it was first addressed in the UN in December 2006 when the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 61/89 “Towards an Arms Trade Treaty: establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms”.

Building on last year’s adoption of an international instrument on marking and tracing illicit small arms and light weapons, a resolution approved today -- “Towards an Arms Trade Treaty” -– represented a first step towards establishing international standards in the trade on conventional arms.

By the terms of the resolution, the Assembly requested the Secretary-General to seek the views of Member States on creating a legally binding instrument and to establish a group of governmental experts, commencing in 2008, to examine the feasibility, scope and draft parameters of such an instrument.

The draft was approved by a vote of 153 in favour to 1 against ( United States), with 24 abstentions.

However, a treaty based on the October 2008 arms trade resolution will not achieve these ends. Instead, it will further enable dictators and unscrupulous suppliers--including some European suppliers--to buy and sell arms. It will also provide a justification under international law for dictatorships to oppress their people.

International/UN Gun Control Issues
Bolder Bolton



In an exclusive interview, NRANews.com Managing Editor Ginny Simone visits with John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and hero to Second Amendment supporters.
SIMONE: Mr. Bolton, what’s your reaction to President Obama choosing Dr. Susan Rice as his ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.)?

BOLTON: Well, first I’ve got to say good luck to her. I’m not sure she knows what she’s getting into. But this is a very significant appointment in many ways. Most importantly is that the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. will be designated as a Cabinet-level official. This has been done in some prior Democratic administrations--some Republican, too, but mostly in Democratic administrations.

I think it’s a mistake for two reasons. First, I think it overemphasizes the role and the significance of the United Nations in American foreign policy. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s an important job, but it doesn’t deserve to be at a Cabinet level.

And second, I think it’s a bureaucratic mistake. You can’t have a Cabinet department with two secretaries in it. You can only have one secretary of state at a time. And there’s always tension and internal dynamic in the national security area. I think this is going to make things more complicated for this administration down the road.

SIMONE: And President Obama himself has said that the U.S. needs to rededicate itself to the U.N. and its mission. In light of all that you’ve dealt with when it comes to disarmament issues, when you hear a statement like that, do you consider it a frightening statement?

BOLTON: It reminds me of Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election when he said that American foreign policy needs to pass a global test of legitimacy. And by that he basically meant that our foreign policy had to be approved by the U.N. Security Council. Now, that is a fundamentally erroneous way of looking at how to conduct foreign policy. I think it’s very detrimental to America’s interests.

But talking about rededicating oneself to working within the U.N., as if the Bush administration wasn’t working within the U.N., sounds to me a lot like the global test with slightly better cover to it in its language.

So I think we’ve got to be on the alert here--not just on conventional foreign policy issues, but on a whole range of other issues that can have implications domestically as well.

SIMONE: When you went to the U.N., you held the line on making clear our rights--our Second Amendment rights--are not a bargaining chip. Do you see Dr. Rice and the Obama administration following that same line?

BOLTON: I think the most important thing that American ambassadors at the U.N. have to do is remember that they represent the United States to the U.N. They don’t represent the United Nations back to the United States. And it’s very fundamental that we should defend America’s interests there.

America should not be a well-bred doormat at the U.N. Now it’s a very uncongenial environment in many respects on gun issues--Second Amendment issues in particular--and when you have an administration that I don’t think is very favorable to the correct interpretation of the Second Amendment anyway, I think we could well be at risk in the U.N. system of seeing negotiations, and possibly treaties or agreements, that might try and impair our Second Amendment rights. So this is something we’ve all got to be very vigilant about the next four years.

SIMONE: One of the issues you talk about and are very concerned about is the issue of what’s called “norming.” A lot of people don’t know about it, but what will it mean when it comes to the U.N. and its anti-gun agenda?

BOLTON: “Norming” is a term that’s applied to international agreements that affect the behavior of individual governments.

And there’s a reason [a lot of people don’t know about it]. And that is that left-wing elements in our society have not been as successful legislatively as they’ve wanted to be over the past

10 or 20 years. What they’ve done is very ingenious, tactically, from their point of view. When they don’t have success, such as on gun issues in Congress or state legislatures, they stop fighting there and try and take the issue internationally. And [they try to] have international agreements negotiated by diplomats, who often don’t have the same understanding or support for some of these issues. [They] negotiate them as treaties, then bring them back to the U.S. Senate and say, “You have to ratify this treaty. One hundred and eighty other countries have already ratified it, how can the U.S. be isolated?”

It’s not a question of whether you take one side or the other on these issues that matters, I think. Because in a democracy, we debate the issues--that’s what separates the United States from many other countries. The fact is that we are capable of making up our own minds. We don’t need to be “normed” by the international community. But I think we will face this problem on gun issues as well as a wide range of others over the next four years.

SIMONE: Do you think the Obama administration would accept the concept of “norming”?

BOLTON: I think in many respects they would welcome it. It may sound paradoxical, but I think it would work this way: They know, for example, that legislation restricting gun rights--infringing on the Second Amendment--would be very unpopular and very hard to get through Congress. They may want to do it to repay certain of their constituencies, but they know there would be a fight.

If it comes in through the back door, where they can say, “Well, look, this is an international agreement,” then it’s a lot easier to say we’re simply going along with something else that may have other benefits for the U.S.

Ironically, a Democrat administration, in particular, could welcome having this international pressure put on them. So I think it’s potentially very treacherous times ahead. And, ironically, there might be less activity on Capitol Hill on this issue than there will be in New York (at the U.N.).

SIMONE: As long as I’ve been going to the U.N., I’ve heard critics and representatives from some countries say they’ll wait as long as they have to in order to get the right person in the White House to move forward with their arms trade treaty. Is Barack Obama the right guy?

I think internationally this is going to be a very difficult time for the Second Amendment and for American sovereignty, generally.
BOLTON: I think it’s just as you say--people in the U.N. system, the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), basically concluded they weren’t going to get anything through while Bush was president. So they’ve been waiting, they’ve been holding back, and it’s precisely what they’ve been waiting for--the right guy to get in the White House. I think they believe they have found him. And that’s why I think groups that care about Second Amendment rights--groups like the NRA and all of its members--really have to pay very close attention to what’s going on in the State Department and New York for the next four years. In a diplomatic world, a lot takes place below the radar screen. You don’t see it until it’s essentially a done deal, when it’s much harder to oppose.

SIMONE: When you logged onto IANSA’s (International Action Network on Small Arms) website right after the election, there was a picture of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and that organization couldn’t say enough about what this election means for moving forward with an arms trade treaty. Shouldn’t that concern every gun owner in this country?

BOLTON: Absolutely. Nobody should be under any misimpression that these discussions are about preventing small arms and light weapons from going into conflict zones. That’s a concern the United States properly has, particularly when its soldiers are deployed. That’s a problem that can be dealt with.

The hidden agenda, in fact it’s not so hidden to many of these groups, is not weapons flowing to conflict zones. It’s imposing their domestic agenda, particularly on the United States, to get gun laws enacted here in ways they couldn’t possibly be successful in doing in Congress. They’d much rather lobby the U.N. than our own Congress.

SIMONE: And you hear Oxfam and IANSA say time and time again, “This is not about civilian ownership, we are not out to get the Second Amendment.” But you don’t have any doubt that’s what they are after?

BOLTON: There is no doubt. And they may not use phrases that we would understand. That’s part of the problem with “diplo-speak,” you can conceal a lot more than you reveal by the words you use. But that’s why these NGOs have been so active for so long. They see going outside the American constitutional system as the best way to advance their agenda.

SIMONE: Do you think Susan Rice will do what you and the Bush administration did to really hold the line when it comes to our constitutional freedoms?

BOLTON: I would be really worried. I think this is something the gun control groups have looked for, for eight years now. They’ve got an administration that is favorable. I think politically, Obama will try to deliver for the groups that supported him and that includes the gun control groups. So I don’t think we should be under any illusions--nationally or internationally--that we’re in a time of challenge.

SIMONE: What do you think is at stake for gun owners and our gun rights if we have an Obama administration that is so willing to work within the U.N. to achieve what it wants to achieve as far as an arms trade treaty?

BOLTON: I think we’re in real danger of losing all of the victories that we gained during the past eight years. The victories we gained were very hard fought, but they were small. It was simply the fact that somebody was defending a Second Amendment position and not being prepared to compromise on it that got such attention. And I’m very proud of the role I was able to play.

But I want to emphasize that what we did was relatively insignificant compared to the big picture. And if you have an administration that’s not prepared to draw the line, you can lose a lot more ground more quickly than we were able to defend over the past eight years. So I really think it’s important to appreciate the extent of the risk and the extent of the challenge that we now face.

SIMONE: Just the fact that the U.N. passed a resolution last fall to begin drafting an arms trade treaty, and now they see themselves working with an Obama administration, do you see that moving the treaty process along faster?

BOLTON: I think there’s a real possibility that they will attempt to move faster now. And again, if you’re trying to pay off a political debt to one of your core constituencies, it’s very easy to do it in a U.N. context. It doesn’t get a lot of public or press attention, but the groups themselves know what’s being done. And then, when a treaty is brought back to the Senate for ratification, it’s not like a piece of legislation--it’s very hard to amend it, to send it back for negotiation.

And if it’s coupled with rhetoric about stopping arms to conflict situations or stopping the trade in crew-served mortar weapons or things like that when, in fact, the real hidden agenda is domestic American gun control, it’s very hard to come back to get people’s attention to what’s really going on.

SIMONE: If you get an arms trade treaty, it’s binding. But what does that mean--does it supersede our Constitution?

BOLTON: It doesn’t supersede the Constitution. But if it is enacted--if it’s adopted by the Senate and then enacted as positive law--it would bind Americans. So there’s a real battle to be fought here. I think the best defense is a good offense, and to not wait until it gets to the Senate or not wait until Obama perhaps tries to sign it as an executive agreement. I think you’ve got to get into the negotiations and try and affect the outcome there (see sidebar, p. 35).

SIMONE: So often you hear people say, “An arms control treaty, that’s never going to happen. The way the U.N. does business, it won’t happen.” Do you think we’re closer than we ever have been because of this new administration coming in?

BOLTON: I think we were very close in 2001 to seeing an arms control agreement that would have put us well on the road to what’s being contemplated in the arms trade treaty now. And, in fact, what happened in 2001 is that we simply kicked it five years down the road.

Now that was 2006, when many of the gun control advocates hoped there would be a new administration. They didn’t get that then, so they kicked it down the road a little bit further. But for the past eight years, they have been busy behind the scenes. They’ve made a lot of progress from their perspective. They’re ready to go. If they see a sympathetic administration willing to help them out, this could move much more quickly.

It is true, by and large, that the U.N. moves very, very slowly. But this is not just the U.N. at work here--these are very determined left-wing groups that have had this on their agenda for a long time. This is the most productive path they see ahead. And I think they will move as quickly as they can.

SIMONE: And looking forward, have you ever seen our Second Amendment rights--our firearm freedoms--at risk like they will be under the Obama administration?

BOLTON: I think internationally this is going to be a very difficult time for the Second Amendment and for American sovereignty, generally. But I think you have to worry with an Obama presidency that we’ll see consensus breaking out all over and we will lose a lot of the advantage that the U.S. could otherwise get from tough diplomacy.

SIMONE: Isn’t this more than just about gun ownership? Isn’t it about the individual rights and freedoms that make America the envy of other countries?

BOLTON: I really think this is a question about American sovereignty. And for Americans, sovereignty is not an abstract concept. Sovereignty is about fundamental, democratic control over our government. When you hear people saying at a time of globalization, “We need to give up a little bit of our sovereignty,” they’re basically saying, “You’ve got to give up a little bit of control over your own government.” So that’s not something I think we should view very hospitably.

NRA AT THE U.N. As a recognized Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) at the United Nations, the NRA gives gun owners a strong voice in the U.N.’s debate over global “gun control.” As one of over 2,000 NGOs representing everyone from religious groups to the banking industry, NRA has access to U.N. meetings that are closed to the general public, and is able to distribute informational materials to participants in U.N. activities. What’s more, NRA’s status as an NGO allows us to monitor more closely the internal U.N. debate over firearm issues and report back to our members.
As is usually the case, NRA’s role as an NGO has been misrepresented in some circles, including the media, which can’t seem to grasp why we would have any interest in U.N. efforts to regulate firearms. The fact of the matter is that the role NRA plays within the U.N. as an NGO is almost identical to the role our registered lobbyists play every day on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the nation--educating and informing lawmakers of the facts behind the debate, and working to protect the interests of our members. Therefore, membership in the NRA is the best way for individuals to protect their Second Amendment rights against those at the United Nations who are intent on destroying America’s sovereign freedoms.
For Americans, sovereignty is about self-government, and it is about individual freedom. So I don’t have any difficulty saying I want to defend American sovereignty. I’m not prepared to cede more of it to international organizations. We have disagreements over an issue whatever it is, gun control or anything else. We debate it in a democratic fashion in the U.S., and we come up with whatever people decide is consistent with the Constitution. That’s not what happens at the United Nations. I prefer our form of government to that form of government.

SIMONE: And that’s just the way it operates--that stealth environment.

BOLTON: Yeah. The basic bunker mentality at the U.N. is because they’re afraid of what people would say if they actually saw what went on behind closed doors. Much of what goes on in public is as scripted as going to a Broadway show, and the real activity is behind the scenes. That’s why, as outnumbered as the NRA is, it’s so important that they be there.

SIMONE: We’re talking about one of a very few pro-gun NGOs there with not a lot of money compared to what the antis have.

BOLTON: If you looked at NGOs that were around during the negotiations of some of these agreements, really the number of pro-gun control groups was more than you could count. They were everywhere. And it’s a very important function that the NRA performed.

And being able to work with them [NRA] was a force-multiplier for the small U.S. delegation. So I certainly hope the NRA can continue that kind of activity. It’s even more important now, when our own American delegation is not going to be so hospitable.

SIMONE: What’s your message to gun owners and the NRA?

BOLTON: I think you’ve got a lot of work cut out for you internationally. I think this is not a time to sit back. I think you ought to be out there aggressively talking about why we don’t want the Second Amendment sacrificed in some diplomatic negotiations.

SIMONE: As you say, they’re looking for a bending knee?

BOLTON: Exactly. They want the Americans to bend the knee, and I’m worried this administration is prepared to do it. The U.N. will be ready to go.


Posted: 5/7/2009 11:29:07 AM

Arab militiamen, known as Janjaweed, are said to be responsible for much of the ethnic cleansing and herd raiding in Darfur.

by Dave Kopel

he international gun prohibition lobbies and their United Nations allies insist that there is no personal right of self-defense--that people should be forced to rely exclusively on the government for protection. The prohibitionists also insist that there is no human right for people to possess the means of self-defense, such as firearms.

But what are people supposed to do when the government itself starts killing citizens? The genocide in Darfur, Sudan, is the direct result of the types of gun laws that the United Nations is trying to impose throughout the entire world. Millions of people have already died because of such laws, and millions more will die unless the U.N. is stopped.

Like Iran today and Afghanistan under the Taliban, Sudan is ruled by a totalitarian Islamic government. The current regime, which calls itself the National Islamic Front, took power in a military coup in 1989 and immediately began imposing Islamic law throughout the country and perpetrating genocide.

The first victims were the inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan. According to Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch, “The Nuba were grouped into ‘Peace Villages,’ where their women were systematically raped by Arab men, their children stolen to serve as slaves and at least 100,000 people ‘disappeared,’ never to be seen again.”

The next targets were the Africans of south Sudan, who are mainly Christians or Animists. The most recent genocide victims are the people of Darfur, a Texas-sized region in western Sudan.

The Darfuris are Muslims, but like the majority of Sudan’s population, they are black Africans, in contrast to the Arabs who control the government.

The foundation of Sudan’s genocide is, as with almost every other genocide in world history, the disarmament of intended victims.

In Sudan, it is virtually impossible for an average citizen to lawfully possess the means for self-defense. According to the national gun control statutes, a gun licensee must be over 30 years of age, must have a specified social and economic status and must be examined physically by a doctor. Women have even more difficulty meeting these requirements because of social and occupational limitations.

There are additional restrictions on the amount of ammunition one may possess, making it nearly impossible for a law-abiding gun owner to achieve proficiency with firearms. A handgun owner, for example, can only purchase 15 rounds of ammunition a year. The penalties for violation of Sudan’s firearms laws are severe and can include capital punishment.

The practical application of the gun laws is different. If you are someone the government wants to slaughter--such as one of the black Africans of central, southern and western Sudan--then you are absolutely forbidden to possess a firearm. A U.S. Department of State document notes: “After President Bashir seized power in 1989, the new government disarmed non-Arab ethnic groups but allowed politically loyal Arab allies to keep their weapons.”

On the other hand, if you’re an Arab who wants to kill blacks, then Sudan’s gun control laws are awfully loose. In Darfur, there has been a long rivalry between camel-riding Arab nomads and black African pastoralists. The Arabs consider blacks to be racially inferior and fit only for slavery. In Darfur Rising, the International Crisis Group explains: “Beginning in the mid-1980s, successive governments in Khartoum inflamed matters by supporting and arming Arab tribes, in part to prevent the southern rebels from gaining a foothold in the region … . Arabs formed militias, burned African villages and killed thousands. Africans in turn formed self-defense groups, members of which eventually became the first Darfur insurgents to appear in 2003.”

The report states that what provoked the black Africans to rise up against the Khartoum tyranny was “the government’s failure to enforce the terms of a tribal peace agreement requiring nomads of Arab background to pay blood money for killing dozens of Zaghawas [one of the African tribes in Darfur], including prominent tribal chiefs.”

Likewise, Peter Verney, of the London-based Sudan Update, writes that the government armed the Arabs “while removing the weapons of the farmers, the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa.”

He points out that the disarmament of the black Africans has been enforced ruthlessly: “Since 2001, Darfur has been governed under central government decree, with special courts to try people suspected of illegal possession or smuggling of weapons … The security forces have misused these powers for arbitrary and indefinite detention.”

While the blacks there are forbidden to possess arms, the Arabs are given arms by the government--five or six guns per person, according to Amnesty International. The Arabs are then formed into terrorist gangs known as Janjaweed (literally, “evil men on horseback” or “devil on a horse”).

You can be confident that when handing out rifles to Arab terrorists, the Sudan government does not follow its law that anyone who wants a gun must undergo a medical examination.

As a result of tyrannical oppression, there are armed rebel groups in the Sudanese genocide regions. That these resistance groups had been able to acquire weapons illegally was a great affront to the United Nations and the gun prohibition lobbies, who denounce any form of gun possession by “non-state actors.” A “non-state actor” is any person or group whose arms possession is not approved by the government. Good examples include the Sudanese who were fighting the genocide in their own country, the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and the American revolutionaries.

The Sudanese resistance movements, although able to acquire some arms for their own operations, did not have the resources to protect the many isolated villages in the vast nation.

So, with black villagers disarmed (thanks to Sudan’s strict gun laws) and Arab gangs well armed (thanks to the government), the stage was set for genocide.

In south Sudan, the genocide program has killed 2.2 million victims and driven 4.5 million from their homes. Those not killed have often been sold into slavery. Rape has been extensively used as an instrument of state terror.


In Darfur, according to Smith College professor Eric Reeves, the leading U.S. scholar on Sudan genocide, the Janjaweed have caused the deaths of up to 450,000 black Sudanese (www.sudanreeves.org). The Janjanweed have also raped untold thousands and have forced over 2 million black Sudanese into refugee camps.

Notably, the majority of villages bombed were villages where there were no armed rebels. Thus, the destruction of the villages should be seen not as an overzealous form of counter-insurgency warfare, but rather as a deliberate attempt to destroy an entire society. The ethnic cleansing of Darfur has been so thorough that, literally, there are no villages left to burn.

The displaced villagers live in squalid refugee camps in Sudan or in neighboring Chad, where mortality rates from disease and malnutrition are very high. The U.N. is, incredibly, pushing for these camps to be turned into “safe areas” under the control of the Sudanese military.

The special representative of the U.N. secretary-general who signed the “safe areas” plan was Jon Pronk, who in 1995 was in charge of the “safe areas” scheme in Bosnia. There, Serbs murdered thousands of Bosnians while Dutch “peacekeepers” stood idle.

The Sudanese victims are generally unarmed. Amnesty International reported the testimony of a villager who complained: “None of us had arms and we were not able to resist the attack.” One under-armed villager lamented: “I tried to take my spear to protect my family, but they threatened me with a gun, so I stopped. The six Arabs then raped my daughter in front of me, my wife and my other children.”

In cases when the villagers were able to resist, the cost to the marauders rose. Human Rights Watch reported that “some of Kudun’s residents mobilized to protect themselves, and fifteen of the attackers were reportedly killed.”

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review asked a U.S. State Department official why there were no reports of the Darfur victims fighting back. “Some do defend themselves,” he explained. But he added that the perpetrators have heli-copters and automatic rifles, whereas the victims have only machetes.

Darfur is one of those places where the government has implemented the Rebecca Peters principle that crime victims should not use arms to protect themselves. The Sudan Organisation Against Torture (a human rights group based in London) reported on March 20 about an incident that took place on March 7:

Two men “in military uniforms attacked four girls from Seraif idp [refugee] camp, Hay AlGeer, West Nyala, Southern Darfur. The girls were attacked whilst collecting firewood outside the camp at 11:30. During the attack, one of the men assaulted one of the girls and attempted to rape her. The armed man touched the girl’s breasts and attempted to forcefully remove her underwear. When she resisted, the man began to beat her. In defence she grabbed a knife that she had been using to cut the firewood and stabbed the attacker in the stomach.

“Following the stabbing, the girls managed to escape and returned to Seraif camp where they reported the incident to police officers inside the camp. The police refused to file the case.”

One of the rapists later died from a knife wound. “Following the news of the death, the officers immediately arrested the four girls inside the camp on suspicion of murder.” They face execution by hanging. The girls are: Amouna Mohamed Ahmed (age 17), Fayza Ismail Abaker (16), Houda Ismail Abdel Rahman (17), and Zahra Adam Abdella (17) (www.sudantribune.com/article_impr.php3?id_article=14627).

Under intense pressure from President Bush, the Khartoum government signed a cease-fire treaty for south Sudan in late 2004. The government has promised that in 2010, the south Sudanese will be able to vote on a referendum for independence. In May of this year, the Khartoum government and the Darfur rebels signed a treaty, the Abuja Accord, which was supposed to stop the Darfur genocide.

But Reeves argues that there is no evidence that the Islamic tyrants intend to stop their destruction of the people of Darfur. To believe that Sudan will obey the treaties it has signed is to ignore the fact that in 2003, Sudan ratified the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
--and then went right on committing genocide in Darfur. Reeves predicts that hundreds of thousands more Darfuris will die, while the United Nations continues to fail to act in any way that actually protects the victims or hinders the genocidaires.

One reason for U.N. inaction is that the Chinese, Russians and French--each of whom have Security Council veto power--are determined to protect their own lucrative commercial and oil development relations with Sudan’s tyrants.

Because the international community has utterly failed to protect the Darfuris, they have every moral right to protect themselves. The United Nations, however, is hard at work to make sure that genocide victims in Sudan, and anywhere else in Africa, will not be able to resist.

Sudan is covered by a U.N.-backed treaty called “The Nairobi Protocol for the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa.” The protocol was signed in 2004 by representatives of Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania.

The protocol requires universal gun registration, complete prohibition of all civilian-owned semi-automatic rifles, and “heavy minimum sentences for … the carrying of unlicensed small arms,” as well as programs to encourage citizens to surrender their guns, widespread searches for firearms, educational programs to discourage gun ownership and other policies to disarm the public.

In other words, the U.N. is successfully pushing for gun control even in East African nations with current genocides: Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. Several other countries subject to the Nairobi Protocol, such as Rwanda and Uganda, have recent histories of genocide against disarmed victims. Quite plainly, the U.N. believes that even resisting an actual genocide in progress is not a sufficient reason for someone to want to own a gun.

A similar disarmament project is being pushed by the United Nations in the South African Development Community (SADC). Two of the SADC nations--Zimbabwe and Congo--are also the sites of current genocide.

Even more extreme U.N. gun prohibitions--a total ban on firearms imports for civilian use--are being imposed in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Among the ECOWAS states are the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) and Guinea. According to Genocide Watch, Ivory Coast has entered the final pre-genocide phase of “preparation.”

In Guinea, the National Alliance for Democracy and Development warns that, “There is a looming Rwanda-type genocide … .”

The gun prohibition lobbies have so thoroughly penetrated the United Nations that at the U.N. anti-gun conference, held last month in New York City, gun prohibition lobby staff actually served as delegates from various governments.

The prohibition lobbies and their U.N. allies will tell you that people never need guns for protection--not for protection from rapists, and not for protection from genocidaires. Governments and the United Nations will protect everyone--they promise.

The tragedy of disarmed victims in Sudan, and all over Africa, shows the deadly falseness of the prohibitionist promise. For decades, genocidal tyrants have slaughtered millions of Africans while the rest of the world has stood idle. Now, the United Nations has become objectively complicit in genocide, by trying to ensure that never again will anyone targeted for genocide be able to use a firearm to save himself or his family.

http://www.nraila.org/issues/articles/read.aspx?id=201&issue=015

The OAS Treaty: Blueprint for Dismantling the Second Amendment



by Dave Kopel

The Obama administration’s offensive against the Second Amendment has begun.

As was predicted, the strategy uses international law to create a foundation for repressive and extreme gun control. The mechanism is an international treaty, the “Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials.”

If the plan succeeds, police sales of confiscated firearms would be prohibited and anyone who reloads ammunition at home would need a federal license. In addition, the treaty would create an international law requirement that almost every American firearm owner be licensed as if he were a manufacturer.

Founded in 1948, the Organization of American States (OAS) includes all of the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere. (Cuba’s participation has been suspended since 1962.) In 1997, President Clinton signed a gun control treaty that had been negotiated by OAS. Subsequently, neither he nor President George W. Bush sent the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification.

The treaty is commonly known as “CIFTA,” for its Spanish acronym, Convención Interamericana Contra la Fabricación y El Tráfico Ilícitos de Armas de Fuego, Municiones, Explosivos y Otros Materiales Relacionados. The document is called a “convention” rather than a “treaty” because “convention” is a term of art for a multilateral treaty created by a multinational organization.

At the OAS meeting in April 2009, President Obama said that he would send CIFTA to the U.S. Senate and urge ratification. The White House claimed that the convention was merely an expression of international goodwill.

That’s false.

In the United States, it is common for police and sheriffs’ departments to sell confiscated firearms to federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs). The FFLs then resell the guns to lawful consumers. Of course, when any FFL sells a gun to a customer, the sale must be approved by the National Instant Check System, or its state equivalent.

Police and sheriff sales of confiscated guns would be outlawed by CIFTA which mandates: “State Parties shall adopt the necessary measures to ensure that all firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials seized, confiscated, or forfeited as the result of illicit manufacturing or trafficking do not fall into the hands of private individuals or businesses through auction, sale, or other disposal.”

Another target of CIFTA is reloading. The millions of Americans who reload include competitive target shooters, hunters, trainers who want to craft milder ammunition for beginners, and many other hobbyists who enjoy making things themselves and saving money. Due to the present shortage of ammunition, more and more people are taking up reloading--so many that reloading equipment manufacturers are having difficulty keeping their products in stock.

Reloading is entirely lawful in every state and no state requires a specific permit for those reloading ammunition. CIFTA, however, declares that “illicit manufacturing” is the “manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials” that takes place without “a license from a competent governmental authority of the State Party where the manufacture or assembly takes place.”

Thus, either the federal government or all 50 state governments would have to enact legislation to impose reloading licenses and to define unlicensed reloading as a crime. According to Article IV of CIFTA, “State Parties that have not yet done so shall adopt the necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offenses under their domestic law the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) charges $10 per year for a license to manufacture most ammunition. Also under existing law, the premises of firearm and ammunition manufacturers may be inspected without notice once per year by the BATFE, and an unlimited number of times in cases involving a criminal investigation. Thus, anyone who reloads ammunition would be taxed and subject to home inspection by the federal government.

Reloaders are not the only ones who would be required to have a manufacturing license. So would every company or individual that makes any part of a firearm or an accessory. In fact, so would almost every firearm owner in the nation.

CIFTA Article I requires licensing for the manufacture of “other related materials.” These are defined as “any component, part, or replacement part of a firearm, or an accessory which can be attached to a firearm.”

That definition straightforwardly includes all spare firearm parts. It also includes accessories that are attached to firearms, such as scopes, ammunition magazines, sights, recoil pads, bipods and slings.

Current U.S. law requires a license to manufacture a firearm, with a “firearm” being defined as the receiver--however, no federal license is needed to make other parts of a firearm, such as barrels or stocks.

But CIFTA’s plain language requires federal licensing of the manufacturers and sellers of barrels, stocks, screws, springs and everything else that is used to make firearms.

Likewise, the manufacture of all accessories--such as scopes, sights, slings, bipods and so on--would have to be licensed.

In the United States, the manufacture of a firearm or ammunition for one’s personal use does not require a license, since the licensing requirements apply to persons who “engage in the business” by engaging in repeated transactions for profit. (18 U.S. Code sec. 923(a).)

Yet CIFTA would require licensing for everyone.

Many, perhaps most, firearm owners occasionally tinker with their guns. They might replace a worn-out spring or install a better barrel. Or they might add accessories such as a scope, a recoil pad or a sling. All of these simple activities would require a government license. The CIFTA definition of “Illicit manufacturing” is “the manufacture or assembly of firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials.” (Emphasis added.)

Even if putting an attachment on a firearm were not considered in itself to be “assembly,” the addition of most components necessarily requires some assembly; for example, scope rings consist of several pieces that must be assembled. Replacing one’s grip panels requires, at the least, the use of screws.

Because the definition of “manufacturing” is so broad, nearly all gun owners would eventually be required to obtain a manufacturing license.

CIFTA mandates that “State Parties that have not yet done so shall adopt the necessary legislative or other measures to establish as criminal offenses under their domestic law the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives, and other related materials … the criminal offenses established pursuant to the foregoing paragraph shall include participation in, association or conspiracy to commit, attempts to commit, and aiding, abetting, facilitating, and counseling the commission of said offenses.”

Yet the preamble of CIFTA says: “... this Convention does not commit State Parties to enact legislation or regulations pertaining to firearms ownership, possession, or trade of a wholly domestic character.”

Does the preamble negate the comprehensive licensing system that CIFTA demands? Not really. The exemptions are for “ownership, possession, or trade.” There is no exemption for “manufacturing.” As detailed above, “manufacturing” is defined broadly enough as to include the home manufacture of ammunition, as well as repair of one’s own firearm, or assembling an accessory for attachment to one’s firearm.

Notably, even if CIFTA were read so that the “does not commit” language also pertained to manufacturing, there is nothing that prevents a state party from choosing to enact manufacturing regulations on its own accord.

The nations that have ratified CIFTA so far have not necessarily fully implemented the literal requirements of language regarding firearms and related material manufacturing. It is hardly unusual for nations to make a show of ratifying a treaty, but then do little to carry out the treaty’s requirements. However, in a culture such as the United States, with a strong commitment to the rule of law, CIFTA might have greater practical effect.

If ratified by the Senate, CIFTA would become the law of the land. Would the BATFE then be empowered to write regulations implementing the convention--without waiting for Congress to pass a new statute?

Reloaders are not the only ones who would be required to have a manufacturing license. So would every company or individual that makes any part of a firearm or an accessory. In fact, so would almost every firearm owner in the nation.

If a treaty is “self-executing,” then it is an independent source of authority for domestic regulations. By traditional views of international law, CIFTA is not self-executing, since its language anticipates that ratifying governments will have to enact future laws to comply with CIFTA.

On the other hand, CIFTA does not explicitly declare itself to be non-self-executing. Harold Koh, who has been nominated as legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State, has challenged the doctrine of “so-called self-executing treaties” and argues that the Supreme Court decisions creating the doctrine are incorrect. (100 Yale Law Journal, pages 2360-61, 2383-84; see also 35 University of California at Davis Law Review, page 1111 n. 114; 35 Houston Law Review, page 666.)

Rather, Koh writes, legislatures “should ratify treaties with a presumption that they are self-executing.” Further, domestic courts should “construe domestic statutes consistently with international law” and “should employ international human rights norms to guide interpretation of domestic constitutional norms.”(106 Yale Law Journal, page 2658 n. 297.) As detailed in last month’s issue of America’s 1st Freedom, Koh considers stringent gun control to be a very important international human right (July 2009, p. 32).

In Koh’s view, even when Congress has not created a statute to implement a treaty, courts should recognize a right of private plaintiffs to bring lawsuits under the treaty. (100 Yale Law Journal, pages 2383-84.) Thus, Koh and his allies could argue that Senate ratification of CIFTA trumps the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which outlaws abusive lawsuits against gun manufacturers and stores.

Suppose that the Senate, when ratifying CIFTA, added specific reservations declaring that CIFTA is not self-executing, that CIFTA authorizes no additional regulations and that CIFTA does not authorize any new lawsuits. The United States executive branch, under Koh’s guidance, might ignore the reservations. When the Senate added a reservation to another treaty, Koh wrote, “Many scholars question persuasively whether the United States declaration has either domestic or international legal effect.” (111 Harvard Law Review, pages 1828-29 n. 24.)

Ultimately, the question of whether BATFE can promulgate regulations under CIFTA might be decided in court cases. One way for a court to resolve the issue would be to acknowledge that federal statutes already authorized regulation of manufacturing, and that CIFTA, as the latter-enacted law, simply expanded the definition of manufacturing so that the licensing requirement now applies to persons who are not engaged in the firearm business, and to manufacture or assembly of firearms attachments and spare parts.

It is not hard to foresee Obama-appointed federal judges upholding massive new BATFE gun control regulations, especially when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department’s top legal adviser insist to the courts that the expanded federal regulations are necessary for the United States to comply with its international law obligations.

CIFTA does not specifically require gun registration. But once you impose manufacturing licenses, registration comes along for the ride. Existing federal regulations for manufacturers of firearms and ammunition require that manufacturers keep records of all products they produce, and these records must be available for government inspection.

Thus, those who reload ammunition would have to keep records of every round they made and gun owners would have to keep a record of everything they “assembled” (e.g., putting a scope on a rifle). These records would then be open to BATFE inspection.

Earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., (formerly a gun criminal for the terrorist group the Black Panthers), introduced H.R. 45, to set up a national licensing and registration system for handguns and for self-loading long guns. As implemented under the direction of President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and State Department legal adviser Koh, CIFTA could go even further--it also covers ammunition reloading as well as long guns that are not semi-automatic.

Further, CIFTA could be used to impose national licensing, registration and taxation of gun owners without members of Congress having to cast a vote that explicitly creates such laws. Indeed, because treaties need to be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate, yet need no approval from the House of Representatives, the House could be cut completely out of the law-making process altogether.


Posted: 8/14/2009 12:08:14 PM

BrokenAngel wrote:whitewave I'd really like to sign that petition, not that it will do any good as all of my so called representatives are anti-gun but still I'd like to sign it. You forgot to post the link, can you please post it so I can get to the petition, Thanks.