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Old 06-08-2011, 08:01 AM   #1 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru
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International Arms Treaty vs. the Second Amendment

Quote:
Op/Ed
U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms

Jun 7, 2011

It may not come as surprising news to many of you that the United Nations doesn’t approve of our Second Amendment. Not one bit. And they very much hope to do something about it with help from some powerful American friends. Under the guise of a proposed global “Small Arms Treaty” premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates” you can be quite certain that an even more insidious threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.

What, exactly, does the intended agreement entail?

While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our Senate, it will almost certainly force the U.S. to:
  1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.
  2. Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).
  3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single “bang” manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).
  4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.
  5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.

Have no doubt that this plan is very real, with strong Obama administration support. In January 2010 the U.S. joined 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty Resolution that will establish a 2012 conference to draft a blueprint for enactment. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for Senate ratification.

Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton has cautioned gun owners to take this initiative seriously, stating that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”

[...]
U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms - Larry Bell - The Bell Tells for You - Forbes

What do you make of this?

Is this about reducing international crime or is it international cooperation on domestic arms control?

Mind you, this article is an op-ed piece, but I'm wondering how this treaty actually works and how it's being sold. But in a general sense, what do you think?

I'm torn. I don't have an issue with reasonable arms control. However, this does strike me as a bit heavy-handed. It seems that this sort of thing should be handled domestically, rather than as an international treaty. At the same time, it would be of benefit to have nations on the same page with regard to how to handle arms regulations. I suppose I simply view the small arms trade as something rather unsavoury and that maybe it would be of benefit to have some kind of international regulatory agreement.
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