Written by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.
At the conclusion of the U.S.-EU Summit held this week
in Brussels, President Obama and his European colleagues released a joint
statement reaffirming their common commitment to civilian disarmament as
mandated in the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).
While globalist and establishment media reports focus
on the summit’s attention to the events in Crimea, there is a provision at the
end of the statement that is of much greater concern to Americans aware of the
crescendo of calls for restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
Paragraph 33 of the declaration released on March 26
states: “We reaffirm our joint commitments on non-proliferation, disarmament
and arms control.”
Among other agreements, President Obama, in the name
of the United States, joined with the gathered heads of state in promising:
"We will also work together to promote the entry into force of the Arms
Trade Treaty in 2014."
Despite significant congressional opposition to the
United Nation’s attempt to confiscate privately owned weapons and ammunition,
President Obama quietly signed his name to a document that if carried out,
would amount to nothing less than the de facto repeal of the Second Amendment.
In order to appreciate the seriousness of the Arms
Trade Treaty’s threat to the God-given right to keep and bear arms and to the
constitutional protection of that right, details of the plan should be
understood.
This author attended the negotiations at UN
headquarters in Manhattan where the ATT was hammered out, and I found that the
ATT is so offensive to the preservation of the right to keep and bear arms, it
is an understatement to call it unconstitutional. As The New American has
reported, several provisions of this treaty significantly diminish the scope of
this basic right.
First, the Arms Trade Treaty grants a monopoly over
all weaponry in the hands of the very entity (government) responsible for over
300 million murders in the 20th century.
Furthermore, the treaty leaves private citizens
powerless to oppose future slaughters.
One uncomfortable fact of armed violence ignored by
the UN in its pro-disarmament propaganda is that all the murders committed by
all the serial killers in history don't amount to a fraction of the brutal
killings committed by "authorized state parties" using the very
weapons over which they will exercise absolute control under the terms of the
Arms Trade Treaty.
Article 2 of the treaty defines the scope of the
treaty’s prohibitions. The right to own, buy, sell, trade, or transfer all
means of armed resistance, including handguns, is denied to civilians by this
section of the Arms Trade Treaty.
Article 3 places the “ammunition/munitions fired,
launched or delivered by the conventional arms covered under Article 2” within
the scope of the treaty’s prohibitions, as well.
Article 4 rounds out the regulations, also placing all
“parts and components” of weapons within the scheme.
Perhaps the most immediate threat to the rights of gun
owners in the Arms Trade Treaty is found in Article 5. Under the title of
“General Implementation,” Article 5 mandates that all countries participating
in the treaty “shall establish and maintain a national control system,
including a national control list.”
This list should “apply the provisions of this Treaty
to the broadest range of conventional arms.”
Article 12 adds to the record-keeping requirement,
mandating that the list include “the quantity, value, model/type, authorized
international transfers of conventional arms,” as well as the identity of the
“end users” of these items.
In very clear terms, ratification of the Arms Trade
Treaty by the United States would require that the U.S. government force gun
owners to add their names to the national registry. Citizens would be required
to report the amount and type of all firearms and ammunition they possess.
Section 4 of Article 12 of the treaty requires that
the list be kept for at least 10 years.
Finally, the agreement demands that national
governments take “appropriate measures” to enforce the terms of the treaty,
including civilian disarmament. If these countries can’t get this done on their
own, however, Article 16 provides for UN assistance, specifically including
help with the enforcement of “stockpile management, disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration programmes.”
In fact, a “voluntary trust fund” will be established
to assist those countries that need help from UN peacekeepers or other regional
forces to disarm their citizens.
While President Obama has kept mostly mum lately on
the ATT, especially in the face of such strident congressional opposition, the
European Union has come right out and called for the enactment of the globalist
gun grab.
On February 5, the European Parliament voted to
authorize EU countries to ratify the ATT.
In a less-than-enthusiastic press release, the
European Parliament declared that the Arms Trade Treaty "wouldn't
necessarily result in the reduction of arms production, but it should stop arms
getting into the hands of terrorists and should stop arms flooding into areas
that are unstable."
That's sounds troubling. Given the proclivity of
regimes to label dissenters as "terrorists" and to nominate the
United States as a battlefield in the global "War on Terror,"
however, the rights protected by the Second Amendment are most certainly under
attack in the form of this globalist gun grab masquerading as a peace treaty.
David Martin, a British member of the Group of the
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats who helped draft the
recommendation for EU member ratification of the ATT, admitted that the aim of
the treaty is control of firearms. "There are weaknesses in the treaty,
but it's nevertheless a major step forward. This is the first time that
conventional weapons have been put under any sort of control at all,"
Martin said in an interview with the EU press.
Statements such as this are an admission against the
interest of the perpetuation of the right to keep and bear arms, particularly
in light of the president’s co-signing of the U.S.-EU summit joint statement
that specifically calls for gun control.
Perhaps President Obama, the self-professed former
constitutional law professor, has forgotten the text of the Second Amendment,
particularly the phrase “shall not infringe.”
Fortunately, as reported above, a slim majority of
senators remain rock-ribbed in their refusal to ratify the ATT.
For now, 50 senators are standing together to protect
the right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment and have
taken pen in hand to let the president know how they feel about his
plan to rob their constituents of one of their most basic rights.
In a letter addressed to President Obama, the senators
enumerated six reasons the president should refuse to present the ATT to the
Senate for ratification. Among the objections raised by the senatorial
signatories is the ambiguity of the treaty, as well as the grant to “foreign
sources of authority” the power to “impose judgment or control on the U.S.”
On the House side, a coalition of 180 members of
Congress sent a letter to the president reaffirming their opposition to the
implementation of the provisions of the Arms Trade Treaty.
While it is not remarkable that Barack Obama supports
the seizure of guns and ammunition from law-abiding Americans, the fact that
only half of the U.S. Senate has come out in defense of the Second Amendment is
noteworthy and should be remembered by citizens who understand that a disarmed
population is a slave population.
In light of the joint statement sanctioning government
control of gun ownership, it seems that the “strong partnership” between the
European Union and the United States might be the wedge President Obama uses to
separate Americans from their firearms and their freedom.
Source:http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/17944-u-s-e-u-statement-calls-for-enforcement-of-un-arms-treaty
Saturday, 29
March 2014 12:30
Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The
New American and travels
nationwide speaking on nullification, the Second Amendment, the surveillance
state, and other constitutional issues. Follow him on Twitter @TNAJoeWolverton
and he can be reached at jwolverton@thenewamerican.com
Comments:
We really need to quit the U.N. Most member countries are led by totalitarian
regimes. These thugs are anxious to
disarm their own citizens so they can really terrorize and silence them for
good. We better email our Senators, or
we could be heading for the gulag. This
is your Bolshevik moment comrades.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
How The Senate Voted
|
