Party Time! U.N. Passes Global Gun Control Treaty

April 3, 2013

by Greg Campbell
TPNN Contributor

(TPNN) - On Tuesday, the United Nations General Assembly approved the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) which had been designed to regulate the traffic and possession of weapons between countries. The treaty, however, has been widely criticized by gun rights advocates and legislators who claim that the treaty is an end-run around the Constitutional guarantees of individual firearm ownership and the sovereignty of America to govern itself.

The Washington Times reported,

[The treaty] requires countries to regulate and control the export of weaponry such as battle tanks, combat vehicles and aircraft and attack helicopters, as well as parts and ammunition for such weapons. It also provides that signatories will not violate arms embargoes, international treaties regarding illicit trafficking, or sell weaponry to countries for genocide, crimes against humanity or other war crimes…

American gun rights activists, though, insist the treaty is riddled with loopholes and is unworkable in part because it includes “small arms and light weapons” in its list of weaponry subject to international regulations. They do not trust U.N. assertions that the pact is meant to regulate only cross-border trade and would have no impact on domestic U.S. laws and markets.

Last week, the Senate passed a non-binding amendment to the Senate budget that called for a protection of Second Amendment rights. The amendment, proposed by Senator James Inhofe, calls for the Senate’s refusal to enter into the ATT. Though the treaty was passed by the UN General Assembly, even after the president signs it, it must still be ratified by the Senate to be recognized. The President has supported the ATT and plans to sign it.

However, the treaty has more far-reaching implications than mere heavy arms regulations between nations. As Awr Hawkins noted before the passage,
[T]he ATT contains ambiguities regarding the application of new firearm regulations and import restrictions. And this means the moment the ATT goes into effect–should it be ratified–the types of guns allowed to enter America would largely depend on each U.S. Presidential administration’s opinion of what is or isn’t appropriate.

In this way, the ATT actually hands the executive branch the power to work with other governments around world to shut down portions of the U.S. import firearms market as they see fit. This will be possible by seizing on ambiguous terms and phrases within the ATT–from claiming certain classes of gun are “inappropriate” to claiming others endanger “women and children“–then barring whole groups of firearms from import.

To control the flow of weapons, the treaty will require a heightening of monitoring of gun ownership to be enforceable. Though supporters of the treaty have worked to assuage fears that there are plans to create a gun registry, the fact remains that in order to accomplish the monitoring of weapon traffic for which the treaty calls, a strengthening of accounting for gun ownership will be required.


Source: TPNN