Archive for July, 2012

NFA Canada shares thoughts on the UN ATT

Monday, July 30th, 2012

Original Story Via:  National Firearms Association (Canada)

UN Arms Trade Treaty Talks Close Without Consensus

The United Nations talks on an Arms Trade Treaty ended today without consensus on any of the latest proposed treaty drafts.  The UN’s self-imposed deadline of July 27 saw considerable disagreement remaining on the part of many nations as to the content and goals of various draft treaty language.

Speaking from Orangeville, Ontario NFA President Sheldon Clare stated that, “While many may view this as a relief, it is important to realize that there is still significant pressure from many anti-gun NGOs and governments to achieve such a treaty.  In short, the international and domestic firearms communities must continue to be informed about what happens next as part of the larger UN programs of disarmament and any potential effect on civilians who own firearms.”

Clare praised the Canadian delegation, “Canada’s National Firearms Association wishes to acknowledge the professionalism and patience of the Canadian government’s delegation during what were clearly very difficult negotiations to achieve a treaty that would impose “no new burdens” on Canadians.”   He continued, “While the NFA has stronger views on the talks than some of those of the government, I believe that Canadians were well served by our national representatives.  In particular, the Canadian delegation was vocal in supporting the NFA’s right to have our voice heard at the talks.”

Mr. Clare continued, “The key question for Canadians is what will happen next.  Canada’s National Firearms Association will be watching the UN’s next moves and it is important that all firearms owners stay tuned for new developments.  One thing is clear, vigilance is important to ensure that we are able to fully protect all aspects of our rights and freedoms.”

In addition to its participation at the UN with the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, Canada’s National Firearms Association is a founding member of The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) which includes many national and international organizations promoting civilian ownership of firearms. At over 62,000 members, Canada’s National Firearms Association is this country’s largest advocacy organization promoting the rights and freedoms of all responsible firearm owners and users.

For more information contact:

Blair Hagen, Executive VP Communications, 604-753-8682 Blair@nfa.ca

Sheldon Clare, President, 250-981-1841 Sheldon@nfa.ca

Canada’s NFA toll-free number – 1-877-818-0393

NFA Website: www.nfa.ca

BREAKING NEWS: CCRKBA CREDITS GRASSROOTS FOR U.S. DECISION TO NOT SIGN ARMS TREATY

Friday, July 27th, 2012

Original Story Via:  TheGunMag.com

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today applauds the decision by the United States to not sign the proposed International Arms Trade Treaty, and CCRKBA credits grassroots action for the gun rights victory.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who is at the United Nations in New York, said the announcement came Friday morning after a week of intense negotiations.

“I think the grassroots surge by American gun owners against this treaty convinced our government to not sign this document,” Gottlieb said. “The proposed treaty, as written, poses serious problems for our gun rights, and the sovereignty of our Second Amendment.”

CCRKBA has been active in raising public awareness about the proposed treaty, and Gottlieb said he is proud of members and supporters who made “stepped up to the plate” and contacted their U.S. senators.

“This is freedom in action,” Gottlieb stated. “We are gratified that so many did so much to protect their Second Amendment rights from an international gun rights grab.

HARD COPY: UN Arms Trade Treaty Final Draft

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

UN Arms Trade Treaty Final Text

 

The draft of the Arms Trade Treaty

 

 

Submitted by the President of the Conference

 

 

Preamble

 

The States Parties to this Treaty,

 

Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations;

 

Recalling that the Charter of the United Nations promotes the establishment and maintenance of international

peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources;

 

Underlining the need to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade of conventional arms and to prevent their diversion to the illicit market and for unauthorized end use;

 

Recognizing the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial rights and interests of States in the international trade of conventional arms;

 

Reaffirming the sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems;

 

Recognizing that development, human rights and peace and security, which are three pillars of the United

Nations, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing;

 

Recalling the United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on international arms transfers adopted by the

General Assembly;

 

Noting the contribution made by the 2001 UN Programme of Action to preventing, combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, as well as the 2001 Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in Firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;

 

Recognizing the security, social, economic and humanitarian consequences of the illicit trade in and unregulated trade of conventional arms;

 

Recognizing also the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion;

 

Bearing in mind that women and children are particularly affected in situations of conflict and armed violence;

 

Emphasizing that nothing in this Treaty prevents States from exercising their right to adopt additional and more rigorous measures consistent with the purpose of this Treaty;

 

Taking note of the legitimate trade and use of certain conventional arms, inter alia, for recreational, cultural, historical, and sporting activities and lawful ownership where such ownership and use are permitted and protected by law;

 

Recognizing the active role that non-governmental organizations and civil society can play in furthering the object and purpose of this Treaty; and

 

Acknowledging that regulation of the international trade in conventional arms should not hamper international cooperation and legitimate trade in materiel, equipment and technology for peaceful purposes.

 

Principles

 

Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, States Parties, in promoting the object and purpose of this Treaty and implementing its provisions, shall act in accordance with the following principles:

 

1.  The inherent right of all States to individual or collective self-defence;

 

2.  The settlement of international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered;

 

3.  To refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the Un ited Nations;

 

4.  Non-intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State;

 

5.  The duty to respect and ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to respect and ensure human rights;

 

6.  The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate and control international transfers of conventional arms, as well as the primary responsibility of all States in establishing and implementing their respective nation al export control systems;

 

7.  States Parties should respect the legitimate interests of States to acquire conventional weapons for legitimate self-defence and peacekeeping operations and to produce, export, import and transfer conventional arms; and

 

8.  The necessity to implement this Treaty consistently and effectively and in a universal, objective and non – discriminatory manner.

 

Have agreed as follows:

 

Article 1

Goals and Objectives

 

The goals and objectives of the Treaty are:

 

a.    For States Parties to establish the highest possible common standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms; and

 

b.    To prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and their diversion to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use;

 

in order to:

 

c.     contribute to international and regional peace, security and stability;

 

 

d.    Prevent the international trade in conventional arms from contributing to human suffering; and

 

e.     Promote cooperation, transparency and responsibility of States Parties in the trade in conventional arms, thus building confidence among States Parties.

 

 

Article 2

Scope

 

A.   Covered Items

 

1.     This Treaty shall apply to all conventional arms within the following categories at a minimum:

 

a.    Battle Tanks;

b.   Armoured combat vehicles;

c.     Large-calibre Artillery systems;

d.   Combat aircraft;

e.     Attack helicopters;

f.     Warships;

g.   Missiles and missile launchers; and h.   Small Arms and Light Weapons

 

2.    Each State Party shall establish or update, as appropriate, and maintain a national control list that shall include the items that fall within paragraph 1 of this article, as defined on a national basis and, at a minimum, based on relevant United Nations instruments. Each State Party shall publish its control list to the extent permitted by national law.

 

B.         Covered Activities

 

3.    This Treaty shall apply to those activities of the international trade in conventional arms set out in articles 5, 6, 7,

8 and 9, hereafter referred to as “transfer,” for the conventional arms covered under the scope of this Treaty.

 

4.    This Treaty shall not apply to the international movement of conventional arms by a State Party or its agents for its armed forces or law enforcement authorities operating outside its national territories, provided the conventional arms remain under the State Party’s ownership.

 

Article 3

Prohibited Transfers

 

 

1.    A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms if the transfer would violate its obligations under measures adopted by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular arms embargoes.

 

2.     A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty if the transfer would violate its relevant international obligations, under international agreements to which it is a Party, in particular those relating to the  international transfer of, or illicit trafficking in, conventional arms.

 

 

3.     A State Party shall not authorize a transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty for the purpose of facilitating the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes constituting grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

 

Article 4

National Assessment

 

1.    In considering whether to authorize an export of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty, each State Party shall assess whether the proposed export would contribute to or undermine peace and security.

 

2.    Prior to authorization and pursuant to its national control system, the State Party shall assess whether the proposed export of conventional arms could:

 

a.    be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law;

 

b.   be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international human rights law; or

 

c.     be used to commit or facilitate an act constituting an offense under international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism to which the transferring State is a Party.

 

3.    In making the assessment, the exporting State Party shall apply the criteria set out in paragraph 2 of this article consistently, and in an objective and non-discriminatory manner, taking into account relevant factors, including information provided by the importing State.

 

4.    In assessing the criteria set out in paragraph 2 of this article, the exporting State Party may also take into consideration the establishment of risk mitigation measures, including confidence-building measures and jointly developed programmes by the exporting and importing States.

 

5.                       If, after conducting the assessment called for in paragraph 1 and 2 of this article, and after considering the mitigation measures provided for in paragraph 4 of this article, the State Party finds that there is an overriding risk of any of the consequences under paragraph 2 of this article, the State Party shall not authorize the export.

 

6.                       Each State Party, when considering a proposed export of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty, shall consider taking feasible measures, including joint actions with other States involved in the transfer, to avoid the arms:

 

a.    being diverted to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use;

 

b.       being used to commit or facilitate gender-based violence or violence against children;

 

c.       being used for transnational organized crime;

 

d.       becoming subject to corrupt practices; or

 

e.       adversely impacting the development of the importing State.

 

Article 5

General Implementation

 

1.    Each State Party shall implement this Treaty in a consistent, objective and non -discriminatory manner, in accordance with the goals and objectives of this Treaty.

 

2.    The implementation of this Treaty shall not prejudice obligations undertaken with regard to other instruments. This Treaty shall not be cited as grounds for voiding contractual obligations under defence cooperation agreements concluded by States Parties to this Treaty.

 

3.    Each State Party shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative 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 international transfer of conventional arms.

 

4.    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 12, of its national point(s) of contact and keep the information updated.

 

5.    States Parties involved in an international transfer of conventional arms shall, in a manner consistent with this

Treaty, take appropriate measures to prevent diversion to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use.

 

6.    If a diversion is detected, the State or States Parties that made the detection may notify the State or States Parties that could be affected by such diversion, to the extent permitted in their national laws, in particular those States Parties that are involved in the transfer or may be affected, without delay.

 

Article 6

Export

 

1.    Each exporting State Party shall conduct national assessments, as detailed in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of article

4 and taking into account the considerations as detailed in paragraph 6 of article 4, whether to authorize the export of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty under its jurisdiction. Each State Party shall apply articles 3 and 4, taking into account all relevant information.

 

2.    Each State Party shall take measures to ensure all authorizations for the export of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty are detailed and issued prior to the export. Appropriate information about the export in question shall, upon request, be made available to the importing, transit and transshipment State Parties, in accordance with national laws.

 

3.    If, after an authorization has been granted, a State Party becomes aware of new relevant information that causes it to reassess that there is an overriding risk of any of the consequences of paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of article 4, the State Party may suspend or revoke the authorization.

 

4.    Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of ammunition for conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty, and shall apply article 3, and paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 o f article 4 prior to authorizing any export of ammunition.

 

5.    Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of parts and components, to the extent necessary, for the conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty, and apply article 3 and paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of article 4 prior to authorizing any export of those parts and components.

 

 

Article 7

Import

 

1.    Each importing State Party shall take measures to ensure that appropriate and relevant information is provided, upon request, in accordance with its national laws, to the exporting State Party to assist the exporting State Party in its national assessment.

 

2.    Each importing State Party shall put in place adequate measures that will allow them to regulate, where necessary, imports of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty. Each importing State Party shall also adopt appropriate measures to prevent the diversion of imported conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use.

 

3.    Each importing State Party may request information from the exporting State Party concerning any pending authorizations where the importing State Party is the country of final destination.

 

Article 8

Brokering

 

Each State Party shall take the appropriate measures, within its national laws, to regulate brokering taking place under its jurisdiction for conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty. Such controls may require brokers to register or obtain written authorization before engaging in brokering transactions.

 

Article 9

Transit and Transshipment

 

1.    Each State Party shall adopt appropriate legislative, administrative or other measures to regulate, where necessary and feasible, conventional arms covered by this Treaty that transit or transship through its territory.

 

2.    Importing and exporting States Parties shall cooperate and exchange information, where feasible and upon request, to transit and transshipment States Parties, in order to mitigate the risk of diversion.

 

Article 10

Reporting and Record-Keeping

 

1.    Each State Party shall maintain national records, in accordance with its national laws and regulations, of the export authorizations or actual exports of the conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty and, where feasible, details of those conventional arms transferred to their territory as the final destination or that are authorized to transit or transship territory under its jurisdiction.

 

2.    Such records may contain, inter alia, quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty, conventional arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), importing State(s), transit and transshipment State(s) and end users, as appropriate. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years, or longer if required by other international obligations applicable to the State Party.

 

3.    Each State Party may report to the secretariat, when appropriate, any actions taken to address the diversion of conventional arms to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use.

 

 

4.    Each State Party shall, within the first year after entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party, provide an initial report to the secretariat of relevant activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty, including national laws, regulations and administrative measures. States Parties shall report on

any new activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty, when appropriate. Reports shall be made available and distributed to States Parties by the secretariat.

 

5.    Each State Party shall submit annually to the secretariat by 1 July a report for the preceding calendar year concerning the authorization or actual transfer of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty. Reports shall be made available and distributed to States Parties by the secretariat. The report submitted to the secretariat may contain the same information submitted by the State Party to relevant United Nations frameworks, including the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms. Reports may exclude commercially sensitive or national security information

 

 

Article 11

Enforcement

 

Each State Party shall adopt appropriate national measures and policies as may be necessary to enforce national laws and regulations and implement the provisions of this Treaty.

 

Article 12

Secretariat

 

1.    This Treaty hereby establishes a secretariat to assist States Parties in the effective implementation of this Treaty.

 

2.    The secretariat shall be adequately staffed. Staff shall have the necessary expertise to ensure the secretariat can effectively undertake the responsibilities described in paragraph 3 of this article.

 

3.    The secretariat shall be responsible to States Parties. Within a minimized structure, the secretariat shall undertake the following responsibilities:

 

a.    Receive, make available and distribute the reports as mandated in this Treaty;

 

b.    Maintain and distribute regularly to States Parties the list of national points of contact;

 

c.     Facilitate the matching of offers of and requests for assistance for Treat y implementation and promote international cooperation as requested;

 

d.    Facilitate the work of the Conference of States Parties, including making arrangements and providing the necessary services for meetings under this Treaty; and

 

e.     Perform other duties as mandated by this Treaty.

 

 

Article 13

International Cooperation

 

1.    States Parties shall cooperate, as appropriate, to enhance the implementation of this Treaty, consistent with their respective security interests and national laws.

 

2.    Each State Party is encouraged to facilitate international cooperation, including the exchange of information on matters of mutual interest regarding the implementation and application of this Treaty in accordance with its respective security interests and national legal system.

 

3.    Each State Party is encouraged to consult on matters of mutual interest and to share information, as appropriate, to support the implementation of this Treaty.

 

4.    Each State Party may cooperate, as appropriate, in order to enforce the provisions of this Treat y, including sharing information regarding illicit activities and actors to assist national enforcement and to counter, prevent and combat diversion to the illicit market or for unauthorized end use, in accordance with national laws. States Parties may also exchange experience and information on lessons learned in relation to any aspect of this Treaty, to assist national implementation.

 

Article 14

International Assistance

 

1.    In implementing this Treaty, each State Party may seek, inter alia, legal or legislative assistance, institutional capacity building, and technical, material or financial assistance. Each State Party in a position to do so shall, upon request, provide such assistance.

 

2.    Each State Party may request, offer or receive assistance, inter alia, through the United Nations, international, regional, subregional or national organizations, non-governmental organizations, or on a bilateral basis.

 

3.    States Parties may also contribute resources to a voluntary trust fund to assist requesting States Par ties requiring such assistance to implement the Treaty. The voluntary trust fund shall be administered by the secretariat under the supervision of States Parties.

 

 

Article 15

Signature, Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession

 

1.    This Treaty shall be open for signature at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by all States and shall remain open for signature until its entry into force.

 

2.    This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval by each signatory State.

 

3.    This Treaty shall be open for accession by any State that has not signed the Treaty.

 

4.    The instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the depositary.

 

Article 16

Entry into Force

 

1.    This Treaty shall enter into force ninety days following the date of the deposit of the sixty-fifth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the depositary.

 

2.    For any State that deposits its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession subsequent to the entry into force of this Treaty, the Treaty shall enter into force for that State ninety days following the date of deposit of its instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.

 

 

Article 17

Provisional application

 

Any State may at the time of its ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it will apply provisionally articles 3 and 4 of this Treaty pending its entry into force for that State.

 

Article 18

Duration and Withdrawal

 

1.    This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration.

 

2.    Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty.

It shall give notice of such withdrawal to the depositary, which shall notify all other States Parties. The instrument of withdrawal shall include an explanation of the reasons motivating this withdrawal. The

instrument of withdrawal shall take effect ninety days after the receipt of the instrument of withdrawal by the depositary, unless the instrument of withdrawal specifies a later date.

 

3.    A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Treaty while it was a party to the Treaty, including any financial obligations that may have accrued.

 

Article 19

Reservations

 

1.    Each State Party may formulate reservations, u nless the reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of this Treaty.

 

2.    Reservations may be withdrawn at any time.

 

Article 20

Amendments

 

1.    At any time after the entry into force of this Treaty, a State Party may propose an amendment to this

Treaty.

 

2.    An y proposed amendment shall be submitted in writing to the secretariat, which shall then circulate the proposal to all States Parties, not less than 180 days before the next meeting of the Conference of States Parties. The amendment shall be considered at the next Conference of States Parties if a majority of States Parties notify the secretariat that they support further consideration of the proposal, no later than

120 days after its circulation by the secretariat.

 

3.    An y amendment to this Treaty shallbe adopted by consensus of those States Parties present at the Conference of States Parties. The depositary shall communicate any adopted amendment to all States Parties.

 

4.    A proposed amendment adopted in accordance with paragraph 3 of this article shal l enter into force for all States Parties to the Treaty, upon deposit with the depositary of the instruments of acceptance by a majority of States Parties at the time of the adoption of the amendment. Thereafter, it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of acceptance.

 

 

Article 21

Conference of States Parties

 

1.    A Conference of States Parties shall be convened no later than one year following the entry into force of this Treaty. The  Conference of  States  Parties shall  adopt  rules  of  procedure and  rules  governing its activities,  including  frequency  of  meetings  and  rules  concerning  payment  of  expenses  incurred  in carrying out those activities.

 

2.      The Conference of States Parties shall:

 

a.    Consider and adopt recommendations regarding the implementation and operation of this Treaty, in particular the promotion of its universality;

 

b.    Consider amendments to this Treaty;

 

c.     Consider and decide the tasks and budget of the secretariat;

 

 

d.    Consider the establishment of any subsidiary bodies as may be necessary to improve the functioning of the Treaty; and

 

e.     Perform any other function consistent with this Treaty.

 

3.  If circumstances merit, an exceptional meeting of States Parties may be convened if required and resources allow.

 

Article 22

Dispute Settlement

 

1. States Parties shall consult and cooperate to settle any dispute that may arise between them with regard to the interpretation or application of this Treaty.

 

2. States Parties shall settle any dispute between them concerning the interpretation or application of this

Treaty through negotiations, mediation, conciliation or other peaceful means of the Party’s mutual choice.

 

3. States Parties may pursue, by mutual consent, arbitration to settle any dispute between them, regarding issues concerning the implementation of this Treaty.

 

Article 23

Relations with States not party to this Treaty

 

States Parties shall apply articles 3 and 4 to all exports of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty to

States not party to this Treaty.

 

Article 24

Relationship with other instruments

 

States Parties shall have the right to enter into agreements in relation to the international trade in conventional arms, provided that those agreements are compatible with their obligations und er this Treaty and do not undermine the object and purpose of this Treaty.

 

Article 25

Authentic Texts and Depositary

 

 

The original text of this Treaty, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

International gun banners pulling out all stops at UN

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

Original Story Via: TheGunMag.comUN Olympics Gun Control Flyer

By Dave Workman

Senior Editor

The gloves have come off at the United Nations as negotiations over the proposed global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are moving toward a climax, and two leading gun rights advocates on the scene are convinced treaty proponents want to include small arms and ammunition in the document, and slip around the Second Amendment.

Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, told TGM that, “Some movement in our direction is anticipated, but it will not be enough to make a difference. These would be minor modifications to placate us, but they will not be enough to address the concerns of American gun owners.”

“This is a blatant attempt to negate the recent Second Amendment court victories we’ve had in the United States, and to get around Second Amendment protections,” he asserted.

His wife, Julianne Versnel, said the ATT “is, in essence, an attempt by the rest of the world to impose their view of civilian firearms ownership on us, and negate the Second Amendment.”

They are at the UN representing the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Second Amendment Foundation and the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR). Both helped create IAPCAR, which now has member organizations around the world.

A coalition of global gun control organizations is pushing for the most extreme language and tenets in the treaty, which is supposed to be signed this week. That group includes International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Oxfam International and Control Arms. The latter group is apparently responsible for a handout depicting their vision of the treaty provisions highlighted in Olympics-style rings.

Ominously, two of those items are “Arms and Bullets” and “Global Standards Over National Views.” The former alludes to privately owned firearms, and the latter is a veiled but direct threat to the Second Amendment, Gottlieb said.

Various gun rights organizations have been lobbying against this treaty for weeks. If the Obama administration signs it, the document must still be ratified by the U.S. Senate, and after intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association, that doesn’t seem likely.

But with less than four months to go before the national elections, Barack Obama is painting himself into an ever-tightening corner with American gun owners. That represents a significant and influential voting bloc, and a global gun control treaty could easily push many undecided voters into the Romney camp.

Int’l gun control lobby sets sights on ammo, 2A at United Nations

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

Original Story Via: Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner

UN Olympics Gun Control Flyer

UN Olympics Gun Control Flyer

The gloves are definitely off at the United Nations as negotiations continue over the proposed global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), where Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb and Julianne Versnel are raising alarms about a handout distributed Thursday morning by Control Arms, one of the gun control groups pressing for the most extreme provisions.

They say global gun control proponents are directly targeting small arms and ammunition – including civilian-owned rifles, shotguns and handguns – and the Second Amendment. With a layout deliberately designed to mimic the Olympic rings, the handout specifies “Arms and Bullets” and “Global Standards Over National Views.”

The latter, they suggest, is a thinly-veiled reference to world gun control regardless of what the U.S. Constitution might say.

Gottlieb and Versnel are in New York representing the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Second Amendment Foundation and the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR).

Versnel supplied Examiner with the image above that makes it clear the gun ban crowd – a coalition which includes the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Oxfam International – are after small arms and ammunition.

In a telephone interview, Versnel made it clear what that means.

“The ATT is, in essence, an attempt by the rest of the world to impose their view of civilian firearms ownership on us, and negate the Second Amendment,” she said.

Negotiators recessed Thursday morning but were to resume in the afternoon. Gottlieb said there are “rumors” that a slightly revised document, discussed by this column yesterday and posted on the IAPCAR website, might be introduced.

“Some movement in our direction is anticipated,” he said, “but it will not be enough to make a difference. These would be minor modifications to placate us, but they will not be enough to address the concerns of American gun owners.”

Gottlieb’s bottom line: “This is a blatant attempt to negate the recent Second Amendment court victories we’ve had in the United States, and to get around Second Amendment protections.”

Various gun rights organizations have been lobbying against this treaty for weeks. If the Obama administration signs it, the document must still be ratified by the U.S. Senate, and after intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association, that doesn’t seem likely.

But with less than four months to go before the national elections, Barack Obama is painting himself into an ever-tightening corner with gun owners. As this column noted earlier, he is “out of the closet” as a gun control proponent, even hinting at renewed focus on so-called “assault weapons.”

Unfortunately for gun prohibitionists, the proverbial horse has left the barn on that subject. With millions of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns now in circulation, banning them is out of the question unless the president thinks he can charm gun owners into surrendering them.

In that, the president and the United Nations are in the same leaky boat, with a gun rights tidal wave coming right at them.

NFA Warns of Problems With UN Arms Trade Treaty

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

NFA Warns of problems with UN Arms Trade Treaty

25 July 2012

A near final draft and the closing days of the UN Arms Trade Treaty talks could spell trouble for Canadian interests.  There is tremendous pressure to conclude a deal by July 27 and if the latest draft is any indication, the deal will not be a good one for Canadians.

“The draft treaty still affects civilian ownership of firearms and could cause trouble for Canadians travelling with firearms,” according to Sheldon Clare, President of Canada’s National Firearms Association who was present for part of the talks. “Even more significantly though, are clauses which would establish an expensive and intrusive Implementation Support Unit, a body which would be engaged in keeping firearms trade records.  The ISU would be a likely conduit for providing money to unscrupulous regimes from UN coffers partially funded by Canadian taxpayers.  That is certainly not something that Canadians want or need.”

Clare continued, “One of the most potentially dangerous clauses is the proposed amending formula which under Article 20 introduces a two-thirds majority requirement to amend the ATT.  Such a clause is a direct threat to national sovereignty in that it removes the traditional need for consensus in UN decision making.  It could easily lead to despots and dictators making amendments that would be binding on Europe and North America.  When combined with Article 23 which would mean that even countries that don’t sign it are subject to it, we have a clear step towards a dangerous system of world governance that would harm the interests of Canada and individual Canadians.“

“In addition, there are aspects of the draft treaty that could prevent Canada from providing aid to its needy allies, especially if such aid conflicted with the aims of countries opposed to Canadian values.  The recent draft of the Arms Trade Treaty is bad for Canada and Canadians, and our government should not sign it,” stated Mr. Clare.  “While governments need to act against terrorism, perhaps better ways to deal with unrest would be to address the economic situations, political differences, and human rights issues that contribute to people agitating for change.”

“A global ATT would only be in the interests of those who would seek economic advantage by limiting market opportunity and of regimes who would use such a treaty to disarm their citizens in order to rule through fear.”

In addition to its participation at the UN with the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities, Canada’s National Firearms Association is a founding member of The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR) which includes many national and international organizations promoting civilian ownership of firearms.  At over 62,000 members, Canada’s National Firearms Association is this country’s largest advocacy organization promoting the rights and freedoms of all responsible firearm owners and users.

For more information contact:

Blair Hagen, Executive VP Communications, 604-753-8682 Blair@nfa.ca

Sheldon Clare, President, 250-981-1841 Sheldon@nfa.ca

Canada’s NFA toll-free number – 1-877-818-0393

NFA Website: www.nfa.ca

Examiner exclusive: UN releases proposed Arms Trade Treaty text

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

Original Story Via:  Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner

The proposed United Nations international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is out, and it is already running into trouble as many of the tenets are apparently contrary to United States law, to say nothing of the collision they might have with the Second Amendment.

Julianne Versnel-Gottlieb with the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation reports from the U.N. headquarters in New York that the head of the U.S. delegation, Thomas Countryman, was quick to point out that provisions in the proposed treaty will run into trouble with existing law.

However, Versnel-Gottlieb notes that the proposed treaty is still getting support from the United Kingdom and the French delegation let slip that their ultimate goal is to regulate legitimately-owned “weapons.” Gun rights activists will quickly note that this has not worked too well for the British.

The entire document has been posted on the website of the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), an organization that Versnel-Gottlieb and her husband, Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and founder of SAF, were instrumental in creating.

The important section of this document is the Preamble, according to Alan Gottlieb, who leaves for New York Wednesday in order to be on hand during the anticipated final negotiations later this week. This is what it says:

The States Parties to this Treaty:
1. Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. Recalling that the charter of the UN promotes the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources;
3. Reaffirming the obligation of all State Parties to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, in accordance with the Charter of the UN;
4. 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;
5. Recognizing the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial rights and interests of States in the international trade of conventional arms;
6. Reaffirming the sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems;
7. Recognizing that development, human rights and peace and security, which are three pillars of the United Nations, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
8. Recalling the United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on international arms transfers adopted by the General Assembly;
9. Noting the contribution made by the 2001 UN Programme of Action to preventing combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, as well as the 2001 Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in Firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
10. Recognizing the security, social, economic and humanitarian consequences of the illicit trade in and unregulated trade of conventional arms;
11. Recognizing the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion;
12. Bearing in mind that the women and children are particularly affected in situations of conflict and armed violence;
13. Emphasizing that nothing in this treaty prevents States from exercising their right to adopt additional more rigorous measures consistent with the purpose of this Treaty;
14. Recognizing the legitimate international trade and lawful private ownership and use of conventional arms exclusively for, inter alia, recreational, cultural, historical and sporting activities for States where such ownership and use are permitted or protected by law;
15. Recognizing the active role that non-governmental organizations and civil society can play in furthering the goals and objectives of this Treaty; and
16. Emphasizing that regulation of the international trade in conventional arms should not
hamper international cooperation and legitimate trade in material, equipment and technology for peaceful purposes;

Have agreed as follows:

Principles

Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, States Parties, In promoting the goals and objectives of this Treaty and implementing its provisions, shall act in accordance with the following principles:

1. The inherent rights of all States to individual or collective self-defense;

2. Settlement of individual disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered;

3. The rights and obligations of States under applicable international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

4. The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate and control international transfer of conventional arms as well as the primary responsibility of all States to in establishing and implementing their respective national export control systems; and

5. The necessity to implement this Treaty consistently and effectively and in a universal, objective and non-discriminatory manner.

But as Gottlieb puts it, the Devil is always in the details. It is still not clear whether ammunition will be targeted by this proposed agreement, and that is an important consideration.

ATT proponents were hoping to have this treaty signed and in the bag by this Friday, but there is a possibility that may not happen if enough concerns are raised.

BREAKING NEWS: UN Arms Trade Treaty – Full Proposed Document

Tuesday, July 24th, 2012

PREAMBLE             

The States Parties to this Treaty.

  1. Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
  2. Recalling that the charter of the UN promotes the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources;
  3. Reaffirming the obligation of all State Parties to settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered, in accordance with the Charter of the UN;
  4. 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;
  5. Recognizing the legitimate political, security, economic and commercial rights and interests of States in the international trade of conventional arms;
  6. Reaffirming the sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems;
  7. Recognizing that development, human rights and peace and security, which are three pillars of the United Nations, are interlinked and mutually reinforcing.
  8. Recalling the United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on international arms transfers adopted by the General Assembly;
  9. Noting the contribution made by the 2001 UN Programme of Action to preventing combating and eradicating the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects, as well as the 2001 Protocol against the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in Firearms, their parts and components and ammunition, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime;
  10. Recognizing the security, social, economic and humanitarian consequences of the illicit trade in and unregulated trade of conventional arms;
  11. Recognizing the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion;
  12. Bearing in mind that the women and children are particularly affected in situations of conflict and armed violence;
  13. Emphasizing that nothing in this treaty prevents States from exercising their right to adopt additional more rigorous measures consistent with the purpose of this Treaty;
  14. Recognizing the legitimate international trade and lawful private ownership and use of conventional arms exclusively for, inter alia, recreational, cultural, historical and sporting activities for States where such ownership and use are permitted or protected by law;
  15. Recognizing the active role that non-governmental organizations and civil society can play in furthering the goals and objectives of this Treaty; and

16. Emphasizing that regulation of the international trade in conventional arms should not

hamper international cooperation and legitimate trade in material, equipment and technology

for peaceful purposes;

Have agreed as follows:

Principles

Guided by the Purposes and Principles of the Charter of the United Nations, States Parties, In promoting the goals and objectives of this Treaty and implementing its provisions, shall act in accordance with the following principles:

  1. The inherent rights of all States to individual or collective self-defense;

2. Settlement of individual disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered;

3. The rights and obligations of States under applicable international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

4. The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate and control international transfer of conventional arms as well as the primary responsibility of all States to in establishing and implementing their respective national export control systems; and

5. The necessity to implement this Treaty consistently and effectively and in a universal, objective and non-discriminatory manner.

 

Article 1

Goals and Objectives

Cognizant of the need to prevent and combat the diversion of conventional arms into the illicit market r to unauthorized end users through the improvement of regulation on the international trade in conventional arms,

The goals and objectives of this Treaty are:

–          For States Parties to establish the highest possible common standards for regulating or improving regulation of the international trade in conventional arms;

–          To prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and their diversion to illegal and unauthorized end use;

In order to:

–          Contribute to international and regional peace, security and stability;

–          Avoid that the international trade in conventional arms contributes to human suffering;

–           Promote cooperation, transparency and responsibility of States Parties in the trade in conventional arms, thus building confidence among States Parties,

 

Article 2

–          A. Covered Items

–          1. This Treaty shall apply to all conventional arms within the following categories:

–          a. Battle Tanks

–          b. Armored combat vehicles

–          c. Large-caliber Artillery systems

–          d. Combat aircraft

–          e. Attack helicopters

–          f. Warships

–          g. Missiles and missile launchers

–          h. Small Arms and Light Weapons

–          2. Each State Party Shall establish and Maintain a national control system to regulate the export of munitions to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph a1 (a)-(h) are not circumvented by the export of munitions for those conventional arms.

–          3. Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system to regulate the export of parts and components to the extent necessary to ensure that national controls on the export of the conventional arms covered by Paragraph A1 are not circumvented by the export of parts and components of those items.

–          4. Each State Party shall establish or update, as appropriate, and maintain a national control list that shall include the items that fall within Paragraph 1 above, as defined on a national basis, based on relevant UN instruments at a minimum. Each State Party shall publish its control list to the extent permitted by national law.

–          B. Covered Activities

–          1. This Treaty shall apply to those activities of the international trade in conventional arms covered in paragraph a1 above, and set out in Articles 6-10, hereafter referred to as “transfer.”

–          2. This Treaty shall not apply to the international movement of conventional arms by a State Party or its agents for its armed forces or law enforcement authorities operating outside its national territories, provided they remain under the State Party’s ownership.

 

Article 3

Prohibited Transfers

  1. A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty if the transfer would violate any obligation under any measure adopted by the United Nations Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular arms embargoes.
  2. A State Party shall not authorize any transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty if the transfer would violate its relevant international obligations, under international agreements, to which it is a Party, in particular those relating to the international transfer of, or illicit trafficking in, conventional arms.
  3. A State Party shall not authorize a transfer of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty for the purpose of facilitating the commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes constituting grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

 

Article 4

National Assessment

  1. Each State Party, in considering whether to authorize an export of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty, shall, prior to authorization and through national control systems, make an assessment specific to the circumstances of the transfer based on the following criteria:
  2. Whether the proposed export of conventional arms would:
    1. Be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian law;
    2. Be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international human rights law;
    3. Contribute to peace and security;
    4. Be used to commit or facilitate an act constituting an offense under international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism or transnational organized crime, to which the transferring State is a Party;
  3. In making the assessment, the transferring State Party shall apply the criteria set out in Paragraph 2 consistently and in an objective and non-discriminatory manner and in accordance with the principles set out in this Treaty, taking into account relevant factors, including information provided by the importing State.

4. In assessing the risk pursuant to Paragraph 2, the transferring State Party may also take into consideration the establishment of risk mitigation measures including confidence-building measures and jointly developed programs by the exporting and importing State.

5. If in the view of the authorizing State Party, this assessment, which would include any actions that may be taken in accordance with Paragraph 4, constitutes a substantial risk, the State Party shall not authorize the transfer.

 

Article 5

Additional Obligations

  1. Each State Party, when authorizing an export, shall consider taking feasible measures, including joint actions with other States involved in the transfer, to avoid the transferred arms:
  2. being diverted to the illicit market;
  3. be used to commit or facilitate gender-based violence or violence against children;
  4. become subject to corrupt practices; or
  5. adversely impact the development of the recipient State.

 

Article 6

General Implementation

  1. Each State Party shall implement this Treaty in a consistent, objective and non-discriminatory manner in accordance with the goals and objectives of this Treaty;
  2. The implementation of this Treaty shall not prejudice previous or future obligations undertaken with regards to international instruments, provided that those obligations are consistent with the goals and objectives of this Treaty. This Treaty shall not be cited as grounds for voiding contractual obligations under defense cooperation agreements concluded by States Parties to this Treaty.
  3. Each State Party shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures necessary to implement the provisions of this Treaty and designate competent national authorities in order to have an effective, transparent and predictable national control system regulating the transfer of conventional arms;
  4. Each State Party shall establish one or more national contact points to exchange information on matters related to the implementation of this Treaty. A State Party shall notify the Implementation Support Unit (See Article 13) of its national contact point(s) and keep the information updated.
  5. State Parties involved in a transfer of conventional arms shall, in a manner consistent with the principles of this Treaty, take appropriate measures to prevent diversion to the illicit market or to unauthorized end-users.  All State Parties shall cooperate, as appropriate, with the exporting State to that end.
  6. . If a diversion is detected the State or States Parties that made the decision shall verify the State or States Parties that could be affected by such diversion, in particulate those State Parties that are involved in the transfer, without delay.
  7.  Each State Party shall take the appropriate measures, within national laws and regulations, to regulate transfers of conventional arms within the scope of the Treaty.

 

Article 7

Export

  1. Each State Party shall conduct risk assessments, as detailed in Articles 4 and 5, whether to grant authorizations for the transfer of conventional arms under the scope of this Treaty.  State Parties shall apply Articles 3-5 consistently, taking into account all relevant information, including the nature and potential use of the items to be transferred and the verified end-user in the country of final destination.
  2. Each State Party shall take measures to ensure all authorizations for the export of conventional arms under the scope of the Treaty are detailed and issued prior to the export.  Appropriate and relevant details of the authorization shall be made available to the importing, transit and transshipment State Parties, upon request.

 

Article 8

Import

  1. Importing State Parties shall take measures to ensure that appropriate and relevant information is provided, upon request, to the exporting State Party to assist the exporting State in its criteria assessment and to assist in verifying end users.
  2. State Parties shall put in place adequate measures that will allow them, where necessary, to monitor and control imports of items covered by the scope of the Treaty.  State Parties shall also adopt appropriate measures to prevent the diversion of imported items to unauthorized end users or to the illicit market.
  3. Importing State Parties may request, where necessary, information from the exporting State Party concerning potential authorizations.

 

Article 9

Brokering

  1. Each State Party shall take the appropriate measures, within national laws and regulations, to control brokering taking place under its jurisdiction for conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty.

 

Article 10

Transit and Transshipment

  1. Each State Party shall adopt appropriate legislative, administrative or other measures to monitor and control, where necessary and feasible, conventional arms covered by this Treaty that transit or transship through territory under its jurisdiction, consistent with international law with due regard for innocent passage and transit passage;
  2. Importing and exporting States Parties shall cooperate and exchange information, where feasible and upon request, to transit and transshipment States Parties, in order to mitigate the risk of discretion;

 

Article 11

Reporting, Record Keeping and Transparency

  1. Each State Party shall maintain records in accordance with its national laws and regardless of the items referred to in Article 2, Paragraph A, with regards to conventional arms authorization or exports, and where feasible  of those items transferred to their territory as the final destination, or that are authorized to transit or transship their territory, respectively.
  2. Such records may contain: quantity, value, model/type, authorized arms transfers, arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), recipient State(s), and end users as appropriate. Records shall be kept for a minimum of ten years, or consistent with other international commitments applicable to the State Party.
  3. States Parties may report to the Implementation Support Unit on an annual basis any actions taken to address the diversion of conventional arms to the illicit market.
  4. Each State Party shall, within the first year after entry into force of this Treaty for that State Party, provide an initial report to States Parties of relevant activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty; including inter alia, domestic laws, regulations and administrative measures. States Parties shall report any new activities undertaken in order to implement this Treaty, when appropriate. Reports shall be distributed and made public by the Implementation Support Unit.
  5. Each State Party shall submit annually to the Implementation Support Unit by 31 May a report for the preceding calendar year concerning the authorization or actual transfer of items included in Article 2, Paragraph A1. Reports shall be distributed and made public by the Implementation Support Unit. The report submitted to the Implementation Support Unit may contain the same type of information submitted by the State Party to other relevant UN bodies, including the UN Register of Conventional Arms. Reports will be consistent with national security sensitivities or be commercially sensitive.

 

ARTICLE 12 

ENFORCEMENT

  1. Each State Party shall adopt national legislation or other appropriate national measures regulations and policies as may be necessary to implement the obligations of this Treaty.

 

ARTICLE 13

IMPLEMENTATION SUPPORT UNIT

  1. This Treaty hereby establishes an Implementation Support Unit to assist States Parties in its implementation.
  2. The ISU shall consist of adequate staff, with necessary expertise to ensure the mandate entrusted to it can be effectively undertaken, with the core costs funded by States Parties.
  3. The implementation Support Unit, within a minimized structure and responsible to States Parties, shall undertake the responsibilities assigned to it in this Treaty, inter alia:
    1. Receive distribute reports, on behalf of the Depository, and make them publicly available;
    2. Maintain and Distribute regularly to States Parties the up-to-date list of national contact points;
    3. Facilitate the matching of offers and requests of assistance for Treaty implementation and promote international cooperation as requested;
    4. Facilitate the work of the Conference of States Parties, including making arrangements and providing the necessary service es for meetings under this Treaty; and
    5. Perform other duties as mandated by the Conference of States Parties.

 

ARTICLE 14

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

  1. States Parties shall designate national points of contact to act as a liaison on matters relating to the implementation of this Treaty.
  2. States Parties shall cooperate closely with one another, as appropriate, to enhance the implementation of this Treaty consistent with their respective security interests and legal and administrative systems.

States Parties are encouraged to facilitate international cooperation, including the exchange of information on matters of mutual interest regarding the implementation and application of this Treaty in accordance with their national legal system. Such voluntary exchange of information may include, inter alia, information on national implementation measures as well as information on specific exporters, importers and brokers and on any prosecutions brought domestically, consistent with commercial and proprietary protections and domestic laws, regulations and respective legal and administrative systems.

4.   Each State Party is encouraged to maintain consultations and to share information, as appropriate, to support the implementation of this Treaty, including through their national contact points.

5. States Parties shall cooperate to enforce the provisions of this Treaty and combat breaches of this Treaty, including sharing information regarding illicit activities and actors to assist national enforcement and to counter and prevent diversion. States Parties may also exchange information on lessons learned in relation to any aspect of this Treaty, to develop best practices to assist national implementation.

Article 15
International Assistance

  1. In fulfilling the obligation of this Treaty, States Parties may seek, inter alia, legal assistance, legislative assistance, technical assistance, institutional capacity building, material assistance or financial assistance. States, in a position to do so, shall provide such assistance. States Parties may contribute resources to a voluntary trust fund to assist requesting States Parties requiring such assistance to implement the Treaty.
  2. States Parties shall afford one another the widest measure of assistance, consistent with their respective legal and administrative systems, in investigations, prosecutions and judicial proceedings in relation to the violations of the national measures implemented to comply with obligations under of the provisions of this Treaty.
  3. Each State Party may offer or receive assistance, inter alia, through the United Nations international, regional, subregional or national organizations, non-governmental organizations or on a bi-lateral basis. Such assistance may include technical, financial, material and other forms of assistance as needed, upon request.

Article 16
Signature, Ratification, Acceptance, Approval or Accession

  1. This Treaty shall be open for signature on [date] at the United Nations Headquarters in New York by all States and regional integration organizations.
  2. This Treaty is subject to ratification, acceptance or approval of the Signatories.
  3. This Treaty shall be open for accession by any state and regional integration organization that has not signed the Treaty.

4. The instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession shall be deposited with the Depositary.

5. The Depositary shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States and regional integration organizations of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession and the date of the entry into force of this Treaty, and of the receipt of notices.

6. “Regional integration organization” shall mean an organization constituted by sovereign States of a given region, to which its Member States have transferred competence in respect of matters governed by this Treaty and which has been duly authorized, in accordance with its internal procedures, to sign, ratify, accept, approve or accede to it.

7.  At the time of its ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, a regional integration organization shall declare the extent of its competence with respect to matters governed by this Treaty.  Such organizations shall also inform the Depositary of any relevant modifications in the extent of it competence.

8.  References to “State Parties” in the present Treaty shall apply to such organizations within the limits of their competence.

 

Article 17

Entry into Force

  1. This Treaty shall enter into force thirty days following the date of the deposit of the sixty-fifth instrument of ratification, acceptance or approval with the Depositary.
  2. For any State or regional integration organization that deposits its instruments of accession subsequent to the entry into force of the Treaty, the Treaty shall enter into force thirty days following the date of deposit of its instruments of accession.
  3. For the purpose of Paragraph 1 and 2 above, any instrument deposited by a regional integration organization shall not be counted as additional to those deposited by Member States of that organization.

 

Article 18

Withdrawal and Duration

  1. This Treaty shall be of unlimited duration.
  2. Each State Party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Convention. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties from this Convention.  It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other States Parties and to the Depositary.  The instrument of withdrawal shall include a full explanation of the reasons motivating this withdrawal.
  3. A state shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this treaty while it was a party to the Treaty, including any financial obligations, which may have accrued.

 

Article 19
Reservations

  1. Each State party, in exercising its national sovereignty, may formulate reservations unless the reservation is incompatible with the object and purpose of this Treaty.

 

Article 20
Amendments

  1. At any time after the Treaty’s entry into force, a State Party may propose an amendment to this Treaty.
  2. Any proposed amendment shall be submitted in writing to the Depository, which will then circulate the proposal to all States Parties, not less than 180 days before next meeting of the Conference of States Parties. The amendment shall be considered at the next Conference of States Parties if a majority of States Parties notify the Implementation Support Unit that they support further consideration of the proposal no later than 180 days after its circulation by the Depositary.
  3. Any amendment to this Treaty shall be adopted by consensus, or if consensus is not achieved, by two-thirds of the States Parties present and voting at the Conference of States Parties. The Depositary shall communicate any amendment to all States Parties.
  4. A proposed amendment adopted in accordance with Paragraph 3 of this Article shall enter into force for all States Parties to the Treaty that have accepted it, upon deposit with the Depositary. Thereafter, it shall enter into force for any remaining State Party on the date of deposit of its instrument of accession.

 

Article 21
Conference of States Parties

  1. The Conference of States Parties shall be convened not later than once a year following the entry into force of this Treaty. The Conference of States Parties shall adopt rules of procedure and rules governing its activities, including the frequency of meetings and rules concerning payment of expenses incurred in carrying out those activities.

The Conference of States Parties shall:
a. Consider and adopt recommendations regarding the implementation of this Treaty, in particular the promotion of its universality; TR

b. Consider amendments to this Treaty;

c. Consider and decide the work and budget of the Implementation Support Unit;

d. Consider the establishment of any subsidiary bodies as may be necessary to improve the functioning of the Treaty;

e. Perform any other function consistent with this Treaty.

3. If circumstances merit, an exceptional meeting of the State Parties may be convened if required and resources allow.

 

Article 22
Dispute Settlement

  1. States Parties shall consult and cooperate with each other to settle any dispute that may arise with regard to the interpretation or application of this Treaty.
  2. States Parties shall settle any dispute between them concerning the interpretation or application of this Treat though negotiations or other peaceful means of the Parties mutual choice.
  3. States Parties may pursue, by mutual consent, third party arbitration to settle any dispute between them, regarding issues concerning the implementation of this Treaty.

 

Article 23
Relations with States not party to this Treaty

  1. States Parties shall apply Articles 3-5 to all transfers of conventional arms within the scope of this Treaty to those not party to this Treaty.

 

Article 24
Relationship with other instruments

  1. States Parties shall have the right to enter into agreements on the trade in conventional arms with regards to the international trade in conventional arms, provided that those agreements are compatible with their obligations under this Treaty and do not undermine the objects and purposes of this Treaty.

 

Article 25
Depositary and Authentic Texts

  1. The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the Depositary of this Treaty.
  2. The original text of this Treaty, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic.

 

 

The Arms Trade Treaty – Falling Apart?

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

Original Story Via:  AmmoLand.com

By Paul Gallant, Sherry Gallant, Alan Chwick, & Joanne D. Eisen

Manasquan, NJ –-(Ammoland.com)- With only a week left for treaty negotiations, one might surmise from the multitude of complaints of its proponents that the Treaty, as it is being drafted, is destined to fail because it is becoming too weak.

But no matter how “strong” its language, it will fail very simply because it’s a foolish idea, concocted with fantasies that cannot work.

Deepayan Basu Ray,of anti-gun group Oxfam, stated: “Under no circumstances should countries agree to a watered down Treaty that fails to control the arms trade and failsto reduce human suffering.”

And here we thought all along that the objective of an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was to control the illegal arms trade, not to control the actions of tyrants (an impossible goal)!

Attempting to press home a sense of urgency, Anna MacDonald, Head of the Arms Control Campaign at (anti-gun) Oxfam, stated: “The negotiations are running at least a week behind schedule. The clock is ticking now and we need to see a greater sense of urgency from delegates, who must agree a strong treaty text [sic]. The world is watching, and people across the globe are demanding a treaty that will tighten up controls on the arms trade and close the loop holes that allow the illicit and irresponsible part of the trade to flourish. There is not a moment to lose.”

The arguments and complaints being bandied about by Treaty proponents are abundant.

For example,the July 19 issue of the Arms Trade Treaty Monitor states:

On Wednesday morning, the Chair of Main Committee I released a new draft text on the goals and objectives of the arms trade treaty (ATT). The most glaring change to the text was the removal of language stating that preventing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law is an objective of the treaty. Leaving this out will have serious repercussions for the negotiation of other sections of the treaty and for the treaty’s implementation. It is an abso­lute necessity that this be corrected [sic].

The revised language, written by the Chair of the Main Committee I, states that “The goals of the treaty are….in order to…. ensure that the international trade in conventional arms does not contribute or facilitate human suffering….” This is upsetting to the Treaty’s advocates because “Without an explicit reference to gender-based violence, international humanitarian law (IHL), and international human rights law (IHRL), the treaty is in substantial danger of failing to meet its original purpose.

The Treaty’s proponents further complain about language that is watered down:

Achieving the fundamental goals of the ATT also means the treaty will need strong, clear, and effective implementation mechanisms. Unfortunately, the draft text on implementation does not yet meet this requirement. It suggests notification of export authorizations to relevant transit and transshipment states would be voluntary when it should be mandatory. It indicates that contractual obligations to sell arms would supersede the ATT when clearly the ATT should take precedence. It suggests actions states “may” take on brokering, when such actions should be mandatory.In general, it is vague on binding language. If adopted as written, the implementation section would undermine the treaty’s objectives [emphasis ours].

There are practical reasons for these complaints. The Treaty’s proponents need to pressure those countries that expect to be on the receiving end of generous financial gifts, and which are expected to increase their capacity to comply with the Treaty’s obligations. They also need to keep their supporters eager for the next “iterations”(revisions) to come.

The only benefits to us of a weaker treaty is that it will take longer to implement —and longer to fail— giving us the time we need to ride out the destructive waves of futile and foolish attempts to control the actions of evil-doers, and to destroy legal civilian firearm ownership.

We certainly should not be depending on U.S. politicians to safeguard our right to self-protection, as they have not done so in the past. We cannot depend on our national firearm organizations, as they are only as strong as we make them. (With an estimated 70-80 milliongun-owners in the U.S., how many support the various national firearm organizations??)

We need time to prepare for a new century of attempts to break the strength of civilian sovereignty, and a rash of new weapon-control laws attempting to bring us into compliance with “global norms,” luring us with the hint of paradise on earth.

About the authors:
Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne D. Eisen practice optometry and dentistry,respectively, on Long Island, NY, and have collaborated on firearm politics forthe past 20 years. They have also collaborated with David B. Kopel since 2000, and are Senior Fellows at the Independence Institute, where Kopel is Research Director. Most recently, Gallant and Eisen have also written with Alan J.Chwick. Sherry Gallant has been instrumental in the editing of virtually all ofthe authors’ writings, and is immensely knowledgeable in the area of firearm politics; she actively co-authored this article.

Almost all of the co-authored writings of Gallant, Eisen, Kopel and Chwick can be found at www.gallanteisen.incnf.org, which contains more detailed information about their biographies and writing, and contains hyperlinks to manyof their articles. Their recent series focusing on the Arms Trade Treaty can be found primarily at www.gwg.incnf.org

26 NEW CO-SPONSORS TO 2A PROTECTION ACT IS ‘GOOD NEWS,’ SAYS CCRKBA

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

Original Story Via:  TheGunMag.com

Twenty-six more members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors to the Second Amendment Protection Act, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms announced today.

“This is good news,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “With a vote looming on the proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, this sends a clear message to the Obama administration that the president will face real trouble if he or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signs any document that threatens our constitutionally-protected individual right to keep and bear arms.”

Sponsored by Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh, H.R. 3594 was written with help from CCRKBA staff, Gottlieb noted.  It now has 60 co-sponsors, and has been referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. CCRKBA has been urging members and supporters to contact Congress and demand action on this bill.

“The U.N. is scheduled to vote on the proposed treaty next week,” Gottlieb said. “Right now they are pushing to include small arms and ammunition, and because the Devil is always in the details, when they finally hammer out a document that the Obama administration has already indicated it will sign, this could be extremely bad for American gun owners.

“Fortunately, Congressman Walsh had the foresight to understand this,” he continued, “so he introduced this legislation to protect Second Amendment sovereignty. We want the United Nations gun grabbers, and the Obama administration to understand that they are treading in perilous waters if they adopt a treaty that even remotely threatens the firearms freedoms of our citizens.

“We are coming down to the wire on this treaty,” Gottlieb stated. “Our constitutional rights far outweigh the administration’s desire to push its ‘citizen-of-the-world’ philosophy down the throats of American gun owners. We want to see action on the Second Amendment Protection Act, and with 26 new co-sponsors, we are one step closer to achieving that goal.”

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of the nation’s premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass-roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States. The Citizens Committee can be reached by phone at (425) 454-4911, on the Internet at www.ccrkba.org or by email to InformationRequest@ccrkba.org

UN gun control treaty will reveal gun laws Obama really supports

Thursday, July 19th, 2012

Original Story Via:  / FoxNews.com

Sometime later this week, the UN will finally unveil its Arms Trade Treaty. The exact date the treaty will be released is a secret.

Russia, China, France — with its new Socialist government — Britain and the Obama administration are writing the treaty behind closed doors. Yet even if the final treaty is being kept under wraps, we still have a pretty good idea of some of the requirements that will be in it.

The group writing the treaty is not promising. Russia and Britain ban handguns and many other types of weapons. The possession of guns for self-defense is completely prohibited in China. The Obama administration is undoubtedly the most hostile administration to gun ownership in US history, with Obama having personally supported bans of handguns and semi-automatic weapons before becoming president. And remember the recent scandal where the Obama administration was caught allowing guns go to Mexican drug gangs, hoping it would help push for gun control laws.

The treaty seems unlikely to ever receive the two-thirds majority necessary to be ratified by the US Senate, but that doesn’t mean it still won’t have consequences for Americans. In other countries with parliamentary systems, even if the relatively conservative parties oppose approval, ratification is just a matter of time until a left-wing government takes power. Reduced private gun ownership around the world will surely lead to more pressure for gun control in our own country.

The treaty officially aims to prevent rebels and terrorist groups from getting hold of guns. The treaty claims that at least 250,000 people die each year from armed conflicts and that the vast majority of deaths arise from so-called “small arms” — machine guns, rifles, and handguns.

Regulations of private ownership will supposedly prevent rebels and terrorist groups from getting ahold of guns. But governments, not private individuals, are the sources for these weapons. For example, the FARC fighting in Colombia get their guns from the Venezuelan government.

The most likely regulations to be pushed by the UN treaty are those that have been the favorites of American gun control advocates for years — registration and licensing, micro-stamping ammunition, and restrictions on the private transfers of guns. Unfortunately, these measures have a long history of failure and primarily just inconvenience and disarm law-abiding gun owners.

Gun registration and licensing are pushed as a way to trace those who supply these illicit weapons. Yet, to see the problem with these regulations, one only needs to look at how ineffective they have been in solving crime. Canada just recently ended its long gun registry as it was a colossal waste of money.

Beginning in 1998, Canadians spent a whopping $2.7 billion on creating and running a registry for long guns — in the US, the same amount per gun owner would come to $67 billion. For all that money, the registry was never credited with solving a single murder. Instead, it became an enormous waste of police officers’ time, diverting their efforts from traditional policing activities.

Gun control advocates have long claimed registration is a safety issue. Their reasoning is straightforward: If a gun is left at a crime scene, and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link it back to the criminal.

Unfortunately, it rarely works out this way. Criminals are seldom stupid enough to leave behind crime guns that are registered to themselves.

From 2003 to 2009, there were 4,257 homicides in Canada, 1,314 of which were committed with firearms. Data provided last fall by the Library of Parliament reveal that murder weapons were recovered in less than a third of the homicides with firearms. About three-quarters of the identified weapons were unregistered. Of the weapons that were registered, about half were registered to someone other than the person accused of the homicide.

In only 62 cases — that is, nine per year, or about 1 percent of all homicides in Canada — was the gun registered to the accused. Even in these cases, the registry did not appear to have played an important role in finding the killer. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police have not yet provided a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a case.

Note that the Canadian data provided above cover all guns, including handguns. It isn’t just the long-gun registry — there is also no evidence that Canada’s handgun registry, started in 1934, has ever been important in solving a single homicide.

Micro-stamping involves putting unique codes on a bullet. The most commonly discussed method is to have a special etching that is on the tip of a firing pin, the piece of metal that strikes a bullet and sets off the explosion, that will leave a mark on the bullet casing. The notion then is that if the casing is left a crime scene, the bullet can be traced back to the owner of the gun. The problem is that firing pins can easily be replaced or altered.

As to restrictions on the private transfers of guns, the most common type of regulation involves background checks. Yet, whether one is talking about the Brady Act or the so-called gun show loophole, economists and criminologists who have looked at this simply don’t find evidence that such regulations reduce crime and may even increase it. Indeed, as the surges in murder rates after gun bans in the US and around the world show, such regulations don’t stop criminals from getting guns. A huge percentage of violent crime in the US is drug gang related, and just as those gangs can bring in the illegal drugs, they can bring in the weapons that they use to protect that valuable property.

The treaty will give Americans yet another insight into the types of gun control laws that President Obama really supports. The good news is that the US Senate will almost certainly prevent him from getting the treaty adopted here. Most rest of the world won’t be so lucky.

A sneaky way to control guns: UN treaty could curtail our rights

Wednesday, July 18th, 2012

Original Story Via:  / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Gun-control advocates and the Obama administration are rushing to complete negotiations in New York on a proposed international agreement called the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.

They hope to finish the drafting within weeks, perhaps having a document ready for signature so that President Obama could press a lame-duck Senate to ratify it after our Nov. 6 elections.

Because these UNATT negotiations had long escaped serious media attention, many Americans are only now learning about their disturbing direction.

Gun-control groups, frustrated by years of failing to impose harsh measures on American firearms owners, have pursued a covert strategy. Instead of constant defeats in Congress and local legislatures, they instead shifted their attention to the international realm, hoping to achieve by indirection what they had consistently failed to do at home.

Ostensibly, UNATT is about regulating government-to-government arms transfers or direct sales by manufacturers to foreign governments. But the hidden agenda of the gun controllers is to craft treaty language that, while seemingly innocuous, has long-range implications for the use and ownership of guns here in America.

The real danger lies in vague, ambiguous stipulations gun-control advocates could later cite as requiring further domestic restraints. In other words, they hope to use restrictions on international gun sales to control gun sales at home.

Indeed, the theme underlying the negotiations is that the private ownership of guns is inherently dangerous.

There is, of course, little doubt why dictatorships and authoritarian regimes don’t want their oppressed citizens to have weapons — but such positions do not merit American support.

There are compelling arguments for closely monitoring foreign sales of truly military weapons such as machine guns, crew-served mortars and shoulder-fired missiles. Keeping such arms out of the hands of rogue states and terrorists is, beyond dispute, in our national interest.

But the United States already has a strong regulatory regime under the Arms Export Control Act to license the export of American-made weapons.

Extensive controls surround the ultimate purchasers and the uses to which the weapons are put.

We can be justifiably proud of our regulatory system. Unfortunately, however, there is little or no evidence the proposed UNATT will have any material effect on illicit international trafficking of weapons.

Many other nations, such as Russia, are much less scrupulous than we are. And countries that are unwilling or unable to police their own domestic manufacturers are not likely to change merely by signing yet another international agreement.

Moreover, there is a world of difference between weapons for military campaigns and those used for recreation and hunting. The U.S. has a long history of respecting the individual ownership of firearms. It is against this legitimate tradition of private ownership that gun-control advocates are exerting their efforts.

Their strategy surfaced most clearly in 2001 at a UN conference aiming to restrict international sales of “small arms and light weapons,” a precursor to the current negotiations. I was part of the Bush administration’s diplomacy to block this effort, which we ultimately succeeded in doing.

During the 2001 debate, I spoke at the UN General Assembly in New York, and the reaction to my remarks revealed the gun-controllers’ hidden agenda.

I said merely that the United States would not agree to any proposed treaty that would violate our Second Amendment freedoms. From the gun-control lobby’s reaction, you would have thought I said something outrageous or even dangerous. In truth, they knew we had uncovered their agenda and spiked it.

Indeed, during the Bush administration’s remaining years, despite occasional flareups of activity, the gun controllers laid low, waiting for their opportunity.

They may have waited too long, because their current frantic efforts betray their fear that Obama could lose in November, replaced by a pro-Second Amendment Romney administration. Significantly, a bipartisan letter signed by 58 senators has already rejected any treaty that seeks, however cleverly, to impose gun-control obligations on the U.S.

The gun-control crowd’s strategy of trying to do through treaties what it cannot accomplish in America’s domestic political process is not unique to that issue.

We have seen and will undoubtedly see many more examples of frustrated statists, unable to prevail in free and open debate, seeking to take their issues global, hoping to find more sympathetic audiences.

Stopping UNATT will be one clear way to send a message that such strategies are doomed to failure.

Bolton was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush.

American Legion Calls for Rejection of Arms Trade Treaty

Monday, July 16th, 2012

Original Story Via: MarketWatch

INDIANAPOLIS, Jul 10, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Calling a proposed United Nations Arms Trade Treaty a “potential threat to our Constitutional rights,” the head of the nation’s largest organization of wartime veterans said the White House and the U.S. Senate should reject any proposal that usurps the sovereignty of the American people.

“Since the American Revolution, America’s veterans have defended the U.S. Constitution,” said American Legion National Commander Fang A. Wong. “Many died. Many bled. The American Legion has always opposed usurpation of U.S. sovereignty by an international body. We opposed the International Criminal Court on the grounds that it left U.S. service members vulnerable to charges of alleged war crimes. We opposed the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) because it created a precedent for future share-the-wealth schemes. We opposed U.S. troops being placed under the command of U.N. forces. And any Arms Trade Treaty that not only threatens the Second Amendment rights that are enshrined in our Constitution, but also represents the growing movement to place an international entity above our governing and founding document will be opposed. While we understand the effort to combat the international trade in arms that make possible human rights violations and genocide, the drafters should be cognizant that the United States views its Constitution, including the Second Amendment, as preeminent.”

The American Legion has been a staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution since the organization was founded in 1919. It has repeatedly passed national resolutions reaffirming support for the Second Amendment and other constitutional rights. At its 1996 national convention in Salt Lake City, American Legion delegates unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming that “the efforts of government should be directed to the enforcement of existing laws rather than banning the possession of firearms by the millions of our citizens who desire them for traditionally legitimate purposes…”

The American Legion was founded on the four pillars of a strong national security, veterans affairs, Americanism, and youth programs. Legionnaires work for the betterment of their communities through more than 14,000 posts across the nation.

SOURCE: The American Legion

From whom are ATT proponents getting their talking points?

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Original Story Via:  Dave Workman, Seattle Gun Rights Examiner

Two opinion pieces by retired U.S. military personnel published on the same day in two different publications – both supporting the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty – bear strikingly similar comments, leading Gun Rights Examiner to question who provided talking points to a retired Navy rear admiral and retired Army major general.

These Op-Ed pieces appeared Thursday in Newsday and The Hill, at the same time that Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, was blitzing the Internet to urge gun owners to oppose the treaty, and contact their two U.S. Senators. Gottlieb will be at the U.N. during the fateful week when negotiations on this treaty are to be wrapped up.

Gottlieb was instrumental in the creation of the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR).

Retired military offices have just as much right to support or oppose an issue as any other American citizen. They just shouldn’t say it from what appears to have been the same script.

Rear Admiral (Ret.) Stuart F. Platt, joined by Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, had this to say in their July 12 Op-Ed that appeared in Newsday:

There’s less oversight on sales of grenade launchers in international markets than of iPods or bananas. Yes, you read that right: We have strict international rules and regulations on selling fruit and MP3 players, but no unifying international laws governing the sale of weapons…

“… While the United States maintains some of the strictest regulations on the import and export of tanks, guns, missiles, ammunition and other arms, many countries have little to no regulation at all. This patchwork system makes it all too easy for traffickers to sell powerful weapons and ammunition to terrorists and warlords that they can then use against our troops and innocent civilians.’

Compare those remarks to what appeared under the byline of Major General Roger R. Blunt (Ret.) in Thursday’s edition of The Hill:

We have international agreements regulating the cross-border sale of iPods and bananas, but we have no global treaties governing the international sale of weapons. The ATT would fix that by becoming the first-ever treaty governing the international trade of conventional weapons.

“The United States has some of the strictest regulations when it comes to the import and export of tanks, attack helicopters, guns, grenades and ammunition, but many countries — especially in the developing world — have little to no regulation. This patchwork system of national laws rewards bad actors by making it easy for them to exploit loopholes. These loopholes are used to arm the terrorists and insurgents killing our troops and warlords who are responsible for untold suffering throughout the developing world.’

A remarkable coincidence of commentary?

One would hardly question the patriotism of men who devoted their lives to the defense of this country. However, the issue at hand isn’t patriotism, but United States constitutional sovereignty. In this case, the Second Amendment-protected individual right to keep and bear arms is allegedly at risk, according to CCRKBA and other gun rights organizations, including the National Rifle Association.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre spoke at the U.N. this week, as reported by this column, and CCRKBA was involved in crafting House and Senate legislation to prevent a global gun control treaty from affecting the Second Amendment.

Today’s exercise is about the First Amendment, which gun rights advocates also hold dear, along with the other amendments that delineate individual rights in the Bill of Rights. This column has no dispute with Maj. Gen. Blunt, Rear Admiral Platt or Mr. Carey about exercising their right to free speech.

It’s just curious how they managed to say it so similarly on the same day in two different publications.

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and the Second Amendment

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Original Story Via:  Foundry.org

By Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D.

For much of the past two weeks, I’ve been attending the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty conference in New York and blogging on the craziness of Turtle Bay. A number of comments on my blogs—and many external commentators—have raised the question of whether the ATT is, pure and simple, a “gun grab” treaty.

Let’s start with three basic points:

  1. No external power, and certainly not the U.N., can disarm U.S. citizens or deprive us of our Second Amendment rights by force. If there is a Second Amendment problem, it comes from the actions of U.S. authorities.
  2. The U.N. and many of its member states are hostile to the private ownership of firearms.
  3. The U.S. is exceptional: It is one of the few nations that has a constitutional provision akin to the Second Amendment.

Thus, the default U.N. tendency—partly out of malevolence, partly out of ignorance—is to act in ways contrary to the Second Amendment, and the fundamental job of the U.S. at the U.N. is to try to stop bad things from happening. The alternative of completely quitting the entire U.N. is appealing but unwise, because the U.N. would keep doing things that would affect the U.S. even if we were not in it.

The U.N. is aware of the political dangers of appearing to stomp openly on the Second Amendment. It uses code words; it runs closed meetings—a veteran of the process tells me that meetings were normally open until the National Rifle Association began showing up at them—and, above all, it plays a long game. A big problem with talking about the ATT as a “gun grab” treaty is that the U.N. works by taking slices: when it comes to the U.N., being outraged by one development is no substitute for focusing on how the slices pile up over time.

I don’t give much too much credit to the U.S. for stating as a red line that it will uphold the Second Amendment, because that raises the question of what relevant activities are (as the State Department puts it in its red line) “permitted by law or protected by the U.S. Constitution.” Simply backing the Second Amendment is good, but it is better to spell out—as Senator Jerry Moran (R–KS) did at Heritage recently—exactly what rights and activities you believe the Second Amendment protects. Only in that way does a promise to uphold the Second Amendment carry the full weight that it deserves.

So what are the domestic concerns posed by the ATT? Four are important.

  1. Transfer requirements. First, there are specific textual requirements. The most recent draft text states, for example, that the ATT will apply to “all international transfers of conventional arms” but then goes on to define “international transfers” as “the transfer of title or control over the conventional arms.”

Does this mean that any transfers, including domestic ones, count as international and are thus subject to the treaty’s provisions? There are similar concerns related to the potential reporting requirements of the treaty and thus to the possible creation of a U.N.-based gun registry. If it is to be true to its published red lines, the U.S. cannot accept any of this.

  1. International business. Second, most major U.S. arms manufacturers have an international financing, insurance, and parts and components chain. The ATT could become a means for foreign countries to pressure U.S. firms to exit the market, reducing the ability of Americans to make effective use of their firearms rights.
  2. Further review of the rules. This is not the end of the process. The ATT will be elaborated at review conferences, where the U.S. goal is to develop “best practices” for its implementation. Similarly, if President Obama were to sign the ATT but not submit it to the Senate for ratification, the U.S. would hold itself obligated to “refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose” of the ATT.
  3. Constitutional interpretation. Finally, the ATT is part of a process that will inspire judges and legal theorists who believe that the Constitution needs to be reinterpreted in light of transnational norms. This is the most important problem of all, though it is broader than the ATT.

Just because the ATT is not a “gun grab” treaty does not mean it raises no domestic concerns: “Gun grabs” are less plausible than “death by a thousand cuts.” On the other hand, the ATT should raise concerns beyond the Second Amendment. Representative Mike Kelly (R–PA) recently led 130 of his colleagues in expressing a range of concerns about the ATT to the Administration.

It makes sense to balance legitimate expressions of concern for the Second Amendment with concerns on economic, foreign policy, and national security grounds. There’s enough to dislike about the ATT to keep everyone busy.

SAAMI official statement at UN ATT negotiations

Friday, July 13th, 2012

SAAMI – the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute – delivered the following official statement at the UN Arms Trade Treaty negotiations.

Click here for the official copy via SAAMI

UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty

New York, 11 July 2012

Statement by Richard Patterson, Managing Director

Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc.

Thank you, Mr. President. My name is Richard Patterson and I’m the Managing Director of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, also known as SAAMI. SAAMI was created in 1926 at the request of the US government to create safety and reliability standards in the design, manufacture, transportation, storage and use of firearms, ammunition and components.

The true success of this conference requires a focus on the big picture. Guns are tools, and like any tool can be used for great good and great harm. We all know the tragedy caused by those few who choose the path of violence, regardless of the tools they use. But you must also remember that hundreds of millions of citizens regularly use firearms for the greater good. Regulated hunting keeps wildlife populations in balance with healthy ecosystems and is a major contributor to economic stability—and thereby promotes peace—in rural areas and developing countries. Target shooting has its roots in the very beginnings of civilization. This is an Olympic year, and shooting events attract the third largest number of participating nations of any sport at the Olympic Games. And people in every nation in this room—including the UN itself—use firearms to protect the law abiding and enforce peace. A well-meaning treaty that does not support the positive use of firearms is doomed to cause more harm than good. A simple step in the right direction is to focus on the fully automatic weapons of war and exclude sporting firearms.

There are some who want to see the inclusion of small arms ammunition in this treaty. As the UN’s Group of Government Experts has determined, the shear numbers involved in ammunition—the US alone produces more than 8 billion rounds of ammunition per year and there are potentially hundreds of billions of rounds in stockpiles around the world—prevent any sort of realistic marking and tracing scheme. But even if the treaty includes a general requirement for shipments, what will that do? The US has some great legal and technical points supporting their position, but let me focus for a minute on the practical side of the equation. Millions of dollars would be spent creating and implementing an export and import authorization process for ammunition. Even more money must be spent for a system of verification. As an example, let’s say a shipment of 1 ton of small arms ammunition goes through this bureaucratic process and is approved. An expensive follow-up system results in a trained inspector showing up at the intended point of delivery. The inspector sees there is far less than 1 ton of ammunition and says “Where’s the rest of the shipment?”

And the answer is “we shot it.”

Now what does the inspector do? Millions of dollars would have been wasted—diverted into a system that cannot work. This money could otherwise have been used to fight those who choose violence.

Just as you cannot be all things to all people, this treaty can’t either. Focus on the real problems, that can be managed—focus on military weapons, and avoid being distracted by topics like ammunition, which are laudable in their idealism, but completely lacking in their practicality. Be focused, be specific, and draft a treaty with precise definitions that minimize the loopholes of “creative interpretation.” This is the path to a successful Arms Trade Treaty.

Thank you.

VIDEO: NFA’s Sheldon Clare on the UN ATT

Friday, July 13th, 2012

Original Story Via:  Sun News Canada

Global Gun Grab: Sheldon Clare from the Canadian National Firearms Association (NFA) talks about the UN’s infatuation with getting it wrong when it comes to guns.

For more information on IAPCAR member NFA visit http://www.nfa.ca/

[kml_flashembed publishmethod=”static” fversion=”8.0.0″ movie=”untitled.swf” width=”400″ height=”300″ targetclass=”flashmovie”] [/kml_flashembed]

 

Canada’s National Firearms Association Statement to UN on ATT

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Click here to read document: NFA UN Presentation on ATT July 2012

More information about IAPCAR member NFA of Canada is available at http://www.nfa.ca/

STATEMENT TO UNITED NATIONS ON ATT

Mr. President, I am Sheldon Clare, President of Canada’s National Firearms Association.  Our members are collectors of everything from cartridges to fully automatic firearms; they’re sports shooters and Olympic competitors, wholesalers and retailers, re-enactors, members of the movie industry, hunters, people who hand load ammunition, and those who own firearms for defence.  Our members are concerned that UN attempts to regulate trade in arms are misdirected and will have an unfair and unreasonable effect upon the ability of free people to have access to firearms and ammunition for perfectly legitimate purposes. It is a false premise that civilian access to small arms is the problem.

Canada’s National Firearms Association (NFA) recommends that controls on small arms and light weapons be limited solely to major weapon systems possessed or sold by nation states – not firearms owned or desired to be owned by civilians, also called non-state actors. The rights and property of Canadians, and our firearms businesses engaged in the lawful trade in firearms and ammunition, including surplus firearms and ammunition, must not be subject to UN edict or control.  Quite simply, these are matters of national sovereignty, civil freedoms and property rights, and are related to national culture.  Also, marking and accounting for ammunition would be exceptionally onerous and expensive for manufacturers and firearm owners alike. Control of ammunition would be unreasonable, unnecessary, and impossible.

The proposed Implementation Support Unit (ISU) could potentially serve as a form of promotional and enforcement agency for the ATT and thus interfere with national sovereignty over laws affecting firearms ownership and use. It could be used to operate a form of international registration system. Funds given to this body and other initiatives such as the Victims Assistance Fund could be directed to terrorist states. Supporting these potentially huge and inappropriate expenses is not in the best interests of Canadians.

Reducing arms in civilian hands can significantly limit the ability of people to defend themselves. This is especially important in the event of unrest and disorder, or in case of state-mandated crimes against humanity. Civilian ownership of arms is an important factor in preventing and limiting the effect of events such as what occurred in Sebrinica and Rwanda. While governments need to act against terrorism, perhaps better ways to deal with unrest would be to address the economic situations, political differences, and human rights issues that contribute to people agitating for change.

A global ATT would only be in the interests of those who would seek economic advantage by limiting market opportunity and of regimes who would use such a treaty to disarm their citizens in order to rule through fear.   Thank you for your consideration Mr. President.

 

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty: Are Our 2nd Amendment Rights Part Of The Deal?

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Original Story Via:  Forbes.com

By Larry Bell

One year ago I wrote an article titled “U.N. Agreement Should Have All Gun Owners Up In Arms” which has recently gained a great deal of renewed public interest. This update reviews some more recent developments, offering additional perspective about an immediate matter which should be of great concern to all who value rights guaranteed by our Second Amendment.

The Obama administration is actively engaged in negotiations to finalize details for a new global agreement premised to fight “terrorism”, “insurgency” and “international crime syndicates”. As U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon describes its purpose, “Our goal is clear: a robust and legally binding Arms Trade Treaty that will have a real impact on the lives of those millions of people suffering from consequences of armed conflict, repression and armed violence…It is ambitious, but it is achievable.”

Under the George W. Bush administration, the U.S. originally voted against a resolution that began the process in 2006. However, the current administration reversed that policy, and strongly supports its enactment. In January 2010, U.S. representatives joined with those of 152 other countries in endorsing a U.N. Arms Treaty Resolution to draft a blueprint for enactment in 2012. This activity is planned to be completed by July 27, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged to push hard for Senate ratification. Previously led by the United Kingdom, there can be no doubt that the U.N.’s 193-member General Assembly will approve it.

Foreign ministers of the U.K., France, Germany and Sweden want the treaty to cover all types of conventional weapons, notably including small arms and light weapons, all types of munitions, and related technologies. They also advocate that it include strong provisions governing human rights, international humanitarian law and sustainable development. (More about sustainable development later.)

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Internal Security and Nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, has stated that the Obama administration does not support regulation of ammunition, but only wants to make it more difficult to “conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms”. In addition, a press release issued by the U.N. Office for Disarmament Affairs says that “The outcome will not seek to prohibit citizens of any country from possessing firearms or to interfere with the legal trade in small arms and light weapons.”

Such statements have many very strong skeptics, both inside and outside Congress. One reason, among many, is that Iran, a country that is one of the world’s worst human rights violators, yet often chaired the U.N. Human Rights Council…yes Iran, arms supplier to many of America’s most determined adversaries… was selected for a top Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) planning conference position. The members, apparently including U.S. representatives, authorized this selection shortly after the same U.N. found the very same Iran guilty of transferring guns and bombs to the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad who is presently slaughtering thousands of its own citizens. Meanwhile, the U.N., America included, purporting to be distraught about illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms, watches in the wings as these tragedies unfold. Of course, they’re very busy. Those arms control planning conferences require a lot of attention.

On June 29, 130 Republican House members sent a letter to President Obama and Secretary Clinton arguing that the proposed treaty infringes on the “fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms”. The letter charges that “…the U.N.’s actions to date indicate that the ATT is likely to pose significant threats to our national security, foreign policy, and economic interests as well as our constitutional rights.” The lawmakers adamantly insist that the U.S. Government has no right to support a treaty that violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Democrats have accused Republicans of making this a political issue, maintaining that the treaty poses no Second Amendment threat. Others, such as former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, caution gun owners to take this initiative seriously. He believes that the U.N. “is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there is no doubt that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”

So let’s review some recent history and see if gun owners and other Second Amendment defenders might have very good reasons to take issue with this treaty. Actually, we don’t have to look back very far at all.

Consider the Fast and Furious debacle, an operation that was represented to be all about targeting bad guys who are committing violent crimes on both sides of our border with Mexico. There can be no remaining doubt that the program was really aimed at border gun shops and their right to conduct legal civilian firearms sales.

And after the 2010 Republican House cleaning dashed President Obama’s dream of a carbon cap-and-trade program, he wasted no time finding a way to circumvent that pesky obstacle. His EPA is gleefully pursuing that same anti-fossil energy agenda. Meanwhile, Congress sits idly by and allows this breach of its constitutional responsibility established by separation of powers to continue.

Then there’s the currently proposed, Obama-endorsed, Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would subordinate U.S. naval and drilling operations beyond 200 miles of our coast to a newly established U.N. bureaucracy. If ratified by Congress, it will grant a Kingston, Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) the power to regulate deep-sea oil exploration, seabed mining, and fishing rights. As part of the deal, as much as 7% of U.S. government revenue collected from oil and gas companies operating off our coast will be forked over to ISA for redistribution to poorer, landlocked countries.

The U.S. would have one vote out of 160 regarding where the money would go, and be obligated to hand over offshore drilling technology to any nation that wants it… for free. And who are those lucky international recipients? They will most likely include such undemocratic, despotic and brutal governments as Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe…all current voting members of LOST.

Both President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush supported the treaty during their tenures, yet they never sent it to the Senate for ratification because of opposition over concerns that it will limit commerce and allow international bodies to wield control over U.S. interests. During W’s term of office, then-Senator Joe Biden introduced LOST before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he chaired in 2007, yet it was never brought to the floor for a vote.

Steven Groves, an international law fellow at the Heritage Foundation, believes that opposition from Republican members of Congress who have objected to LOST reflects a legitimate deep-seated distrust of the United Nations and other international bodies, observing: “This seems to me a bit of a Trojan Horse for the ability of one country to affect another country’s environmental policy. That’s generally something we do not like as conservatives and Americans.”

Given good prospects that the White House and Senate may have fewer Democrat residents after November, Senator Kerry and other proponents have been working hard to speed up the approval process before moving vans arrive.

But, like LOST, the Arms Trade Treaty can’t be enacted unless Congress ratifies it. Right? And, of course, they would never approve any global agreement that will infringe upon our constitutional Second Amendment protections. Right? Well, let’s assume for argument’s sake that they won’t. But now consider another possibility, something called a “soft law”.

Remember that sustainable development agenda mentioned earlier that the European foreign ministers want to incorporate into the treaty provisions? Originally intended to be implemented in connection with a U.N. treaty, an “Agenda 21” plan was enacted as a soft law in 1993 creating a nongovernmental organization, the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives” (ICLEI), by Executive Order after the Clinton administration was unsuccessful in getting Congress to ratify the program. They wouldn’t approve the treaty because it would transfer massive regulatory control over broad aspects of U.S. energy production and consumption. In 2003 the NGO’s name was changed to “ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability” to emphasize “local” and diminish concerns about “international” influence and associations with U.N. political and financial ties. ICLEI’s are now active in most of our counties On its web page, “ICLEI: Connecting Leaders”, the organization explains that their networking strategy connects cities and local governments to the United Nations and other international bodies.

Agenda 21 envisions a global scheme for healthcare, education, nutrition, agriculture, labor, production, and consumption. A summary version titled AGENDA 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet (Earthpress, 1993), calls for “…a profound reorientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced—a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources.” The report emphasizes that “This shift will demand a concern for the environmental consequences of every human action be integrated into individual and collective decision-making at every level.”

ICLEI’s web page states that its Local Agenda 21 [LA21] Model Communities Programme is “designed to aid local governments in implementing Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, the global action plan for sustainable development.” As Gary Lawrence, a planner for the city of Seattle and an advisor to the Clinton-Gore administration’s Council on Sustainable Development and to U.S. AID commented at a 1998 U.N. Environmental Development Forum in London titled “The Future of Local Agenda 21 in the New Millennium”, “In some cases, LA21 is seen as an attack on the power of the nation-state.” He went on to say, “Participating in a U.N. advocated planning process will very likely bring out many…who would work to defeat any elected official…undertaking Local Agenda 21 …So we will call our process something else, such as comprehensive planning, growth management or smart growth.”

And so they have. “Comprehensive planning”, “growth management” and “smart growth” (which is Agenda 21 with a new name). All mean pretty much the same thing… centralized control over virtually every aspect of urban life: energy and water use, housing stock and allocation, population levels, public health and dietary regimens, resources and recycling, “social justice” and education.

So this time the U.N.-sponsored ATT initiative, whether enacted by Congress or through a soft law Executive Order, can be expected to receive an appealing identity as well. Most likely it will purport to protect us from “terrorism”, “insurgency” and/or “international crime syndicates”. Perhaps, without saying so, it will be pitched to protect us even from ourselves.

Don’t forget that an Illinois senator named Barack Obama was an aggressive advocate for expanding gun control laws, and even voted against legislation giving gun owners an affirmative defense when they use firearms to defend themselves and their families against home invaders and burglars. That was after he served on a 10-member board of directors of the radically activist anti-gun Joyce Foundation in Chicago which contributed large grants to anti-Second Amendment organizations.

But then, as a former lecturer in constitutional law, wouldn’t he certainly realize that the U.N.’s gun- grab agenda violates our sovereign rights? Perhaps the answer to that question warrants some serious reflection!

UN arms treaty could put U.S. gun owners in foreign sights, say critics

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

Original Story Via: FoxNews.com

UNITED NATIONS –  A treaty being hammered out this month at the United Nations — with Iran playing a key role — could expose the records of America’s gun owners to foreign governments — and, critics warn, eventually put the Second Amendment on global trial.

International talks in New York are going on throughout July on the final wording of the so-called Arms Trade Treaty, which supporters such as Amnesty International USA say would rein in unregulated weapons that kill an estimated 1,500 people daily around the world. But critics, including the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, warn the treaty would mark a major step toward the eventual erosion of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment gun-ownership rights.

Americans “just don’t want the UN to be acting as a global nanny with a global permission slip stating whether they can own a gun or not,” LaPierre said. “It cheapens our rights as American citizens, and weakens our sovereignty,” he warned in an exclusive interview with FoxNews.com from the halls of the UN negotiating chambers.

The world body has already been criticized for appointing Iran to a key role in the talks, even as Tehran stands accused by the UN of arming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s bloody crackdown on rebels. The Obama administration in 2009 reversed Bush administration policy by agreeing to take part in the talks. But in another exclusive interview with FoxNews.com, the top government official on the issue under President Bush says he’s seen nothing new to convince him the U.S. should be at the table today.

While the treaty’s details are still under discussion, the document could straitjacket U.S. foreign policy to the point where Washington could be restricted from helping arm friends such as Taiwan and Israel, said Greg Suchan, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs from 2000 to 2007.

Suchan also highlighted ongoing concern that the treaty may end up giving foreigners access to U.S. gun-ownership records.

On that score, LaPierre, who serves as NRA executive vice president, warns that the “UN’s refusal” to remove civilian firearms and ammunition from the scope of the treaty amounts to a declaration that only governments should be gun owners.

But he revealed he was set Wednesday to tell the UN gathering that 58 U.S. senators had signed a letter saying that they would refuse to ratify any treaty that includes controls over civilian guns or ammunition.

Ratification by two-thirds of the Senate is necessary before an international treaty negotiated by the executive branch can become U.S. law. But the treaty could still go into effect elsewhere once 65 countries ratify it. Such a development could change the pattern of world arms transfers and reduce the U.S. share, which stands at about 40 percent of up to $60 billion in global deals.

The Bush administration opposed a 2006 UN General Assembly resolution launching the treaty process, but President Obama decided the U.S. would take part on condition the final agreement be reached by consensus — thereby giving any of the 193 participating states an effective veto.

The safeguard is insufficient for opponents of the U.S. participation, not least because UN talks invariably involve compromise.

“The administration swears they have a whole bunch of red lines, and they will block consensus if anyone crosses them,” said Suchan, now a government relations consultant as senior associate with the Commonwealth Consulting Corporation in Arlington, Va.

“But the dynamics of international negotiations are that once you get 90 percent of what you seek, you say, ‘Maybe there is a way we can finesse the final 10 percent.’”

A clause permitting arms transfers solely between UN member states would allow UN member China to object to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a non-UN member that China considers to be a renegade province.

This would be highly problematic for the U.S. at a time when Beijing is engaged in an unprecedented arms buildup.

Another fear is that Arab or other states critical of Israel may use any treaty language on human rights standards to argue against U.S. arms transfers to the Israeli government – much in the same way they currently use the UN Human Rights Council to repeatedly condemn Israel.

Suchan said U.S. arms trade law is seen as the global “gold standard” for regulating arms transfers, but doubted many countries would be willing to raise the bar that high. Instead, the treaty that emerges is expected to set a lower global standard – which Suchan said would have the effect of reducing Washington’s ability to press for voluntary arms embargoes against rogue states.

“We might want to urge a country to not sell arms to a state whose government is particularly odious,” Suchan explained.

“But that government could then ask whether the sale is prohibited under the Arms Trade Treaty – and if it is not, they would argue they are meeting the international standard.”

U.S. gun lobby concern focuses on the emphasis the treaty places on governmental – as opposed to individual – rights to guns, LaPierre explained.

“They’re trying to impose a UN policy that gives guns to the governments – but the UN doesn’t in turn make moral judgments as to whether these governments are good or bad,” he said.

“If you’re the government, you get the guns, if you’re a civilian, you don’t. But this will just end up helping evil governments and tyrants.”

For LaPierre, the emphasis he sees at the UN on governmental rights reflects what he believes is a wider international tradition that contrasts with the historical American emphasis on individual rights.

“The UN view is that governments – not individual citizens – ought to protect people,” he said, signaling that this principle permeates the draft that negotiators are currently working with.

LaPierre says the treaty that is likely to emerge will have the effect of squeezing individual gun owners in the United States and elsewhere by imposing on them an onerous collection of regulations.

“If they get this through, then what comes along is the institutionalizing of the whole gun control-ban movement within the bureaucracy of UN – with a permanent funding mechanism that we [in America] will be mainly paying for,” he said.

“The world’s worst human rights abusers will end up voting for this, while the Obama administration has not drawn a line in the sand like the previous administration did. Instead, it is trying to be a part of this train wreck because they think they can somehow finesse it. But, to me, there is no finessing the individual freedoms of American citizens.”

Steven Edwards is a UN-based freelance journalist

AUDIO: Panel on UN Arms Treaty, IAPCAR

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Original Story Via:  TheGunMag.com

Last year the Gun Rights Policy Conference in Chicago held a panel discussion on how to fight international limitations on civilian arms rights.

The topics ranged from legal actions in other countries, the actual actions at the UN, and the formation of the new international gun rights group IAPCAR.

The Gun Rights Policy Conference scheduled for September 28th 29th and 30th in Orlando Florida is currently accepting registration at http://saf.org/default.asp?p=GRPC

 

UN ATT Chairman’s Paper

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Their official UN ATT proposal: Chair Paper 3 July 2012

Proposal does include civilian firearms and ammunition, not limited to tanks, missiles, bombs, jets, and helicopters.

More info available at the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty Website: http://www.un.org/disarmament/ATT/

 

In case you missed it: Dishonest Humanitarianism

Monday, July 9th, 2012

In case you missed it, the article Jeff Moran of TSM Worldwide published on TheGunMag.com and IAPCAR.org was featured in an AmmoLand.com blog article.

Linked: AmmoLand.com

IAPCAR WELCOMES PHILIPPINES GUN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Original Story Via:  TheGunMag.com

The A2S5 Coalition of the Philippines is the latest organization to join forces with the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (IAPCAR), raising their international membership to 23 member organizations in 15 different nations around the globe.

With member groups on every continent, IAPCAR executive director Philip Watson has been more than pleased with the positive response the group has received.

“With nine new member groups all from different countries since last fall, IAPCAR’s steady growth has been a welcome sign among those that love freedom and a warning to those that do not.” Watson also noted, “It proves that people in all corners of the globe believe in the right of personal security and the defense of one’s home and family. The human right of self-defense is a value we share across all international borders, regardless of race, nationality, or ethnic origin.”

“This is a significant development for us,” said Mike Melchor, the A2S5 Coalition’s director for strategic plans.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, who was instrumental in creating IAPCAR, was very happy to have A2S5 as IAPCAR’s newest affiliate in the Philippines.

“We are very excited to welcome our friends from the Philippines,” he observed. “Gun owners in the Philippines are currently faced with increasing regulatory actions on civilian ownership of firearms. We can be helpful to each other in our movement to protect firearms rights in our home countries and around the world.”

The Arms Trade Treaty is currently under negotiation at the United Nations and set to be signed the last week of July, placing many arms rights groups at odds with global gun control advocates. “IAPCAR strongly opposes any UN treaty infringing on national sovereignty or individual gun rights,” noted Julianne Versnel, director of operations at the Second Amendment Foundation, the second influential gun rights group instrumental in forming IAPCAR.

The International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights (http://iapcar.com/) is the only worldwide political action group focusing on the human right to keep and bear arms. Founded in 2010, IAPCAR has grown to 23 major gun-rights organizations and conducts campaigns designed to inform the public and promote the right of self-defense and gun-ownership.

A2S5 Coalition – Philippines

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Disarmed America: Tying UN treaty to DC’s 2A resistance

Friday, July 6th, 2012

Original Story Via:  – Seattle Gun Rights Examiner

The same political mindset that is pushing the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) talks this month is also at work keeping residents of Washington, D.C. from exercising their Second Amendment rights, and one might suggest that Bellevue’s Alan Gottlieb is strongly linked to both quagmires.

As this column has noted, Gottlieb has been actively battling the ATT through his international activities related to the formation of IAPCAR (the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights) and his participation in the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities (WFSA).

And, though not identified by name, the handiwork of the Gottlieb-led Second Amendment Foundation was alluded to by the Washington Times Thursday in a piece about resistance to federal concealed carry reciprocity is stymied over amendments that would allow firearms carrying in the District of Columbia. The newspaper discussed the resistance to District carry by noting, “Currently, the District and Illinois stand alone in banning the bearing of arms outright. This could be legally problematic. A federal court recently ruled in the Woollard case that Maryland’s carry laws were too strict, and the state appealed the ruling.”

The Woollard case was a SAF effort. Why there is some mental block in the mainstream press toward reporting SAF court activities is a mystery. In much of the reportage dealing with the 2010 McDonald v. City of Chicago victory, SAF was also not mentioned. Instead, reporters frequently alluded to it as “a victory for the gun lobby” or “a victory for gun rights advocates.”

In Washington, D.C. the political climate is definitely overcast by anti-gun paranoia and elitism. The Washington Times piece quoted Phil Mendelson, chairman of the D.C. city council, who stated, “I do think carrying has severe implications for the nation’s capital. “We’re different from Maryland because we have motorcades, the president around town, members of Congress going to the supermarket unescorted.”

Imagine that. Members of Congress going to the supermarket unescorted. Millions of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens do that every day, and they manage to get back home in one piece, even though millions of their fellow citizens are legally carrying — unobtrusively in their presence, one might add.

The same mindset that wants to keep District residents disarmed wants to plant the seeds for global civilian disarmament with the ATT. As a story carried by CNS News Thursday explained, there are grave concerns about the ATT and what it could ultimately mean to Second Amendment sovereignty. President Obama may glibly dismiss such concerns in his strutting, hip upscale down-his-nose public speaking style, but this is the same guy who reversed long-standing U.S. policy on global gun control by embracing the ATT back in 2009 after the Bush administration previously stood firm in singular opposition.

He’s also the same guy who said Obamacare is not a tax, but Chief Justice John Roberts certainly corrected him on that one.

Gottlieb’s Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms had a hand in creating legislation in the House and Senate that would derail ATT threats to the Second Amendment, as this column noted. There is considerable Capitol Hill concern about the ATT, especially in the wake of the Obamacare surprise, that it was constitutional after all…because it is a tax.

Bureaucrats and politicians who seek to disarm people, whether through local resistance to gun rights expansion in this country, or promotion of broad international treaties that are prone to misuse and abuse, are misguided at best. Public disarmament has never had a good outcome for the public.

Such disarmament comes in many forms, typically by increments and by the time the damage is done, how it got started is less important than how it can be reversed. In this country we’ve had help from the courts, with cases pushed by SAF and others, but an international treaty will be beyond the power of U.S. courts, and that might just be what global gun control proponents are counting on.

Palestinian status snit delays UN ATT talks

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012

Original Story Via Dave Workman, Gun Rights Examiner

American gun rights advocates might thank the Palestinians and their supporters for delaying, until Tuesday afternoon, anyway, the start of the long-awaited Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) negotiations at the United Nations, although it leaves two key players from Washington State in a bit of a lurch.

Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and his wife, Julianne, have been key players in organizing the opposition to the ATT. Both are planning to be at the U.N. sometime during the negotiation process. It is widely known that CCRKBA staff had a role in crafting legislation sponsored by Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) that would protect the Second Amendment from any such international treaty.

The session is now scheduled to begin at noon Pacific Time. It is not clear when representatives from Non-Government Organizations (NGO) will get to speak. Not only will the Gottliebs be attending at some point, so also is Wayne LaPierre from the National Rifle Association.

What has become clear lately is that despite the eagerness of many U.N. members to adopt some sort of treaty, there is opposition from powerful corners, including China and Russia.

The United States under Barack Obama reversed position a couple of years ago, and now officially supports a treaty, but that does not mean the document has a chance of getting through the Senate ratification process. If there is any question about Unites States constitutional sovereignty, the ATT is probably a non-starter.

Alan Gottlieb has been working to counter international gun control efforts for several years. He was a key player in the formation of IAPCAR, the International Association for Protection of Civilian Arms Rights. Both Gottliebs have been back and forth to Europe several times, participating in the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities.

The irony about Obama’s support for the treaty should not be lost on gun owners following the Fast and Furious debacle. While the current administration wants to clamp down on global gun trafficking, it continues withholding documents key to the investigation of that scandal by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

While President Obama will apparently sign the treaty – which proponents want to be legally binding – his own attorney general stands in contempt of Congress.

Wednesday is Independence Day, but there could be fireworks of the political variety starting Tuesday afternoon, and continuing through the month.

Obama Contributor, Who Helped Enact Assault-Weapons Ban, Ran ‘Fast and Furious’

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2012

Original Story Via:  CNS News | Fred Lucas

Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.

Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.

Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working in that capacity for several years on an assault-weapons ban, which was finally enacted on Sept. 13, 1994 as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act expired on Sept. 13, 2004. (See NYT: Dennis Burke, Sen. DeConcini, Weapons Ban.pdf)

From 1994-95, Burke served in the Clinton Justice Department in the Office of Legislative Affairs, and in 1997-99, he was an assistant U.S. attorney in Arizona.

From 1999 to 2003, Burke was chief deputy and special assistant to Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano.

In 2003, when Napolitano became governor, Burke became her chief of staff. He stayed in that job until the fall of 2008, when he left to help Democratic political campaigns, including then-Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that on Jan. 9, 2008, while working as Gov. Napolitano’s chief of staff, Burke contributed $2,000 to then-Sen Obama’s presidential primary campaign. Since 1997, according to FEC records, Burke has contributed a total of $16,350 to various Democratic candidates.

After Obama was elected in November 2008, Burke joined his presidential transition team, serving on the Immigration Policy Working Group.

Eight days before Obama’s inauguration, on Jan. 12, 2009–while Burke was working on the transition team–Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. At that meeting, Obama “pledged” to take action to stop the flow of guns from the United States to Mexico.

Obama also decided to put Burke’s old boss, incoming Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in a leadership role in making the gun-trafficking problem a top priority.

“President-elect Obama expressed support for efforts in the border states in both the United States and Mexico to eradicate drug-related violence and stop the flow of guns and cash,” incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement at the time. “He told President Calderón that he intends to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security to lead an effort to increase information sharing to strengthen those efforts. He pledged to take more effective action from the United States to stem the flow of arms from the United States to Mexico.”

When Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary, Burke moved from the Obama transition team to become her senior adviser. On Feb. 25, 2009, a little more than a month after Obama had made his “pledge” to Calderon, Napolitano testified in the House Homeland Security Committee. She stressed that stopping the flow of guns to Mexico was a top priority of the Obama administration and key focus of her work.

Responding to a question about violence on the border, Napolitano said the administration was going to work with the Mexican government on the issue. Then she said: “Secondly, it is looking at, government-wide, at what we can do to stop the southbound export of weaponry, particularly assault-type weapons and grenades that are being used in that drug war.”

Napolitano further noted that drug cartels were targeting Mexican government officials and law enforcement officers, and that, given the seriousness of the threat, Obama’s national security adviser, the attorney general, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and Customs (of which the Border Patrol is part) would all be working on the issue.

“I’ve met with the attorney general of Mexico and the ambassador already,” said Napolitano during the February 2009 hearing. “One of the things that I particularly am focused on is southbound traffic in guns, particularly assault weapons, and cash that are being used to funnel and fund these very, very violent cartels.”

The same day Napolitano testified in the Homeland Security Committee, Attorney General Holder addressed the issue of drug-trafficking-related gun violence in northern Mexico. He said he had had conversations about the issue with the Mexican attorney general and that the Obama administration believed that re-instating the assault-weapons ban in the United States–the one Dennis Burke had initially helped push through as Senate aide in 1990s–would help the situation in Mexico.

“Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons,” Holder said. “I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.”

Four-and-a-half months later, on July 10, 2009, Obama nominated Burke to be the U.S. attorney in Arizona. The Senate confirmed Burke on Sept. 15 of that year.

It was in July 2010, after his nomination as U.S. attorney, that Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times that he had “been working on homeland security and border enforcement issues” during the transition, and that there had “clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing.”

“What I hope to do, if confirmed by the Senate,” Burke told the paper, “is to ensure that those plans and strategies are being implemented and we’re moving quickly on prosecutions.”

After the nomination, former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.) had high praise for Burke’s work in getting the assault weapons ban through Congress back in the 1990s.

“We ended up getting senators who had never voted for a gun bill, like Lloyd Benson of Texas and Sam Nunn of Georgia and Al D’Amato of New York, who were friends of mine that I worked real hard,” DeConcini told the Arizona Capitol Times. “But Dennis worked the staff. He was responsive to them and several of the senators mentioned to me what a great staffer you’ve got there, and I said, ‘Boy, you’re telling me.’”

The Arizona Republic has reported that “DeConcini said Burke fostered the measure in concert with a key figure in the White House, policy analyst Rahm Emanuel, who years later would become chief of staff for President Obama. … ‘Dennis was the one who worked with everyone on the Judiciary Committee to line up these members and votes,’ DeConcini said. ‘Dennis had all these pictures of these guns–the Streetsweepers and the AK-47s. And it passed by one vote. A lot of it was not my eloquence on the bill, it was stuff that Dennis had done.’”

Six weeks after Burke was confirmed, on Oct. 26, 2009, Eric Holder named him to the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) of U.S. Attorneys. In his capacity as an adviser to Holder, Burke chaired the AGAC subcommittee on border and immigration law enforcement while Operation Fast and Furious was happening.

The same month that Burke joined Holder’s advisory committee with a specific responsibility to report to Deputy Attorney General David Ogden on border and immigration enforcement, Ogden’s office made a significant change in the federal government’s strategy for dealing with gun-trafficking on the Mexican border.

“This new strategy directed federal law enforcement to shift its focus away from seizing firearms from criminals as soon as possible, and to focus instead on identifying members of trafficking networks,” House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa wrote in a May 3 memo to other members of his committee, summarizing what the committee had learned about Fast and Furious.

“The Office of the Deputy Attorney General shared this strategy with the heads of many Department components, including ATF,” said Issa.

The next month, November 2009, the ATF in Arizona moved forward with the new strategy by creating Operation Fast and Furious.

“Members of the ATF Phoenix Field Division, led by Special Agent in Charge Bill Newell, became familiar with this new strategy and used it in creating Fast and Furious,” Issa wrote in his May 3 memo. “In mid-November 2009, just weeks after the strategy was issued, Fast and Furious began. Its objective was to establish a nexus between straw purchasers of firearms in the United States and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) operating on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.”

“Straw purchasers,” Issa explained, “are individuals who are legally entitled to purchase firearms for themselves, but who unlawfully purchase weapons with the intent to transfer them to someone else, in this case DTOs or other criminals.”

Remarkably, under Operation Fast and Furious, the ATF deliberately allowed guns to move south across the U.S.-Mexico border and into the hands of the drug cartels. Weapons were allowed to be sold to straw purchasers with the intent of tracing the guns to the cartels.

“During Fast and Furious, ATF agents used an investigative technique known as ‘gunwalking’–that is, allowing illegally purchased weapons to be transferred to third parties without attempting to disrupt or deter the illegal activity,” Issa wrote in the May 3 memo. “ATF agents abandoned surveillance on known straw purchasers after they illegally purchased weapons that ATF agents knew were destined for Mexican drug cartels.”

The purpose of the operation was to trace the guns recovered from crimes scenes “to their original straw purchaser, in an attempt to establish a connection between that individual and the DTO.”

The ATF Phoenix Field Division applied to Justice Department headquarters to become an “Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force” (OCDETF) case. In preparing their application in early January 2009, the ATF in Phoenix wrote a memo explaining the investigative technique of Fast and Furious.

The application for Fast and Furious was approved and, in January 2010, as Issa stated in his memo, it “became a prosecutor-led OCDETF Strike Force case, meaning that ATF would join with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under the leadership of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona.”

In other words, it was under the leadership of Dennis Burke.

“Although ATF was the lead law enforcement agency for Fast and Furious, its agents took direction from prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Issa says in his May 3 memo. “The lead federal prosecutor for Fast and Furious was Assistant U.S. Attorney Emory Hurley, who played an integral role in the day-to-day, tactical management of the case.”

Issa states in his memo that Burke’s U.S. attorney’s office made it more difficult for ATF agents to interdict guns.

“Many ATF agents working on Operation Fast and Furious came to believe that some of the most basic law enforcement techniques used to interdict weapons required the explicit approval of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and specifically from Hurley,” Issa wrote. “On numerous occasions, Hurley and other federal prosecutors withheld this approval, to the mounting frustration of ATF agents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office chose not to use other available investigative tools common in gun trafficking cases, such as civil forfeitures and seizure warrants, during the seminal periods of Fast and Furious.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Office advised ATF that agents needed to meet unnecessarily strict evidentiary standards in order to speak with suspects, temporarily detain them, or interdict weapons,” Issa said. “ATF’s reliance on this advice from the U.S. Attorney’s Office during Fast and Furious resulted in many lost opportunities to interdict weapons.”

A report on Fast and Furious released by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Democrats in January 2012, indicates that on Jan. 5, 2010, officials from the ATF Phoenix office met with Assistant U.S. Attorney Hurley and determined that the gun-trafficking investigation should continue because it wasn’t ready for prosecution. The Democrat report quotes a briefing paper prepared by the ATF three days after the meeting–which would be Jan. 8, 2010–that says U.S. Attorney Burke was briefed on the matter and agreed that the investigation should continue.

“Investigative and prosecutions strategies were discussed and a determination was made that there was minimal evidence at this time to support any type of prosecution,” said the ATF briefing paper, “therefore, additional firearms purchases should be monitored and additional evidence continued to be gathered. This investigation was briefed to United States Attorney Dennis Burke, who concurs with the assessment of his line prosecutors and fully supports the continuation of this investigation.”

Eight days after this briefing paper was produced, on Jan. 16, 2010, straw buyers bought three assault-weapon rifles, two of which would figure prominently in the unraveling of the program. They were the weapons that would later be found at the scene of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

On. Nov. 24, 2010, just a few weeks before Terry was murdered, Burke–who had begun his career in public service working to enact an assault-weapons ban–had an email exchange with another U.S. attorney about an investigation he was working on that involved “straw purchasing of assault weapons.”

“What a great investigation. What is the ETI (estimated time of indictment!)” U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan for the Western District of Washington said to Burke in an email.

Burke responded, “Would love to chat. We are about to indict around [REDACTED] clowns for a Gun Trafficking to Mexico operation. It’s a T-III investigation that we have been working w/ATF for a long time and IRS is all over some money laundering charges. It’s going to bring a lot of attention to straw purchasing of assault weapons. Some of the weapons bought by these clowns in Arizona have been directly traced to murders of elected officials in Mexico by the Cartels, so Katie-bar-the-door when we unveil this baby.”

The e-mail exchange, with the subject line “Gun Shows,” did not specifically mention Operation Fast and Furious.

Operation Fast and Furious was halted after Dec. 14, 2010 after two of the guns that a straw buyer had been allowed to purchase during the operation ended up at the murder scene of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Fast and Furious later became the subject of a congressional investigation, and an investigation by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.

On Dec. 14, the same day of Terry’s murder, Burke sent an email replying to an e-mail from Monty Wilkinson, Attorney General Holder’s deputy chief of staff. In this email, Burke said his office had a large firearms trafficking case that he wanted to discuss. In a follow up e-mail the next day–Dec. 15, 2010–Burke alerted Wilkinson that Agent Terry had been murdered. Wilkinson responded, “Tragic, I’ve alerted the AG, the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.”

The exchanges between Burke and Holder’s deputy chief of staff at the time of Agent Terry’s murder are reported in the report published by the committee Democrats.

“Several hours later on December 15, 2010, U.S. Attorney Burke learned that Agent Terry had been murdered,” says the Democratic report. “He alerted Mr. Wilkinson, who replied, ‘Tragic, I’ve alerted the AG, the Acting DAG, Lisa, etc.'”

“Later that same day, U.S. Attorney Burke learned that two firearms found at Agent Terry’s murder scene had been purchased by a suspect in Operation Fast and Furious,” says the Democratic report. “He sent an email to Mr. Wilkinson forwarding this information and wrote: ‘The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about—they were AK-47’s purchased at a Phoenix gun store.’ Mr. Wilkinson replied, ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’

Despite this email from Wilkinson, Burke told the committee he did not recall actually having such a phone conversation, and the Department of Justice told the committee that Wilksonson does not recall making the call. Also Attorney General Holder himself testified that his deputy chief of staff never told him about the tie between the gun-trafficking investigation and Agent Terry’s murder.

“In his interview with Committee staff, U.S. Attorney Burke stated that he did not recall having any subsequent conversation with Mr. Wilkinson that ‘included the fact that Fast and Furious guns were found at the scene’ of Agent Terry’s murder,” the Democrat report said.

“In a November 2011 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Holder, ‘Did Mr. Wilkinson say anything to you about the connection between Agent Terry’s death and the ATF operation?'”

The Democratic report says: “Attorney General Holder responded, ‘No, he did not.” In a January 27, 2011, letter to the Committee, the Department stated that Mr. Wilkinson ‘does not recall a follow-up call with Burke or discussing this aspect of the matter with the Attorney General.'”

Brian Terry’s murder caused an apparent change of plans for the Justice Department.

“Washington-based Justice Department officials had earlier discussed bringing Attorney General Eric Holder to Phoenix for a triumphant press conference with Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke to herald the conclusion of the Department’s flagship firearms trafficking case,” said a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee memo from May 3, 2012. “In the aftermath of Agent Terry’s death, the task of announcing indictments at a press conference fell to ATF Phoenix Division Special Agent in Charge William Newell and Burke. Holder did not attend.

“At the press conference on January 25, 2011, Newell triumphantly announced the indictment of 20 members of an arms trafficking syndicate that had been supplying weapons to the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexico’s largest and most powerful cartel led by the notorious Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman,” the May 3 memo said.

When Newell was asked if ATF agents purposefully allowed weapons to enter Mexico, he responded, “Hell no.”

Two days after the press conference, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote then-Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson about reports from whistleblowers regarding gunwalking and Agent Terry’s death.

Allegations of gunwalking “are based on categorical falsehoods,” Burke said in a Jan. 31, 2011 e-mail to Jason Weinstein, the deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division.

Days later, on Feb. 4, 2011, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich responded to Grassley denying that the Justice Department “sanctioned” the sale of guns to people they believed were going to deliver them to Mexican drug cartels.

As the scandal began to build by that summer, Brian Terry’s mother–Josephine Terry–testified at the hearing of the House Oversight Committee. The mother of the slain Border Patrol agent told the committee that Burke informed the family of the agent’s death, but did not provide details about Operation Fast and Furious.

“He was just trying to explain to us exactly what happened and–roundabout way–we really never got anything out of the visit that he did have,” Josephine Terry told the committee on June 15, 2011. Asked how she found out about Fast and Furious, she responded, “Most of it I heard is from the media. We haven’t really got anything direct–phone calls or nothing from anybody.”

At the same hearing, Weich, who wrote the Feb. 4, 2011 letter to Grassley, told the committee, “Everything that we say is true to the best of our knowledge at the time we say it. As more facts come out, obviously our understanding of the situation is enhanced.”

On June 29, 2011, a reporter asked the Oversight Committee about leaked documents related to whistleblower ATF Agent John Dodson.

“Congressional investigators later determined that the individual who was behind the leaked documents was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Dennis Burke–the Obama Administration political appointee who led the office in charge of Operation Fast and Furious,” said Issa’s May 3 Oversight Committee memo.

“Burke later testified that the reporter contacted him, and that he believed the reporter had already seen the documents or had them read to him from someone else in the Department of Justice. Instead of e-mailing the documents to the reporter in Washington, Burke, who was in Arizona at the time, e-mailed them to a friend of his in Washington, who then printed out the documents and then delivered them to the reporter personally,” Issa said in his May 3 memo. “These efforts successfully kept Burke’s fingerprints off of the leak until he publicly admitted his role more than two months after his August 2011 resignation as blame for Fast and Furious spread.”

On Aug. 18, 2011, House Oversight Committee staff interviewed Burke. They asked him: “To your knowledge as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, did the highest levels of the Department of Justice authorize [the] non-interdiction of weapons, cutting off of surveillance, as an investigative tactic in Operation Fast and Furious?”

Burke responded, “I have no knowledge of that.”

The committee also asked, “Did you ever authorize those tactics?”

Burke answered, “No.”

During that same Aug. 18, 2011 interview, the committee staff asked Burke: “And did anyone ever—from the Department of Justice, Main Justice I will call it–ever tell you that you were authorized to allow weapons to cross the border when you otherwise would have had a legal authority to seize or interdict them because they were a suspected straw purchase or it was suspected that they were being trafficked in a firearms scheme?”

Burke answered, “I have no recollection of ever being told that.”

Twelve days after this interview, on Aug. 30, 2011, Burke resigned as U.S. attorney. Burke’s assistant U.S. attorney, Emory Hurley, the lead prosecutor in Operation Fast and Furious, also resigned, as did ATF Director Melson.

During an Oct. 19, 2011 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley asked Burke’s old boss, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano, “Have you had any communications with Mr. Burke about Operation Fast and Furious?”

Napolitano said, “No.”

Grassley followed up: “So you then obviously didn’t talk to him, anything about Agent Terry’s death?”

Napolitano said that after Agent Terry was killed, “I went to Arizona a few days thereafter to meet with the FBI agents and the assistant U.S. attorneys who were actually going to look for the shooters. At that time, nobody had done the forensics on the guns and ‘Fast and Furious’ was not mentioned. But I wanted to be sure that those responsible for his death were brought to justice, and that every DOJ resource was being brought to bear on that topic. So I did have conversations in–it would have been December of ’09 [actually 2010]–about the murder of Agent Terry. But at that point in time, there, nobody knew about Fast and Furious.”

It was not until Dec. 2, 2011 that the Justice Department withdrew its Feb. 4, 2011 letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to Grassley in which DOJ had denied that gun-walking had occurred.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has subpoenaed about 100,000 documents from the Department of Justice. The department has produced about 7,600 documents. The committee believes that is insufficient.

Last week, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted on a resolution of contempt against Attorney General Holder for withholding documents that the committee has subpoenaed.

Just hours before the vote, on June 20, Deputy Attorney General James Cole notified the committee that President Barack Obama was invoking executive privilege to deny the committee access to the documents.

On June 28, the full House of Representatives voted, 256-67, with 17 Democrats joining the Republican majority, to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to release the documents requested by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. should be posted on the walls of every Post Office in the land. Most wanted criminals of all time.

UN ATT UPDATE: ATT Stalls on Palestinian Issue, US Lawmakers saying “NO” to ATT

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

ATT Stalls

A dispute over the status of the Palestinian delegation delayed the official start of negotiations, which are now set to begin in New York on Tuesday. Some countries have called for a quick agreement; however, others have major reservations about the ATT.

US Lawmakers Saying “NO” to ATT

More than 130 Congressmen, signed a letter sent to President Barack Obama Monday expressing their opposition to a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty if it violates U.S. gun owner rights and sovereignty in any way.

Click here to view the letter.