Proposed UN small arms treaty will violate The Second Amendment
The NRA is in strong opposition to the small arms treaty. Mitt Romney also opposes it. Obama supports a small arms treaty that is not quite as restrictive as that favored by other UN members.
Fear mongers have been filling up the internet with alarming claims that the UN small arms treaty will take away our right to bear arms. That’s all a crock of shit! Our Constitution trumps any treaty that conflicts with the rights guaranteed all citizens in the 10 Amendments.
UN TREATY TO CRACKDOWN ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN SMALL ARMS
Issue has been on UN agenda since 2006 when George Bush ordered a veto
By Emma Reynolds
Mail Online
July 27, 2012
The United Nations is set to introduce a treaty cracking down on the $60 billion global business of illicit trading in small arms.
The move is aimed at curbing violence in some of the most troubled corners of the world, but has unsurprisingly ruffled feathers with pro-gun activists in the US, including those of the National Rifle Association.
They have denounced the treaty as a threat to their constitutional right to bear arms.
'Without apology, the NRA wants no part of any treaty that infringes on the precious right of lawful Americans to keep and bear arms,' NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre told the UN this month.
'Any treaty that includes civilian firearms ownership in its scope will be met with the NRA's greatest force of opposition.'
Fellow critic John Bolton, who was President George W. Bush's ambassador to the UN, wrote that gun-control advocates 'hope to use restrictions on international gun sales to control gun sales at home.'
But what both sides ignore is a well-enshrined legal principle that says no treaty can override the Constitution or US laws, according to the Associated Press.
In fact, a first draft of the treaty circulated in New York this week has been criticized by arms-control activists for containing too many loopholes.
For instance, it does not include a proposed ban on ammunition trade.
Gun activists are standing firm in near-blanket opposition to such a ban, as last Friday's deadly Aurora, Colo., theater shooting rampage heightens interest in the deliberations and raises the stakes.
Barack Obama supports the treaty effort but has not talked about it on the presidential campaign trail.
Equally, presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney has not addressed the issue but broadly opposes what he sees as overreach by the UN on many fronts. He told a town hall in Ohio last week that he was 'not willing to give the United Nations sovereignty in any way or form' over US citizens or law.
This week, they clashed long-distance when Mr Obama suggested stiffer gun regulations in a speech to the National Urban League and Mr Romney argued in an NBC interview from London, where he is traveling, that America does not need new gun laws.
The Constitution's Second Amendment offers broad protection for weapons ownership by civilians. As recently as 2008, the Supreme Court affirmed this when it struck down a ban on handguns in the District of Columbia, ruling that individuals have a constitutional right to keep guns for self-defense and other purposes.
The rule that treaty obligations may not infringe on individual constitutional protections and rights goes back at least to a 1920 ruling that a migratory bird treaty with Canada, which prohibited the hunting or capturing of certain birds, was an unconstitutional interference with states' rights under the 10th Amendment.
There are many other court rulings spelling out the limits of treaties.
Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First, said: 'There is no doubt that the Constitution is superior to any international treaties.'
A proposed treaty to regulate exports and imports of small weapons has been on the UN agenda since 2006, when Mr Bush ordered a veto.
Mr Obama got the process rolling again in 2010. So far, 152 nations have participated in the drafting and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for Senate ratification once there is a final document.
But it may be an empty gesture.
Treaties must be ratified by two-thirds of the 100-member Senate, or 67 votes. With pressure mounting from the gun lobby, led by the politically powerful NRA, a letter opposing such a treaty has already gained the signatures of well over 50 senators.
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