UN Arms Trade Treaty Lives

by Alan Korwin

The lamestream media told you:

The UN Arms Trade Treaty ended in failure, as the parties could not reach agreement before their self-imposed deadline. A dull sentiment of remorse fell over the conference as high hopes for an agreement ended dashed. Both Hillary and Barack withdrew their support in the eleventh hour when it became apparent the agreement would not be finalized. The Huffington Post blamed the Obama administration for the failure, and also the NRA which it said spread "lies"; USA Today blamed it on the U.S., Russia and China, who asked for more time to review the draft.

The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:

The first draft of the current effort at a UN Arms Trade Treaty was a smashing success after nearly six years of effort and a solid month of direct negotiations in New York at UN headquarters. It yielded a draft proposal with many of the most difficult terms and conditions hammered out in grueling sessions with all major parties and 170 nations represented.

This is how a treaty like this gets enacted. In fits and starts. Ideas come together over a period of years, and are gtahered in drafts and proposals like this one. We can now see how everyone is thinking -- and it is not in defense of our rights. Ostensibly, the treaty is about international arms trade, but functionally, it attempts to regulate arms from top to bottom.

No one who really understands the situation seriously expected a final document to come out of these first round negotiations. Media reports however did carefully lead the uninformed public into holding out false hope for such a result, leading to a widespread sense of failure. This will help boost public support when the next effort seems to magically spring forth.

Failure was not the case however, as the positions staked out by the pro-rights and anti-rights factions became well known, and the main actors left understanding clearly where the next round of negotiations would have to go to reach an executable document.

The U.S State Dept. issued a statement with spokespersonwoman Vic Nuland's name on it that said the U.S. supports a second round of negotiations next year. "While we sought to conclude the month's negotiations with a treaty, more time is a reasonable request for such a complex and critical issue," the statement said," according to USA Today.

The British foreign secretary, a man, William Hague, according to the British "news" service The Guardian, said, "We have made huge progress. The chair's draft treaty has our full support as well as that of the great majority of other states. But to be fully effective, the treaty will need very broad – ideally universal – participation. It is clear that more time is needed to reach the widest possible agreement."

I usually tear these legal documents apart, and report on their content step-by-step, in plain English. That's what my company does with gun laws: http://www.gunlaws.com/books.htm. That's how you find out what your gun laws are locally. That's how we support this work, and spread the word on new laws, tactics, gun-rights struggles, and a lot of other cool stuff, take a look, go ahead, I'll wait.

I've read the thing cover to cover and outlined it in a general way below, since it wasn't formally adopted. So much of the content is loose and broadly interpretable in unexpected ways that the document must be dead on arrival. If they even dreamed of enacting such sweeping language without controls, the grant of power to do virtually anything regarding guns would be absolutely dictatorial. They can't possibly intend to do that, can they? The potential for harm to the health and sovereignty of our nation (or any nation) is so great, no freedom-oriented American could support it. But that is the draft they came up with. I linked to a copy at the end of the analysis.

All that's left is to hold Mr. Obama, Hillary and others responsible for supporting it in the first place. Their loudly announced backing for the treaty shows their true (often hidden) colors, and their repeated tale that it would not impact gun owners, is exposed as a lie. They will erase the Second Amendment if they can, and lie about it while they're acting.

The Guardian opined that, "This leaves the door open for further talks and a draft arms trade treaty could be brought to the 193-nation United Nations general assembly and adopted with a two-thirds majority vote. Diplomats said there could be a vote by the end of the year." The Uninvited Ombudsman suspects that will hinge largely on the results of the U.S. elections in November.

Key Elements of the Draft Treaty

1. The treaty makes it clear that it recognizes, and that nothing in the treaty can interfere with, a nation's right to self defense. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of the entire deal, because it refuses to recognize any element of personal self defense. Like the UN's so-called charter of human rights, the international body has no place in its framework for people defending themselves. Given that governments are the main perpetrators of violence in the world, this is a travesty beyond measure, but the 170 nations involved are all comfortable with the plan. The nation can defend itself, but you cannot. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

2. The whole focus of the draft is to control arms for what it calls authorized and unauthorized users and also end users, which it does not define or attempt to define. This is literally carte blanche to justify any law making a nation could want for gun control. And the treaty is not written like law -- it leaves almost everything up to the nation-states who agree to cooperate. What are the chances that people at mortal peril from their own "authorities" will be authorized users of arms, especially in nations where they have no right to arms in the first place? Some of the greatest abusers of human rights sit on the human rights council of the UN, so hope for an equitable outcome here are hopelessly remote. Because you have no vote, no elected representatives and no voice at the UN, chances for change to anything adopted here are zero.

3. Part of the plan is to track all arms, ammunition and parts from manufacture to disposal, through a regulatory system which is undefined. A special UN agency (the "Implementation Support Unit" with a budget, staff, reporting, etc.) will be created to do this, pulling the entire gun industry globally under its watch. Sweet, huh? It would be voluntary to start of course, because they recognize no one would cooperate otherwise (and probably won't then either, but that's how you get the camel's nose under the tent, and start building a bureaucracy). This could eventually make possession of even small amounts of ammunition subject to burdensome government regulation beyond anything the worst gun-rights haters in Congress even dream about. The next treaty draft, now being dreamed up in deep dark corners of UN imaginations, will take this further.

4. There is not a single word designed to protect personal gun ownership, any individual rights, promote or encourage proper firearm use, provide accountability for governments that abuse people's rights, or authorize people's use of arms against governments that use arms to commit armed atrocities against their own people, although none of that is a purpose of this treaty. Typical of the UN this is about empowering government, and has virtually nothing to do with empowering the people or balancing power. That's their way.

5. The treaty in its preamble does recognize "lawful private ownership and use of conventional arms" for "recreational, cultural, historical and sporting activities for States where such ownership and use are permitted or protected by law." It does not include crime prevention, personal defense or resistance to tyranny (though it does say 'among other things', in Latin). Early talk that it would only include military weapons was false, "small arms and light weapons" are part of the package, and nations must maintain and publish a list of all such goods.

6. This is the really scary part -- the way they're thinking. Article 6 -- they do make noise that it only pertains to international action, but there are holes you could drive a supply train through:

"Each State Party shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures necessary to implement the provisions of this Treaty and designate competent national authorities in order to have an effective, transparent and predictable national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms."

That's what the "news" media means when they say the treaty is dead.

Read the dead treaty here:
http://iapcar.org/?p=970