While you, I, and 314 million other Americans were busy going about our lives, President Lucifer’s Lurch, aka John “snake-tongue” Kerry, quietly signed the gun control United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
The UN News Service reports (via GlobalSecurity.org) that yesterday, Sept. 25 2013, 19 countries, including the United States, signed onto a new treaty regulating international trade in conventional arms, bringing the total number of signatories to more than half of all UN member states.
The new Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) – which will enter into force once it receives 50 ratifications – includes a prohibition on the transfer of arms which would be used in the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity and certain war crimes — all conventional arms within the categories of battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers and small arms and light weapons.
Note: Obama’s signing of the ATT is the height of hypocrisy because his own regime, specifically the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), had engaged in “the transfer of small arms and light weapons” across the US-Mexican border. I am, of course, referring to Obama’s Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning fiasco that took the life of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
The UN Arms Trade Treaty’s prohibition on the transfer of “small arms and light weapons” prompted the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Gun Owners of America to warn that the treaty is an attempt to circumvent the Second Amendment and similar guarantees in state constitutions in order to impose domestic gun regulations. In other words, just like the UN Small Arms Treaty, the Arms Trade Treaty is really a gun-control agreement.
The ATT would provide the United States Executive, i.e., the President, sweeping powers to regulate which guns can and cannot enter or exit our country. Further, this treaty is likely a stepping-stone to a mandatory international gun-registry. In July 2012, the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action sounded this warning:
“Anti-gun treaty proponents continue to mislead the public, claiming the treaty would have no impact on American gun owners. That’s a bald-faced lie. For example, the most recent draft treaty includes export/import controls that would require officials in an importing country to collect information on the ‘end user’ of a firearm, keep the information for 20 years, and provide the information to the country from which the gun was exported. In other words, if you bought a Beretta shotgun, you would be an ‘end user’ and the U.S. government would have to keep a record of you and notify the Italian government about your purchase. That is gun registration. If the U.S. refuses to implement this data collection on law-abiding American gun owners, other nations might be required to ban the export of firearms to the U.S.”
The NRA’s warning is well-placed. Here’s what Article 5 (“General Implementation”) of the UN Arms Trade Treaty says:
2. Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list, in order to implement the provisions of this Treaty.
3. Each State Party is encouraged to apply the provisions of this Treaty to the broadest range of conventional arms. […]
4. Each State Party, pursuant to its national laws, shall provide its national control list to the Secretariat, which shall make it available to other States Parties. States Parties are encouraged to make their control lists publicly available.
5. Each State Party shall take measures necessary to implement the provisions of this Treaty and shall designate competent national authorities in order to have an effective and transparent national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) and of items covered in Article 3 and Article 4.
6. Each State Party shall designate one or more national points of contact to exchange information on matters related to the implementation of this Treaty. A State Party shall notify the Secretariat, established under Article 18, of its national point(s) of contact and keep the information updated.
Read Article 5 (4) again. It’s not just our federal government that would get a copy of the “national [gun] control list.” International bureaucrats at the United Nations and foreign governments would have access to the list as well!
A gun registration system (though it’s not called such) is contained in the treaty’s Article 12 (“Record Keeping”):
1. Each State Party shall maintain national records, pursuant to its national laws and regulations, of its issuance of export authorizations or its actual exports of the conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1).
2. Each State Party is encouraged to maintain records of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1) that are transferred to its territory as the final destination or that are authorized to transit or trans-ship territory under its jurisdiction.
3. Each State Party is encouraged to include in those records: the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), conventional arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), importing State(s), transit and trans-shipment State(s), and end users, as appropriate.
4. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years.
Then there’s the ATT’s Article 14 (“Enforcement”), which seems to authorize the United States Executive, i.e., President, to create whatever domestic gun-control laws that are needed: “Each State Party shall take appropriate measures to enforce national laws and regulations that implement the provisions of this Treaty.”
Even worse, Article 16 of the ATT allows for U.N. personnel to help U.S. law enforcement implement treaty obligations: ” In implementing this Treaty, each State Party … may request, offer or receive assistance through, inter alia, the United Nations, international, regional, subregional or national organizations, non-governmental organizations, or on a bilateral basis.”
Article 16 also opens the door to U.S. taxpayers footing the bill for other countries’ treaty implementation: ” A voluntary trust fund shall be established by States Parties to assist requesting States Parties requiring international assistance to implement this Treaty. Each State Party is encouraged to contribute resources to the fund.”
Read the UN Arms Trade Treaty in pdf format, here.
Despite his signing the treaty, the U.S. Constitution gives the authority over foreign treaties to the United States Senate. This means the ATT is not enforceable unless and until the Senate ratifies it with a two-thirds majority vote.
But if what the Senate did on March 23, 2013, is an indication, it is not at all certain that the Senate will reject the ATT.
In the pre-dawn hours that morning, the Senate narrowly approved a measure to oppose the ATT. By a narrow vote of 53-46, the Senate passed an amendment to the budget bill “to uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”
Imagine that: Six months ago, America was four votes away from the Senate giving our Second Amendment Constitutional rights over to the United Nations!
Here are the 46 U.S. senators (44 Democrats, 2 Independents) who had voted to surrender our Constitutional rights to the UN. Note that there is not a single Republican among the 46 traitors, so don’t tell me there’s not a wit of difference between the two parties!
- Baldwin (D-WI)
- Baucus (D-MT)
- Bennet (D-CO)
- Blumenthal (D-CT)
- Boxer (D-CA)
- Brown (D-OH)
- Cantwell (D-WA)
- Cardin (D-MD)
- Carper (D-DE)
- Casey (D-PA)
- Coons (D-DE)
- Cowan (D-MA)
- Durbin (D-IL)
- Feinstein (D-CA)
- Franken (D-MN)
- Gillibrand (D-NY)
- Harkin (D-IA)
- Hirono (D-HI)
- Johnson (D-SD)
- Kaine (D-VA)
- King (I-ME)
- Klobuchar (D-MN)
- Landrieu (D-LA)
- Leahy (D-VT)
- Levin (D-MI)
- McCaskill (D-MO)
- Menendez (D-NJ)
- Merkley (D-OR)
- Mikulski (D-MD)
- Murphy (D-CT)
- Murray (D-WA)
- Nelson (D-FL)
- Reed (D-RI)
- Reid (D-NV)
- Rockefeller (D-WV)
- Sanders (I-VT)
- Schatz (D-HI)
- Schumer (D-NY)
- Shaheen (D-NH)
- Stabenow (D-MI)
- Udall (D-CO)
- Udall (D-NM)
- Warner (D-VA)
- Warren (D-MA)
- Whitehouse (D-RI)
- Wyden (D-OR)
Incredibly, according to the Huffington Post, the National Association of Evangelicals, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Council of Churches and “numerous retired generals and admirals” are outspoken advocates for the UN Arms Trade Treaty. Christian Post reports that a left-wing “faith” group called the American Values Network — which calls itself “an organization seeking to encourage community and family values” — even launched a video aimed at the seven U.S. senators who currently oppose the ATT.
So be sure to contact your senators and tell them to vote NO when the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty comes before the Senate for ratification!