Well, that didn’t take long. Hours after the election was declared over, not only has Diane Feinstein reportedly been busy trying to get her ducks in a row for a new (yet futile) assault weapons ban, but the Obama White House has thrown their support behind talks on a U.N. Arms Treaty. Not outright support for the document — yet — but support for the continuing the talks. But even that level of support has Alan Gottlieb up in arms…
BELLEVUE, WA – Less than 24 hours after winning re-election, President Barack Obama’s administration joined with China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and more than 150 other governments, in supporting renewed debate on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, confirming the worst fears of the American gun rights community.
The vote came at the U.N. General Assembly’s meeting of the First Committee on Disarmament at the world organization’s headquarters in New York City.
“It’s obvious that our warnings over the past several months have been true,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. “The election was called about 11 p.m. Tuesday and by 11 a.m. this morning, we got word that the United States was supporting this resolution. We have to be more vigilant in our efforts to stop this proposed treaty.”
SAF Operations Director Julianne Versnel, who has been back and forth to the United Nations over this proposal, said the fight is not finished. The measure will be considered for finalization in March 2013.
“We will continue to monitor this issue and oppose any effort to enforce a global gun control measure,” she stated.
Amnesty International issued a statement Wednesday lauding passage of the resolution, saying the treaty will protect human rights.
“The right of self-defense is a human right,” Gottlieb countered, “and in this country, the Second Amendment protects that right.
“Just days ago as he campaigned for re-election,” he concluded, “Barack Obama told his supporters that voting is the best revenge.’ I guess now we know what he was talking about. The revenge he seeks is against American gun owners and their Second Amendment rights.”
The proposed arms treaty is intended to limit the flow of illegal weapons in an effort to keep then from being used to kill people. However, just like the vast and overwhelming majority of gun control legislation over the years, it seems to be targeted at a problem that doesn’t really exist and that they can’t really enforce. From Wikipedia:
The arms trade treaty, like the PoA, is predicated upon a hypothesis that the illicit trade in small arms is a large and serious problem requiring global action through the UN. This hypothesis was ultimately disproven through progressive improvements in scholarship in the 2000s. The global size, scope, and impact of the entirely illicit international trade in small arms turned out to be much smaller and less of a concern to countries themselves than first hypothesized, with internal societal factors rising in relative importance.
The fear among people like Alan is that this treaty could be used as a back door to allow new rules and regulations on the trade of firearms within the United States, since the treaty doesn’t seem to stop with international sales and might be applied to U.S. sales as well.
We’ll keep you in the loop as more information becomes available. But even I have to admit this doesn’t look particularly encouraging.