Everyone needs a boogyman. Sorry, bogeyman. That’s doubly true for gun rights groups: the NRA et al. need a boogying bogeyman to frighten gun owners into opening their wallets. Nothing gets those donation dollars flowing like a good old-fashioned gun grab. Problem: despite early fears that the post-Obama gun rights would erode like George Bush’s political base, nothing of the sort has happened. In fact, gun rights are ascendant . . .

From concealed carry licensing procedures, to the right to carry a gun on an Amtrak train or traipsing across federal lands, Americans are rolling back gun control regs. Not to mention the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Chicago’s handgun ban and incorporate the Second Amendment. For gun rights groups there are the best of times and the best of times.

Unless you need to whip-up a little proactive paranoia. And so, gun orgs have been forced—forced I tell you—to point the fickle finger of fate at the United Nations and its “trojan horse”: the Small Arms Treaty.

TTAG has been telling its readers since we were aborned in February that the U.N. Small Arms Treaty is aimed at the control of military weapons. In general, it aims to impose the same regulations on military weapon sales that the United States currently employs. End user certificates, accountability, that sort of thing.

The U.N. Small Arms Treaty—which has yet to be introduced even in draft form—could mutate into a gun grab. But it hasn’t. And even if it did, the Treaty would have to be approved by the U.S. Senate and then signed by the [next] President. If the Treaty so much as head feints towards a gun grab, it will have about as much chance of receiving U.S. approval as Hamas’ denial of Israel’s right to exist. Probably less.

While we appreciate the fact that eternal vigilance is the price of peace, it’s important to keep this thing in perspective. ‘Cause there’s another U.N. gun grab percolating away, elsewhere. Hello? NRA?

On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced its support for the United Nations’ “International Small Arms Destruction Day.”

The State Department, under the leadership of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calls this ridiculous event part of the United States’ ongoing efforts to support the “rule of law around the world” and boasts of spending more than $130 million to destroy “1.4 million small arms and light weapons.” A press release from the State Department says this money was spent at the behest of the anti-gun United Nations to reduce the impact of “illicit flows of small arms and light weapons.”

PAUSE. Here’s the Press Release:

The United States is pleased to join the international community in observing International Small Arms Destruction Day as part of our ongoing efforts to reduce armed violence and support the rule of law around the world.

Excess, loosely secured, or otherwise at-risk small arms, light weapons and munitions pose both a security and humanitarian risk worldwide. Since 2001, when the United Nations first called for an international observance of the impact of illicit flows of small arms and light weapons, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs has invested over $130 million to destroy more than 1.4 million small arms and light weapons, and 80,000 tons of munitions, and almost 32,000 man-portable air-defense systems, which could have posed a threat to global aviation in the hands of terrorists or insurgents.

The United States takes this opportunity to encourage all States to continue implementing relevant UN and regional instruments on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, including the UN Program of Action on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects; The International Instrument on Tracing of Small Arms and Light Weapons; and recommendations made by the UN Group of Governmental Experts to consider further steps to enhance international cooperation in preventing, combating and eradicating illicit brokering in small arms and light weapons.

The United States is the world’s single largest financial supporter of conventional weapons destruction. Since 1993, the United States has promoted peace and security through the commitment of more than $1.5 billion for the safe disposal of small arms, light weapons, and munitions, as well as for removal of landmines and other explosive remnants of war in 47 countries. For more information, please visit the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement at www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.

OK, back to the polemic:

Chris W. Cox, NRA chief lobbyist said, “The U.N. has long had an agenda of undermining our Second Amendment freedoms by ending all private ownership of firearms by law-abiding Americans. Now, our State Department is joining the effort. The Obama Administration’s embrace of this offensive ‘celebration’ and the UN’s ‘Programme of Action on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects’ — a program that has sought to disarm Americans and undermine the United States Constitution — is an affront to the 80 million law-abiding gun owners in our country.”

And Cox’s willful misconstruing of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty (he knows exactly what it’s about) is an affront to lovers of the truth—who don’t depend on fear to fill their begging bowl. Just sayin’.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Hey, it never hurts to keep an eye on what the U.N. is doing. You know, since it’s worthless, corrupt, and wants to rule the world.

  2. Glad to see someone who is able to discuss gun ownership and control in a sane fashion. Everyone else seems to think this is the first step before the UN rounds us up into the FEMA camps using RFID chips implanted in our currency.

    Long live reason.

  3. Apparently someone is not seeing the trees for the forest.
    It’s the small print and further interpretation that probably will lead to
    gun control. Obama wanted to control our guns by stopping the sale of
    used brass by the military to stop ammunition mfg.. He used his front man Gates to
    take the heat Going around the law and constitution is Obama’s specialty(he’s proven
    that). *** Don’t wait until it’s to late.

  4. If this isn’t a prospective “gun grab,” can you explain why the International Action Network on Small Arms, a U.N. non-governmental organization representing “gun control” (read: gun ban) organizations around the globe and headed by Rebecca Peters, a proponent of a total ban on civilian gun ownership, has spent the last several years pushing hard for its passage? If you’d like to see Ms. Peters in action close up, contact the NRA and order “the Great U.N. Gun Debate,” a dvd of a debate between Ms. Peters and Wayne LaPierre, executive V.P. of the NRA, at Kings College in England. Additionally, our U.N. Ambassador under former Pres. Bush, John Bolton, was concerned enough about it to declare quite forcefully at a Security Council meeting that we would “…never be signatory to a treaty which requires us to abrogate our own Constitution.” I believe that there is plenty of reason for concern. Yes-the NRA (and other groups on both sides of this issue) are expert at getting people in the mood to fork over the green-but I believe that the evidence is clear that there’s a serious potential threat.

  5. Thank you for putting some light on this TTAG. However, I’ll have to hold my position on the issue as a “reason” or “step” for the UN and US Government to SLOWLY push the issue. The US has never taken anything overnight, just day by day.

  6. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et. al. all have decried private gun ownership as being against the state. An unarmed civilian is a subject……a law abiding Gun Owner is a citizen.

  7. We have good reason to be paranoid regarding anything the U.N. or President Obama does. Neither is concerned with protecting our national sovereignty or Constitutional freedoms. Both believe in unlimited government control of every aspect of people’s lives by the political class.

    Anyone who believes that Barrack Obama wouldn’t make all private firearms ownership illegal needs a reality check. And don’t think that he wouldn’t use a back-door option and bypass Congress to implement such a policy. He would love to use a U.N. treaty as an excuse to enact stronger gun regulations. The devil is in the details, fine print, and interpretation.

    The U.N. wants to get guns out of the hands of “rebels”. But not all rebels or insurgencies are bad. Some, like the American Colonist rebels in 1776 are fighting for freedom. Many of these U.N. nations are despotic and don’t want their citizens arming themselves; armed civilians are a threat to tyrants.

    Don’t forget that during the 20th century despotic governments murdered 151 million of their citizens. Remember Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot? All of them banned private gun ownership. How many lives in Rwanda could have been saved if the victims were able to arm themselves? Gun proliferation can be a good thing and a check on government power the world over.

    Obama’s Healthcare Affordability Act is Unconstitutional on its face, but that hasn’t stopped its implementation even though two state courts have ruled it as such. If you would have told me that a government controlled health care plan would become law 20 years ago, I would have called you crazy. (I would have said the same about Islamic terrorists flying jets into the World Trade Center.) Even the absurd is possible. I’ll keep my paranoia and will continue to be vigilant.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/27/the-un-gun-grabber/

  8. I see your ‘truth’ included a gratuitous lie.

    The NRA is not using this in any way to raise funds, or anything else. The NRA-ILA site debunks the ‘Hillary signed’ myth, and simply tells people that they are engaged at the UN, to try to prevent any such thing happening.

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