“None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free,” said 18 to 19th century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

(EndTheLie) – Since September 11, 2001, our nation has continued to witness the erosion of our liberty with the passage of the PATRIOT Act, PATRIOT Act II, Military Commission Act, the signing of ACTA and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (specifically the indefinite detention provisions) to name a few.

However, there is a new piece of legislation in the processing stages, which if passed, would mean that instead of firearm owners shooting at silhouettes, they could be the ones staring down the wrong end of the barrel.

The History of the Arms Trade Treaty

Beginning in 2003, the concoction of a multilateral Arms Treaty came from former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias when he decided to gather a group of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in order to promote the concept to the United Nations.

After many years with a progression of UN Resolutions appearing in the General Assembly and many nation states offering their viewpoints, in 2008, the UN mandated a Group of Governmental Experts to search the viability and scale of the ATT.

Since that time, the ATT has been in the developmental stages. The first meeting was held in July 2010, and many more will be slated until 2012, when the treaty is set to be finished.

Contents of the Treaty

“The ATT will create common international standards on the import, export and transfer of conventional arms. It will stipulate that arms transfers with the substantial risk of being used to commit serious human rights abuses. It will serve to decrease the number of irresponsible arms transfers that occur globally by placing specific human rights criteria on transfers. An ATT could stand to have the greatest impact on decreasing the availability of illicitly-traded arms and preventing unnecessary civilian deaths. When the formal negotiations begin, the specific provisions of the treaty will emerge.

Although the arms trade is a legitimate economic activity that is integral to international commerce, transfers often perpetuate conflicts, violent crime, and terrorism. Of the millions of transfers that occur on an annual basis, many are legal – but many are also irresponsible. Regulating the vast arms trade is challenging because the line between legal and illicit is often unclear. For example, a weapon that was legally transferred from one state to another could become diverted and end up in the hands of rebels and used against innocent civilians.

There is existing framework of laws that regulate the arms trade, but often they are weak, inconsistent, or contradictory. Many arms embargoes go unenforced or unmonitored and most existing bilateral and international agreements on the arms trade are not legally-binding. Beyond that, there are many loopholes that are exploited time and again. Gaps and inconsistencies in current law can only be rectified through the creation of a legally-binding ATT with universal application to regulate the import, export, and transfer of arms. The proposed concept of an ATT would aim to ameliorate some of these problems and codify into law international standards for the arms trade.

The drafting of the ATT over the next two years allows CGS to continue the tradition of advocating for multilateral treaties and pushing the U.S. to strengthen its engagement in international forums. Over the next few years, CGS will continue to advocate for the development of a universal and effective ATT with strong U.S. engagement and support. In particular, CGS strongly supports a treaty that:

• Includes all forms of munitions, in accordance with standards of international humanitarian law, such as explosives that do not distinguish between combatants and civilians and cause unnecessary suffering, such as landmines and cluster bombs
• Emphasizes strong language preventing arms transfers from taking place if there is a substantial risk of serious human rights violations occurring
• Addresses the grievances of victims through the creation of a victim’s trust fund, such as in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”

The above information came from Citizens For Global Solutions via their “Arms Trade Treaty Fact Sheet.”

Their mission: “We are a membership organization working to build political will in the United States to achieve our vision.

We do this by educating Americans about our global interdependence, communicating global concerns to public officials, and developing proposals to create, reform, and strengthen international institutions such as the United Nations.”

Now that I have illustrated what the treaty encompasses, I will know elaborate upon those in favor of negotiating the act.

In a press statement appearing on The U.S. Department of State’s website, on October 14, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explicitly outlined how the U.S. is actively committed the Arms Trade Treaty:

“Conventional arms transfers are a crucial national security concern for the United States, and we have always supported effective action to control the international transfer of arms.

The United States is prepared to work hard for a strong international standard in this area by seizing the opportunity presented by the Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty at the United Nations. As long as that Conference operates under the rule of consensus decision-making needed to ensure that all countries can be held to standards that will actually improve the global situation by denying arms to those who would abuse them, the United States will actively support the negotiations. Consensus is needed to ensure the widest possible support for the Treaty and to avoid loopholes in the Treaty that can be exploited by those wishing to export arms irresponsibly.

On a national basis, the United States has in place an extensive and rigorous system of controls that most agree is the “gold standard” of export controls for arms transfers. On a bilateral basis, the United States regularly engages other states to raise their standards and to prohibit the transfer or transshipment of capabilities to rogue states, terrorist groups, and groups seeking to unsettle regions. Multilaterally, we have consistently supported high international standards, and the Arms Trade Treaty initiative presents us with the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.

The United States is committed to actively pursuing a strong and robust treaty that contains the highest possible, legally binding standards for the international transfer of conventional weapons. We look forward to this negotiation as the continuation of the process that began in the UN with the 2008 UN Group of Governmental Experts on the ATT and continued with the 2009 UN Open-Ended Working Group on ATT.”

While Clinton and the United Nations are pegging this treaty as an attempt to curb violence world-wide in an effort to prevent terrorism, there may be, in reality, other ulterior motives at work behind their efforts.

Appearing on the website Country Survival, which is a site geared towards obtaining freedom politically, financially, and spiritually through preparation and self-sufficient living, exists this below statement by a former ambassador.

“After the treaty is approved and it comes into force, you will find out that it has this implication or that implication and it requires the Congress to adopt some measure that restricts ownership of firearms,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton warns.

“The [Obama] administration knows it cannot obtain this kind of legislation purely in a domestic context. … They will use an international agreement as an excuse to get domestically what they couldn’t otherwise.”

[Editor’s note: this quote also appeared in an editorial for the Washington Times and a 2009 World Net Daily article.]

Despite what the Obama administration and United Nations are saying regarding the legislation and how it just applies to small arms, others feel that this treaty is a complete disarmament of our most essential Constitutional rights.

For instance, Rand Paul, the libertarian-minded senator of Kentucky, is circulating a petition through e-mail entitled, Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey, in order to warn about the potential of the United Nations agenda.

In the e-mail Senator Paul states that if the bill is ratified by the Senate the treaty would force the U.S. to:

“Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally; Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course); Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons; Create an international gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.”

Besides Senator Paul, other politicians are also voicing their concerns with this treaty.

Orrin Hatch, Republican Senator of Utah, expressed his feelings regarding the issue in a press release on his website on August 1, 2011:

“Our Second Amendment is non-negotiable. We don’t need a bunch of bureaucrats at the United Nations dictating our liberties and freedoms. This Treaty should not be ratified and I will fight it tooth and nail.”

Besides Senators Paul and Hatch, in a July 22, 2011 letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton these 45 senators voiced their outrage:

Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), John Barrasso (R-WY), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Boozman (R-AR), Scott Brown (R-MA), Richard Burr (R-NC), Dan Coats (R-IN), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Hoeven (R-ND), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mike Lee (R-UT), John McCain (R-AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rand Paul (R-KY), Rob Portman (R-OH), Jim Risch (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), John Thune (R-SD), Pat Toomey (R-PA), David Vitter (R-LA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

The full version of the letter is printed below via Orrin Hatch’s official Senate website:

July 22, 2011

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
2201 C St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear President Obama and Secretary Clinton:

As defenders of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, we write to express our grave concern about the dangers posed by the United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty. Our country’s sovereignty and the constitutional protection of these individual freedoms must not be infringed.

In October of 2009 at the U.N. General Assembly, your administration voted for the U.S. to participate in negotiating this treaty. Preparatory committee meetings are now underway in anticipation of a conference in 2012 to finalize the treaty. Based on the process to date, we are concerned that the Arms Trade Treaty poses dangers to rights protected under the Second Amendment for the following reasons.

First, while the 2009 resolution on the treaty acknowledged the existence of “national constitutional protections on private ownership,” it placed the existence of these protections in the context of “the right of States to regulate internal transfers of arms and national ownership,” implying that constitutional protections must be interpreted in the context of the broader power of the state to regulate. We are concerned both by the implications of the 2009 resolution and by the hostility to private firearms ownership manifested by similar resolutions in previous years—such as the 2008 resolution, which called for the “highest possible standards” of control.

Second, your Administration agreed to participate in the negotiation only if it “operates under the rule of consensus decision-making.” Given that the 2008 resolution on the treaty was adopted almost unanimously—with only the U.S. and Zimbabwe in opposition—it seems clear that there is a near-consensus on the requirement for the “highest possible standards,” which will inevitably put severe pressure on the United States to compromise on important issues.

Third, U.N. member states regularly argue that no treaty controlling the transfer of arms internationally can be effective without controls on transfers inside member states. Any treaty resulting from the Arms Trade Treaty process that seeks in any way to regulate the domestic manufacture, assembly, possession, transfer, or purchase of firearms, ammunition, and related items would be completely unacceptable to us.

Fourth, reports from the 2010 Preparatory Meeting make it clear that many U.N. member states aim to craft an extremely broad treaty. A declaration by Mexico and other Central and South American countries, for example, called for the treaty to cover “All types of conventional weapons (regardless of their purpose), including small arms and light weapons, ammunition, components, parts, technology and related materials.” Such a broad treaty would be completely unenforceable, and would pose dangers to all U.S. businesses and individuals involved in any aspect of the firearms industry. At the 2010 Meeting, the U.S. representative twice expressed frustration with the wide-ranging and unrealistic scope of the projected treaty. We are concerned that these cautions will not be heeded, and that the Senate will eventually be called upon to consider a treaty that is so broad it cannot effectively be subject to our advice and consent.

Fifth, and finally, the underlying philosophy of the Arms Trade Treaty is that transfers to and from governments are presumptively legal, while transfers to non-state actors (such as terrorists and criminals) are, at best, problematic. We agree that sales and transfers to criminals and terrorists are unacceptable, but we will oppose any treaty that places the burden of controlling crime and terrorism on law-abiding Americans, instead of where it belongs: on the culpable member states of the United Nations who have failed to take the necessary steps to block trafficking that is already illegal under existing laws and agreements.

As the treaty process continues, we strongly encourage your Administration to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership. These freedoms are not negotiable, and we will oppose ratification of an Arms Trade Treaty presented to the Senate that in any way restricts the rights of law-abiding U.S. citizens to manufacture, assemble, possess, transfer or purchase firearms, ammunition, and related items.”

While the idea of gun-control regulation may seem as a great way to combat violence, gun-control not only leads to death, but limits a citizen’s basic human right of self-defense.

Throughout history many governments have instituted gun-control policies in order to control a populace, and very few of these have been what one would consider “good” regimes.

The evolution of the aforementioned is further explained by the non-profit education civil rights organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO).

JPFO was founded in 1989, by national civil rights activist Aaron Zelman (1946-2010).

The group was initially designed at educating the Jewish community regarding the evils Jews endured when they were disarmed.

Since this time, JPFO has expanded to include people of all religious beliefs who share the goal of opposing and reversing disarmament policies as well as fostering liberty for all.

As stated on their website, here are the facts of how gun-control leads to genocide.

The chart below comes from the 2001 tome, Death by “Gun Control”: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament, by Zelman and attorney Richard W. Stevens.

The Human Cost of “Gun Control” Ideas

Being that disarming a populace does not make a society safer, now it’s time to examine how carry-conceal laws help reduce crime.

The evidence I’m about to present to you comes from the 2003 book, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You’Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong, written by John R. Lott, Jr. Lott, an individual who holds a doctoral degree in economics from UCLA.

Lott is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988 and 1989.

State the Adopted Right to Carry Conceal Handgun Laws

During the 1977-1997 Period:

Using State Averages to Compute Rates

There are other statistics that are equally as important to note.

According to an article appearing on the Human Events website in 2009, Cliff Stearns, a Republican, representative of the 6th District of Florida, writes how felons are less likely to attack when their victim is armed and crime rates fall when carry conceal laws are in place.

Stearn wrote,”the U.S. Department of Justice, in which almost 2,000 felons were interviewed, 34% of felons said they had been “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim” and 40% of these criminals admitted that they had been deterred from committing a crime out of fear that the potential victim was armed.”

Stearn further elaborated, “statistics from the FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report of 2007 show that states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rate and a 22% lower overall violent crime rate than do states without such laws.

That is why more and more states have passed right-to-carry laws over the past decade.”

It appears to me that the UN Small Arms Treaty is basically laying the foundation for global disarmament.

But let’s not forget carry conceal laws reduce crime and the only individuals that register firearms are law-abiding citizens.

Furthermore, as we have seen throughout history, governments that have initiated gun-control policies are responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people.

Lastly, if the treaty does what opponents indicate, then it will put a strangle hold on our second, fourth and tenth amendments.

As Thomas Jefferson stated in his “Commonplace Book,” from 1774-1776, “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

Edited by Madison Ruppert

Note from End the Lie: Please support our work and help us start to pay contributors by doing your shopping through our Amazon link or check out some must-have products at our store.

This article originally appeared on End the Lie

No related posts.