U.N Arms Trade Treaty Potential Assault on 2nd Amendment

Defenders of Americans’ constitutional right to “keep and bear” arms have been rightly alarmed by treaty negotiations underway in Turtle Bay. Thankfully, the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is finally getting the congressional attention it deserves.

How bad is it? Here’s one clue: Iran was selected to provide one of the 14 vice presidents for the ATT conference. That’s right: a treaty that’s supposed to be about stopping terrorism and preventing human rights abuses, and the U.N. decides to give the ceremonial spotlight to Iran, a nation that supplies arms to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the murderous Syrian government.

John Lott wrote for Fox News that we know a lot about the Treaty just by virtue of the nations negotiating its details. Many of the countries included in the negotiations ban handguns and do not recognize the inherent right of personal self-defense. And, as Lott notes, “The Obama administration is undoubtedly the most hostile administration to gun ownership in U.S. history, with Obama having personally supported of handguns and semi-automatic weapons before becoming president.” All of this should raise red flags for constitutional conservatives.

Lott worries the ATT will give U.S. anti-gun activists leverage to regulate private ownership of guns. According to Lott, “The most likely regulations to be pushed by the UN treaty are those that have been the favorites of American gun control advocates for years -- registration and licensing, micro-stamping ammunition, and restrictions on the private transfers of guns.” Given their political failures, the best way for anti-gun activists to implement these sneaky schemes is through an ATT that contains language requiring the U.S. government to promote their favorite policies.

Pro-gun groups are already fighting back. Wayne LaPierre of the NRA addressed the ATT conference earlier this month and said, “No foreign influence has jurisdiction over the freedoms our Founding Fathers guaranteed to us.” John Velleco of Gun Owners of America tells Townhall that “we have seen bad gun control ideas in the past, but we have never seen anything as insidious as the Arms Trade Treaty.”

Thankfully, two members of Congress, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Penn.) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), are standing their ground and leading their colleagues against this bad idea.

Rep. Kelly is fighting any attempt to put limits on the Second Amendment. Though only a freshman Congressman, Kelly understands that international pacts can affect his constituents at home. In early July, he released a carefully-drafted letter to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, co-signed by 130 members of the House, expressing a broad range of concerns with the potential impact of an ATT.

“The U.N.’s actions to date indicate that the ATT is likely to pose significant threats to our national security, foreign policy, and economic interests as well as our constitutional rights,” Kelly wrote. He urged the Administration to “establish firm red lines” for its negotiating team. One of those lines: Reject “an ATT that infringes on our constitutional rights, particularly the fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms.” The letter also noted that the Treaty could produce significant job loss across the U.S., damage our defense industrial base, and make it harder for us to arm our allies.

Sen. Moran introduced S. 2205, the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act, in May. By blocking funding, this bill would prevent the Administration from negotiating any Arms Trade Treaty that violated the Second Amendment. Moran argued on the Senate floor that a treaty allowing international bodies to regulate civilian firearms could wind up letting those institutions “restrict the lawful private ownership of firearms in our country.” The Senate is unlikely to ratify any treaty that does this, but Moran was smart to introduce legislation to forbid the Administration from negotiating an ATT that explicitly targets the Second Amendment.

Rep. Kelly and Sen. Moran have shown good conservative leadership. Let’s hope their work, and the expression of concerns from Congress and Second Amendment defenders, limit the risks of this unwise and secretly-drafted treaty.

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George Will and Jennifer Rubin Demolish Time's Joe Klein on Gun Control Laws

Time's Joe Klein on Sunday found out what it's like to actually have to debate conservatives rather than the liberal media members he normally appears with on political talk shows.

When he uttered the typical left-wing line on ABC's This Week about the need for more gun control in the wake of Friday's movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, Klein got a much-needed education from George Will and the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin

GEORGE WILL: The killer in Aurora, Colorado, was very intelligent and farsighted and meticulous. I defy you to write a gun control law that would prevent someone like this with a long time horizon and great planning capability from getting the arms he wants. I just think this is a mistake.

A moment ago Joe made a statement, he gave us a theory, it's an empirical theory for which there is or is not evidence, which is that the globalization and coarsening of entertainment will cause or is causing -- I don't know what your point was -- things like this to happen more and more. These are testable hypothesis. Let's test them.

JOE KLEIN, TIME: I think it's undoubtedly true that we're seeing more frequent incidents like this in this country. It's all part of a zeitgeist. I mean, you know, we're on a national sugar rush in this country. The internet is part of it. You know the entertainment industry is part of it. The irresponsibility about gun laws is part of it. I mean, it's all together.

JENNIFER RUBIN, WASHINGTON POST: Listen, we can make all of the declarative statements we want. There is no shortage of empirical data in criminology. In fact, it's one of the most researched areas of social science. When we had the gun law, the assault ban weapon, there wasn't a decrease, when we let it expire, there wasn't an increase.

We have had a gradual decline over the last 40 years in gun violence and all kinds of violence, in part, because of better policing, in part, because incarceration. So I think some of these statements that there are -- we're having more of these incidents, they simply are not true.

More here (See the original for video)




AZ: Man arrested in deadly Phoenix shooting:  "A 48-year-old Phoenix man was arrested after police said he shot a homeless man who walked into his front yard late Friday night.  Donald Jackson Taylor was arrested and charged with one count of misconduct involving weapons after the incident.  Police said a 57-year-old transient man with a history of threatening people in the area walked into Taylor's front yard and began shouting at him at about 11:30 p.m. Friday.  Taylor told the man to leave and warned him not to come any closer, according to police. The man continued to walk toward Taylor, who reportedly fired one round from a shotgun, striking the man.  Police said Jackson was prohibited from owning firearms because of a previous conviction about three decades earlier in another state. He was booked into Maricopa County Jail.  The case has been turned over to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for review."


OH:  Disabled man shoots robber:  "John Mutter was asleep on a couch inside his 474 Sunset Drive home when the paraplegic awoke to a masked man pointing a shotgun at Mutter’s head at 2:15 a.m. Sunday, Johnstown Police Chief Don Corbin said.  The intruder, later identified as Brian Dyer, 27, of Johnstown, had stolen the shotgun from a bedroom in Mutter’s home after entering through an unlocked door, Corbin said. Dyer said he had taken medication and wanted to know where more guns were located, Corbin said. Mutter told him while pushing the shotgun aside, then shot Dyer with a handgun Mutter kept nearby, Corbin said. “Somebody broke in my house. They had a gun to me, and I shot at them,” Mutter told the 911 dispatcher.   Dyer attempted to leave but collapsed in another room, Corbin said. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Corbin does not intend to charge the homeowner but will present the case to the Licking County Prosecutor’s Office once the investigation is complete."