any threat there of.
So now what should we do?
What now? Do as they’re doing. Regroup. Immediately during and following, launch a campaign of education for firearms awareness and safety. Educate everyone, as loudly as possible, with the facts.
There’s too many as it stands right now that are uninformed of what regulations are already in place, and the odds of any incident occurring.
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