UPDATE FOX news is the first major network to confirm this story we began discussing over 8 hours ago.
I received numerous emails about the UN Treaty not being approved. The Examiner and TheGunMag.com have also reported that It was announced this morning that the US will not sign the UN Arms Treaty in its current form. While it is possible that a modified treaty could be singed at a later time it appears that the intense public awareness of the restrictions on our Second Amendment rights has cause such outreach by firearms rights supporters that the Treaty will not be signed in its present form.
As of this afternoon, I am seeing no major media outlets reporting this fact and some even alluding that it will still be passed. Will it be passed or not? We will know if a few days. Below I have complied a few sources on the story and even read through the proposed treaty which I found to be very circular and while supporting gun rights of states, would appear to require states (countries) to pass laws that would not permit misdirection or misuse of firearms by others. How else can you do this other than to ban certain small arms.
Even if this issue fails to pass this week, I am certain that we will see this issue again.
Update GunMag.com is also reporting that Alan Gotlieb who is at the United Nations in NY said the government will not sign the document.
The Seattle Times is reporting that the U.N. Treaty is unlikely to curb U.S. gun Rights. If passed this article appears to be an effort to distract from the true nature of the Bill. A misleading article at best.
The UN has a history of pursuing disarmament including firearms owned by individuals. While the text appears to talk about gun rights, it talks about them in terms of the states rights or collective self-defense rights and not at the individual level as we have under the Second Amendment. The UN has described its efforts on their own website as wanting to advance the restrictions and availability of ownership of small arms by the individual and destruction of surplus state (government-owned) weapons.
The Preamble states “Underlining the need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade of conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use, such as terrorism and organized crime.”
The Principles The inherent rights of all States to individual or collective self-defense;
(NOTE these are rights of the state and not the individual)
Goals and objectives include avoiding international trade in arms. While this treaty would apply to larger arms like ships, tanks, aircraft, it would also apply to small arms and light weapons.
Each country would be required to create a national control system (registry) and would prohibit the transfers what would violate the treaty, would be a violation if they the arms were eventually transferred to an inappropriate personal or country, or were used for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes…
The UN document is similar to many UN treaties and appears to be so circular in nature that while allowing legal uses and each state to make their own rules, seem to restrict the rules that can be made by agreeing that no states (country) rules would possibly allow for an illegal or improper use of the arms to be regulated.
Basically you can’t own an AR15 because someone might sell one to a drug cartel that might do something wrong with the firearm. As such those firearms would not longer be permitted to be sold. This type of circular logic would have no end and surly end up eliminating all or most future firearms transactions.
If the treaty is signed what will happen? The treaty would go into force until the Senate voted to approve or deny the treaty. It would take 66% of the senators (67 Votes to Approve it). While this may be a problem, a Signed treat would be enforced until it was brought up for a vote. Some questions whether there would be enough senators to bring the treaty up on a vote.
Does anyone really think that laws keep criminals and terrorist from obtaining firearms?
To read a copy of the UN Treaty read the rest of this article.
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