The long answer: The UN, like all institutions, is about increasing its power. It has done this via a combination of third world bloc voting and western progressive SWPL guilt. Unfortunately for the UN, it hasn't gotten very far. The Bush 43 administration in particular was a disaster for the UN: Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, a biological weapons treaty that allowed UN inspectors to go anywhere they wanted at any time: all were explicitly rejected as being either undesirable (Kyoto) or unconstitutional.
And now the UN is back again, singing the same old song. This time, it's about international arms trafficking:
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.Of course, it's actually about the international elite's desire to control everything. No surprise there.
This is pretty interesting, because the actual terms of the treaty are no public. As a result, all the analysis I've seen to date is essentially nothing but conjecture. So we'll have to wait and see for the details.
I'm quite skeptical that the Senate (even with a majority of Democrats) would ratify something strongly anti-firearms. They don't have the guts. I also expect to see nothing about this treaty until after 2012 - no ratification vote will be scheduled in the run up to the election.
But one thing is not conjecture: this Administration has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to implement by regulatory fiat what it can't get Congress to pass. Cap and Trade, hold up of drilling permits, bombing of Libya - there's quite an impressive list of actions the Imperial Obama Administration has taken without any sort of vote at all. It would be trivial for them to say that they will honor the terms of the treaty, vote or no vote, and "an expression of American sincerity". BATFE would begin drafting regulations.
How do we know this? Obama himself told us. Back in the 2008 election, he was asked whether he'd try to take away people's guns. His reply?
And so the danger is not the UN. Of course they don't like our Constitution. They can't do anything about it. The Obama Administration? They'll just ignore it. That's the ball to keep your eye on.
A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted out his standard policy stance, that he had a deep respect for the “traditions of gun ownership” but favored measures in big cities to keep guns out of the hands of “gang bangers and drug dealers’’ in big cities “who already have them and are shooting people.”
“If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,’’ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.
So he tried again. “Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said.
Legislation has been introduced into Congress (not kidding) that will, if passed, allow the US to withhold funding to the UN (we pay the vast majority of their bills) unless they return to being an international forum broker, as opposed to the world government they are quickly becoming since the 1990s. Won't pass. But Congress is already sharing your concerns by even drafting it.
ReplyDelete"I'm quite skeptical that the Senate (even with a majority of Democrats) would ratify something strongly anti-firearms. They don't have the guts. I also expect to see nothing about this treaty until after 2012 - no ratification vote will be scheduled in the run up to the election."
ReplyDeleteAgreed -- especially because it takes a two-thirds majority, not a simple majority, to ratify a treaty.
Does this mean we have to pass it to see what's in it?
ReplyDeleteIt would not surprise me if this was also aimed at pressuring the Israeli government into disarming their citizens. Armed Israeli civilians have foiled many attempts at Mumbai-style attacks by terrorists. The "international community" probably finds such a thing to be quite intolerable.
ReplyDeleteAw heck, we know they do:
"Self-defence is a widely recognized, yet legally proscribed, exception to the universal duty to respect the right to life of others. Self-defence is a basis for exemption from criminal responsibility that can be raised by any State agent or non-State actor. Self-defence is sometimes designated as a “right.” There is inadequate legal support for such an interpretation. Self-defence is more properly characterized as a means of protecting the right to life and, as such, a basis for avoiding responsibility for violating the rights of another."